Pioneer BDP-120 1080p Blu-ray Disc Player
From the Manufacturer (March 25, 2009)The Pioneer BDP-120 BD-Live Blu-ray Disc Player is built for entertainment junkies who seek cinematic-quality performance along with a premium and unique user experience. The Pioneer BDP-120 is outfitted with built-in memory to deliver on the promise of BD-Live™ right out of the box. Pioneer’s players combine supreme features, sophisticated internal construction with a rigid chassis design ensuring the highest quality playback of Blu-ray Disc, DVD and CD entertainment. The BDP-120 provides up to 1920x1080p resolution for unrivaled picture quality. Immediate BD-Live Enjoyment: Abut BD-Live BD-Live is the interactive component of the Blu-ray Disc format that gives home audiences the innovative opportunity to download and enjoy bonus trailers and movie features, participate in online gaming as well as synchronize viewing, chat live and video message with other BD-Live players. Providing immediate enjoyment of these exciting entertainm (more…)
My initial thoughts are this is a Sharp re-badge. Although it is an attractive player, build quality appears poor. The tray rattles when opened and the front panel buttons feel thin and plasticy and like they might break if used frequently. The tray is loose and can be manipulated. The front facade on the tray is very loose and actually feels like it might fall off. Once again, it is an attractive player, but the led chapter readout is pure sharp. it is a dark purple with white lettering. It says BYE when you turn off the player.
The Kuro Link does not work – when activated it was outputting 480i to my 5010. It took me three times of playing with the settings to finally get it to output 1080p despite it was set to auto out of the box. You cannot switch output resolution on the fly. The video output resolution button on the remote does not work best I can tell. The remote is slightly different than the 51/320:
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The menu is set up with four basic selections. The GUI looks very budget and is not the refined GUI i love on the 51/320, though it is probably more straightforward. There are no tweaking menus for nr, brightness, etc. There is not deep color setting, but BD playback did appear as 36 bit on my kuro.
There is no setting to adjust output resolution to 24fps. The display during playback is even worse (no mb/s read-out, no resolution).
Performance:
The cons: BD playback is a bit dull. I prefer the image on the panasonic 55, 320, 51 and oppo. SD DVD upscaling is standard, probably a hair worse than my panasonic 55. Jaggies appear in any closely spaced line and are visible in credits even when stationary. Responsiveness is sluggish and the player sounds like a blender – lots of grinding and gearing noises.
The pros: Quickstart works – the disc tray opens immediately when you press eject. It has to be right at a second or two. It loads relatively quickly – QOS loaded in a respectable 42 seconds. It struggled with POCI – taking about 1 min 27 secs to get to the disney splash screen.