January 7th, 2009
CES 2009: Three Pioneer Blu-ray players due in April, one for $250 [day 2]
Pioneer has divulged that they will release three BD-Live Blu-ray players in April: The sub-$300 BDP-120, the sub-$400 BDP-320 and the $600 Elite BDP-23FD, according to Wilson Rothman at Gizmodo.
The $250 BDP-120 player comes with BD-Live, a 1GB flash drive, fast disc loading, USB expandable memory that includes bus-powered hard drives.
As for the higher end units, forget calibration: the new players will sense picture settings when connected to the company’s 9G Kuro plasma, and will adjust video output accordingly. (If you’d rather do it yourself, the units have 13 video adjustment options.) For those without Kuro 9Gs, the technology will soon be able to sense what TV you do have and make adjustments. It’s called the “Kuro Link.”
The two higher-end models will also stream surround sound audio including Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio when paired with an upcoming Pioneer Elite receiver. The famed Precision Quartz Lock System can now sync up multichannel, making sure all that sound data is processed.
Pioneer says streaming tech, like that of the LG units I wrote about earlier today, is coming, and heck — Wi-Fi might come, too.
Andrew J. Nusca is an associate editor for ZDNet and SmartPlanet.
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