Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I picked one up friday (7/10) from Frys. My first inpressions are the H/K offers a very classy design with medium build quality; it's not as heavy and sturdy as my Pioneer 320, similar to an LG 390. The disc tray is noisy and has an uneven speed that worries me it might be problematic over time. It does not shut with the authority or quality of the onkyo dv bd606 or denon dvd 2500btci. The unit itself is medium sized and fits nicely in a rack - similar in footprint to the pioneer 320.
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The remote is awful (pictured) DSCN0925.jpg- it has a bulbous end and few of the most used buttons (pop-up menu/disc menu) are in a logical place. I spent five minutes studying the layout to find most buttons. From this perspective, I can say it's not very intuitive or ergonomic. It does have a discrete on/off button.
The player is profile 2.0 with a LAN connection on the rear of the unit. The player can decode the lossless codecs, but lacks analogue outputs for older receivers. This is very disappointing for its price level - most $300 players have this ability.
Performance
Speed
The player is disappointing slow. It takes roughly 20 seconds to power on. Pressing eject when powered off takes a painful 19 seconds for the tray to open, venturing into Pioneer -slow territory. Menu response time is medium. I noticed in running it through synthetic tests it was on the slower side of players.
Disc load times were also on the slowish side. Casino Royale took 37 seconds, a second behind the Pioneer 320 and twice as slow as the JVC XV-BP1 or Oppo BDP83. Java discs like the Pirates of Carribbean were equally slow, reaching the disney splash screen in a minute flat (the $200 JVC can reach the same spot in 27 seconds).
BD Performance
BD at 1080P 24fps was excellent and on par with most other players.
SD DVD Performance
I had high hopes for the H/K in this segment and its results were a bit disappointing and very much mid-pack. It did well on synthetic tests with the usual film cadences, but struggled on video-based material, with noticeable jaggies in the speedometer test S&M offers. The video-based samples in the S&M test disc demonstrated its poor performance.
In real-world material, I would rate the performance mediocre. I prefer the Oppo, Pioneer 320, Denon 2500, and JVC to its image, but would say its overall sd dvd upscaling quality is adequate. That said, it is disappointing when you consider its $500 price tag.
Closing Thoughts
This player is priced about twice as much as its featureset and PQ offer. I cannot recommend this player at its current price point in an ever-completitive marketplace. The Pioneer 320 offers superior performance, analogue outputs, and better tweaking menus at $200 less. The JVC XV BP1 offers quicker performance, better sd dvd upconversion and is $300 less.
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