Pioneer DTS MA Firmware. What do you think?

[Timbo21]

Doesn't matter if you own a Pioneer BDP LX51FD/LX71/LX08, or not.

Does the fact that it has been approximately 9 months so far, waiting for the mythical DTS Master Audio on board decoding firmware - on the above players - affect a decision to potentially buy a Blu-ray, or similar product, from Pioneer in the future?

It would be nice to get an idea of what all you Pioneer owners, or potential ones, think of this rather ridiculous situation. After all, if you can't do it within 3 months, then don't tell people you can.

 

[Nic Rhodes]

lost one sale potentially two here, VERY unimpressed with their 'performance'. It will be a long time before I consider their products again.

 

[Avi]

On going updates was one of my concerns with the LX91 and one of reasons amongst others that I didn't chose not to keep.

It will be interesting to see what happens when the new Sharp/Pioneer company take on the design and manufacturer of players later this year.

AVI

 

[kingfats]

Hopefully soon for those who are waiting but yes it's been a bit of a poor show to be honest.

 

[Ian_S]

Extremely unlikely to buy another Pioneer Blu-ray player.

To be fair my main reason for buying the 51FD was that it was the cheapest player with source direct, but the general buggyness of the player along with the dreadful amount of time the DTS release has taken so far means they would not be a brand I would look at again easily, or recommend ahead of others to friends etc.

On the positive side, there is a decent player lurking in there, and when it's working it's a pleasure to use apart from speed. A fast, complete, bug free version of the current players would actually be quite good.

 

[ABC1]

Have to say incredibly poor service from Pioneer on this one. When you consider how all out they went when there was an issue with their Plasma Screens and Sky HD, this is just downright disgusting. There has been no feedback or keeping customer informed as to what is going on or what the current eta it etc. Have tried emailing them on several occasions, and apart from the usual automated reply they have just ignored the question.
Perhaps we should all complain to the BBC Watchdog program, and see how fast they react!!!

 

[paulst10]

Having eye'd up a couple of reasonably priced lx08's in the advertisers bargain section as a possible route to take for region B I think I will have a re-think after reading this thread .. I just assumed that the firmware update had been applied long ago and the fact that everyone is still waiting doesn't sound very promising for the future

 

[mossy2103]

Firstly, I don't have DTS-MA processing capabilities, I'm bitstreaming to an AV processor.

However, having bought the 51FD late Dec, based upon very positive comments from many in this forum and others, I too am rather perturbed at the way things are moving (or not), as well as the increasing number of issues that are being posted.

 

[Timbo21]

Thanks everyone for their views on this.

From my point of view I will definitely never buy a product from Pioneer unless it is exactly how I want it out the box. If someone like Arcam says they will have a firmware within 2-3 months, you can pretty much guarantee they will.

The 51FD is an excellent machine, and "touchwood" I haven't had any problems with any of the discs I've tried. However, if I had known I was going to have to wait 9 months +, I would have chosen another player. I was one of those who bought it pretty much straight after it was released.

 

[richard_t]

Sorry to go against the grain here, but I'm happy I chose my Pioneer LX71 and would definitely make the same descision if i was given it again.

I don't actually need the onboard decoding for DTS-MA as I bitstream audio to my amp, but even if i did I honestly don't think that I would alter my viewpoint.

The player has played every single disc I've put in it (over 100) other than one perfectly (and that one was fixed in the very next firmware update). It does take a minute or so to load up discs, but so what? If my free time ever becomes so scarce that a couple of minutes extra when watching a film means so much to me then I'll know I'm in trouble. The build quality and general styling are also in my opinion so far ahead of any of the cheaper alternatives it's almost silly.

Another major thing to take into consideration for me at least is the fantastic support that Pioneer have given to the home cinema community over the years. From the early days when with their massive input into the Laserdisc format all the way through to now with their videophile quality screens, they've supported home cinema fans and I'm more than happy to try and repay that where possible.

 

[MJeeves]

Does the LX91 have the DTS-MA and DTS-HD firmware upgrade yet?

