Pioneer BDP-120 Blu-ray player

By Nic Tatham, CNET.com.au
Sep 28, 2009

Finally, Blu-ray players are coming of age. They've taken their sweet time, but we're now seeing players that will load a disc as fast as a DVD player, do all the things Blu-ray promised and don't cost a fortune. Pioneer embraced Blu-ray early on in the race and recently announced a couple of new machines, including this latest entry-level player.

Design And Features
The BDP-120 is noticeably slimmer than Pioneer's previous Blu-ray players at just 58mm. Its high gloss black finish (what else?) looks very sleek and there are minimal controls on the machine itself, so keep the remote control close by. Unfortunately, the tiny, centrally placed display is all but useless unless you're looking at it straight on.

The player will do BD-Live (Profile 2.0) and has onboard decoding for the current crop of HD audio formats, namely Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital Plus and DTS-HD Master Audio. This means you don't need to do the decoding via the A/V receiver, which is good news if yours is an older unit that doesn't have processing for these surround sound formats.

There's a USB port for plugging in compatible flash memory to enable the BD-Live functionality. Quick Start mode, on the other hand, promises to power up the player from standby in under 1 second. The player can upscale DVDs to 1080p, output bitstream audio through HDMI and plays CDs.

The BDP-120 also supports 1080p24 (24 frames-per-second) video reproduction, but you'll need an up-to-date display to handle this (which most current flat-panel TVs do). The same goes for its 36-bit Deep Color support. Partnering with Pioneer's own plasma displays, the BDP-120 features the Kuro Link synchronization control, which also works with suitably equipped Pioneer A/V receivers.

Tags: 1080p, Player, USB Port, flash memory, Dolby Digital

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