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Pioneer BDP-320

No frills, quality AV performer

However, a separate list of options can be accessed from the Tools menu on the remote while a film's playing, including Audio Adjust (for audio dynamic range and manual lip sync adjustment) and Video Adjust (all sorts of things, including gamma correction, white and black level adjustment and hue), plus subtitles, audio track selection and HDMI output resolution.

Pioneer BDP-320

Digital options, but no multichannel analogue audio outputs

The BDP-320 can upscale standard DVD to 1080p and has a decent range of video features including presets for different types of screen such as Professional, PDP, LCD and Projector, and there's Video Adjust, which allows you to tweak the picture to your taste across 13 parameters and store your settings in up to three different modes.

There's also 48-bit Deep Colour support and x.v.Colour and several noise reduction technologies: Component Frame Digital Noise Reduction, Block Noise Reduction and Mosquito Noise Reduction. It's not exactly clear what each of those exotically named noise reduction facilities actually do, but in practice the BDP-320 proved itself an extremely capable and nimble performer.

Blacks were deep and subtly graduated, edges were sharp and movement was precise with a minimum of jaggies – the destruction of the Millenium Bridge in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince threw up no obvious artefacts throughout its swift-moving, effects-heavy length. Upscaling too proved no obstacle to the 320, with DVD images brushed up and polished to a shine clearly well above their natural state.

The BDP-320 packs a pretty decisive punch on the audio front too, delivering all the HD audio codecs into LPCM or outputting them as raw bitstream to HDMI. It's also a bit of a rarity in offering audio-only circuitry for stereo playback with its PQLS feature, designed to work with a compatible Pioneer amp connected through the analogue stereo outs. Playing CDs through stereo speakers it certainly matched the performance of a similarly priced dedicated CD player, though there's no option to play hi-res surround audio formats like SACD or DVD-Audio.

Verdict

The Pioneer BDP-320 doesn't have an overly impressive feature set, instead concentrating its resources on sound and picture quality. In this regard it doesn't disappoint, since both are very fine. But with other players offering good enough sound and vision, plus additional options like Wi-Fi, YouTube and other Internet content, USB playback and analogue audio outputs, as well as faster loading and navigation, often for less money, the Pioneer may not be doing enough to justify its cost. ®

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Pioneer BDP-320

Pioneer BDP-320

Top-notch pictures and sound, but not the broadest feature set in the BD world.
Price: £330 RRP

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