 

[simonblue]

Yep still happy with 51, but come on Pioneer this DTS-MA Firmware sould be out by now

 

[Tiger_Dust]

Hi everyone, I've been reading quite a few comments in various threads regarding Pioneers Blu-ray Players and the lack of DTS HD Master Audio. I have myself just purchased a new BDP LX71 player and played discs which are encoded in DTS HD Master Audio. I have the player hooked up to an LX70 Receiver via an HDMI cable and the display on the receiver shows DTS HD MSTR. Does this mean that I am getting the proper DTS audio signal that I should be getting or am I missing something here. The sound is very good (especially after I found out that I should not have the Audio DRC set to Max ) Or am I suffering the same fate here as everyone else regarding DTS HD sound? Sorry but I just want to be assured that I am getting the best out of my new LX71 player. Thanks everyone.

 

[kingfats]

Does the LX91 have the DTS-MA and DTS-HD firmware upgrade yet?

Yes it does.

 

[kingfats]

Hi everyone, I've been reading quite a few comments in various threads regarding Pioneers Blu-ray Players and the lack of DTS HD Master Audio. I have myself just purchased a new BDP LX71 player and played discs which are encoded in DTS HD Master Audio. I have the player hooked up to an LX70 Receiver via an HDMI cable and the display on the receiver shows DTS HD MSTR. Does this mean that I am getting the proper DTS audio signal that I should be getting or am I missing something here. The sound is very good (especially after I found out that I should not have the Audio DRC set to Max ) Or am I suffering the same fate here as everyone else regarding DTS HD sound? Sorry but I just want to be assured that I am getting the best out of my new LX71 player. Thanks everyone.

Hi.
Yes your getting the full DTS-MA soundtrack the player has no problem bitstreaming the track (sound decoded by the amp) by it can't yet internally decode the sound.
All the best.

 

[Tiger_Dust]

Hey, thanks for the reply Kingfats. Now time for more questions as I don't really understamd where people are coming from regarding this issue. Is it better to have an Amp decode the DTS HD sound or is it better the player do it and send that to the Amp. Apologies if I seem ignorant but this is really interesting to me.

Also what is the deal with some discs not being able to resume when you push the stop button? Is this just a Pioneer issue or do other players such as the famed PS3 do the same thing?

 

[Avi]

Hey, thanks for the reply Kingfats. Now time for more questions as I don't really understamd where people are coming from regarding this issue. Is it better to have an Amp decode the DTS HD sound or is it better the player do it and send that to the Amp. Apologies if I seem ignorant but this is really interesting to me.

Also what is the deal with some discs not being able to resume when you push the stop button? Is this just a Pioneer issue or do other players such as the famed PS3 do the same thing?

Bitstream audio doesn't support some of the audio features of Blu-ray. Some of these features requires audio to be mixed in the player. If the player can't internally decode the HD codec it can only use the lossy codec version of audio in the mix. The result is you lose HD level audio in these cirumstances.

Blu-ray resume is a function of the title i.e. how it's authored not the players unlike with DVD players. It's now up to the studios to build in resume type features if they use BD-J.

AVI

 

[kingfats]

Hey, thanks for the reply Kingfats. Now time for more questions as I don't really understamd where people are coming from regarding this issue. Is it better to have an Amp decode the DTS HD sound or is it better the player do it and send that to the Amp. Apologies if I seem ignorant but this is really interesting to me.

Also what is the deal with some discs not being able to resume when you push the stop button? Is this just a Pioneer issue or do other players such as the famed PS3 do the same thing?

Hi.
The problem affects you if your using the analogues (can't bitstream digitally over these of course) so rely on player decoding......also,if your amp cannot decode HD audio but can accept it as PCM over HDMI. (that would be HD audio decoded in the player first)
Cheers.

 

[Ian_S]

As AVI says, the main reason for player decoding is not that it's better or worse, but that for things like picture in picture and other interactive extras to work, the player must do the decoding so it can mix to the two audio and video streams together.

