Class act
Thankfully, the player’s video performance is worth the wait. This is a gloriously adept deck. HD images sparkle with detail and believable, nuanced colour. James Cameron’s Avatar on Blu-ray looks so preternaturally sharp, the image from the BDP100 appears three dimensional without the need to resort to silly glasses.
Also available in black for those who prefer a 1980s rather than 1970s look
If you have a large DVD collection, then the BDP100 won’t demand you upgrade everything to BD either. Its DVD upscaling and deinterlacing talents are excellent.
Connected to Arcam's AVR400 receiver through the analogue output stage - and listened to in Source Direct mode to make the most of the Wolfson DAC - the deck puts in a marvelously musical performance. Some disc players have an innate ability to image which puts them clearly in a class apart from the hoi polloi. I think this is one such deck.
Indeed, audio fidelity over regular HDMI is also surprisingly fine – the brand’s proprietary anti-jitter technology doing an impressive job.
Verdict
For Arcam’s fan base, this Blu-ray Disc debut should come as a blessed relief. After all the tribulations, the brand has delivered a fine disc spinner that’s an appropriate partner for its AVR range. Will this deck find an audience outside of the Arcam faithful? I suspect not. But that doesn’t make the BDP100 any less special. ®
More Blu-ray Player Reviews |
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 Samsung
BD-D6900 |
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budget BD players |
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SH-B123 |
 Pioneer
BDP-330 |
 Cambridge Audio
Azur 650BD |
Arcam FMJ BDP100 Blu-ray Disc player
COMMENTS
Damn titles
You're pretty much right - as pointless as a "high-end" HDMI cable.. But they will argue that their components are high quality, so less interference, and they will probably say they have better picture processing (which some people may argue is as bad as an EQ equalizer on old stereos)
At the end of the day, this will use the same components as players costing a fraction of this price. The only reason people will pay £1k for this, is that they want a box that matches their other over priced boxes.
So inside...
.which £150 OEM BD player board/transport is installed?
I mean we are paying just for the fancy case here arent we? Thats usual with these sorts of players.
Arcam etc. cant afford to make their own gear anymore. Very few of them can.
Some never did.
Dear YoYO, would you like to buy some efficacious medicinal compound?
It costs £89 a bottle and it has been tapped against a high end (luxury?) bench. As you are clearly a connoisseur of such high end aqueous solutions, your decision making process will not be to simply compare the crude chemical composition with that of ordinary water. I'm sure lots of "those" people would be wondering why you'd pay a premium for what you could simply pour out of a tap. That represents true intelligence.
Sent from my Acme hover boots.
"this scribbler knows nothing about Greek, and not enough about English"
Strictly the translation of 'hoi polloi' from Greek is 'the majority'.
But as an adopted loanword 'hoi polloi' does not have a translation, as it IS an English word, it is NOT two English words. Its meaning is 'the people' as rabble also means 'the people'. Hence if you are to use the rabble, you should also use the hoi polloi.
see also Alcohol, a loanword from the Arabic 'al-kuhl' where 'al' translates directly as 'the'.
Slow loading...
"The remastered Goldfinger Blu-ray from Fox Home Entertainment took a lengthy one minute 14 seconds to bring up the 007 logo" - then I saw the 'Java powered' logo on the rear panel.
All became clear.
