Pioneer BDP-150 Blu Ray Player

Perfect Pioneer Does A Budget Player For All

With so many Blu ray players around the £250 to £300 range, I thought it was time to have browse and a look at what some other brands are offering below that price bracket, and I came across the Pioneer BDP-150. But can it offer the same features and PQ as well as Audio that more expensive Brands give you for over £100 more?

Fig 1. Clean, Tidy and Simplistic. Something We Take For Granted These Days

Pioneer's BDP-150 was released earlier this year and I picked one up for the bedroom as sometimes its nice to just take some 'Me' time and catch up on an old movie or something I haven't seen for a long time or if the family are watching a movie or programme I am not to fussed about. So I set about getting a cheap-ish player but still wanted to retain great Picture Quality and Audio.

Now most of the time I try and get a demo in-store or catch some other reviews around Video channels. But this time it was a blind buy, apart from looking at the Pioneer website and this is what I found.

As far as design goes I kind of like it with it's minimal buttons and clean finish. It's not the most feature packed player out there but for around £125.00 where could you spend less and get more?.

It has online features like, Picasa, Youtube and Netflix, but apart from that, that's all you seem to get online. You do get a front mounted USB port to send pictures and music files to your Receiver or TV, files that are supported are FLAC, M4A and MP3 files.

Along with a Quick Start feature to get your films spinning quicker than if it was a cold start, which is good to see. I don't play many CD's through my TV in the bedroom, but I can say it spins them nicely and sound is crisp and clear. One thing I can confirm as own only one disc is that Super Audio CD's are NOT catered for I'm afraid.

But let's talk about what your here for and that's BD play back and I can happily say that it does a very good job at doing it. I popped in my normal benchmark Blu Ray the superb Spears and Munsil HD Test Disc and it only managed to struggle on some and I mean some pans across large well defined patterns like the Contrast Set-Up part of the Disc. (It's a Great Disc and I urge anyone setting up a TV or Projector to use these discs as it WILL give you the best settings for your display).

Anyway back to Movie playback. I stuck in 'The Amazing Spider-man' and apart from a few judders in the sewer scene's I couldn't find a fault at this price. Detail on the Web slinger's Suit looks great as does the vibrant Reds and Blues, even for a dark film colours stand up very well.

Fig 2. Swing Round To The Rear

Around the back you see there has been a few money saving moves made with the loss of Analogue 5.1/7.1 outputs, but you do get a HDMI 1.3 port, Coaxial, Ethernet (No Wireless Here, but Pioneer will sell you the W-Fi dongle for an extra £50 model number AS WL300) and a  another USB port along with a Stereo L/R to have Pure Audio from the for mentioned CD playback

This is a Region B player, so there is no Multi Region Playback on offer here.
It decodes DTS HD MASTER AUDIO as well as DOLBY TRUE HD.. so that's good news as I'm looking for a little 5.1 set-up for the bedroom soon and would like to hear it in all It's Glory.
I did plug it in in my main system downstairs and can confirm it does sound a little bright, but that was soon fixed with a mess around on the AVR's EQ settings.

So Overall if you just want a Blu Ray player that has quality to It's name and don't want to spend a fortune than I can highly recommend this player. If you want for functions but want to pay just a little more then there are models by Panasonic and Sony out there, but for me It's great in a budget set-up or even like I have in a second room.

Prices start from as little as £120.00 pick it up, It's a nice buy.

Better still look and find your local dealer they need you as much as you need them. In my area there is Richersounds (0333 900 0054) and it is a good place if you don't know your local dealer mine however is my very friendly staffed Technosound.(01908 604949)


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