The Pioneer's are actually a little ahead of the competition in some ways here as audio mixing is always on, and unlike other players, this doesn't relegate you to lower quality using only DD or DTS for example. So this makes the lack of DTS-HD a bit more of a problem along with using the analogue outs.

 

[bikemad]

Also what is the deal with some discs not being able to resume when you push the stop button? Is this just a Pioneer issue or do other players such as the famed PS3 do the same thing?

I simply press pause on mine then you guarantee it will not mess about Iv only had 2 discs do this on my machine so you dont have a static picture on plasma just watch tv till your ready to resume

 

[Tiger_Dust]

Yeah, pausing is the obvious solution but I tend to hit stop if I know I won't be watching for an extended period for whatever reason and I may even have to go and turn the telly off especially if I have to leave the house. Fortunately this was not a problem when watching season 3 of Prison Break.

Anyway thanks to everyone who posted replys to my DTS HD questions. It's quite a complicated subject but I think I'll get my head around it one day and for now I'm not too concerned about it as the sound is still better than normal DTS off a regular DVD.

Thanks everyone.

 

[Nic Rhodes]

you need to remember that bitstream of these HD codecs is not part of the blu ray at all and is just an extra that is on some players but not all. I use 2 that cannot bitstream still and hence a desire for any new player to have full capability on board from release.

 

[recruit]

I would presume if it has taken this long to get the firmware for the Pioneers to decode DTS-HD MA, then there must be a problem with the hardware and getting the firmware to work with it, or they do not care?

 

[Ian_S]

Hard to tell. The impression I get is that the machines weren't ready at launch, but they had to release something as the existing machines were effectively still 1st gen. So the 51FD/LX71/LX08 are the same basic box.

In the meantime they were already working on BD-Live machines with the LX91 being the main focus. The new 320 and LX52 seem very similar to the 51/71 but with the addition of BD-Live, and all the right features out of the box.

So I think that they have a) not had the resources to focus properly on what they saw as interim boxes, and b) have had more trouble than expected getting it working on the lesser platform but couldn't throw resource at it without affecting newer machine development.

Over on AVS it seems that the ROM used on the 51/71 is a little too small, so getting the code to fit is a challenge. The 91/320/52 have bigger ROMs, not to be confused with built in memory for BD-Live or BonusView as many have.

So I don't think it's that they don't care, I just don't think they have enough resource to deal with what looks like too many machines on the go.

How all that will or won't change with the combined venture with Sharp I don't know. Sharp don't really do high end stuff, and their BD platform is rather different. So I wouldn't be suprised if we see the first real Sharp/Pioneer design being yet another new platform with more teething problems again... At present the new Pioneer 120 in the US is just a Sharp in a Pioneer box it seems. You would have thought they wouldn't keep 2 different base platforms on the go. From a disc compatibility point of view it's twice the work.

My take on it all anyway.

 

[Timbo21]

Sorry to go against the grain here, but I'm happy I chose my Pioneer LX71 and would definitely make the same descision if i was given it again.

I don't actually need the onboard decoding for DTS-MA as I bitstream audio to my amp, but even if i did I honestly don't think that I would alter my viewpoint.

The player has played every single disc I've put in it (over 100) other than one perfectly (and that one was fixed in the very next firmware update). It does take a minute or so to load up discs, but so what? If my free time ever becomes so scarce that a couple of minutes extra when watching a film means so much to me then I'll know I'm in trouble. The build quality and general styling are also in my opinion so far ahead of any of the cheaper alternatives it's almost silly.

Another major thing to take into consideration for me at least is the fantastic support that Pioneer have given to the home cinema community over the years. From the early days when with their massive input into the Laserdisc format all the way through to now with their videophile quality screens, they've supported home cinema fans and I'm more than happy to try and repay that where possible.

All views welcome . That's what I was interested to see.

In regards to your point in the last paragraph. Yes, they may have been good in the past, but that's not helping the current issue. It's hard to speak to anyone at Pioneer UK who knows anything about anything.