Pioneer Electronics BDP-95FD

One disadvantage with this model: It has a sluggish start-up time. The BDP-95FD took an astounding 52 seconds to power up, followed by another 29 seconds (not bad in itself) to start playing a disc. This sluggish performance carries over to the player's overall operation. At times I'd select an option off the Pioneer's on-screen display menu with the remote and wait while nothing happened. I'd press more buttons out of frustration, wait some more--then watch as the player responded to every button I'd pressed.

Another issue: The remote has a busy design and small buttons, which makes finding what you need difficult. The lack of backlighting only intensifies this problem if you're using the remote in a darkened room. Bizarrely, the remote wastes space with a large Output Resolution control, as if you would regularly switch from 480i to 1080p in the middle of a movie.

The Pioneer's ethernet port can be used for updating the player's firmware. It also can be used for streaming media through your home network; the media adapter is DLNA-compliant. Sadly, the ethernet port cannot be used to play interactive features on BD-Live-enabled discs; this model lacks the memory support necessary for BD-Live (for accessing Internet-connected content). It also lacks Blu-ray BonusView for picture-in-picture playback.

The home media server is the BDP-95FD's one perk over competing models (only Sony's PlayStation 3 offers a media server, too). But you pay a huge premium for this unit over its competition.

--Lincoln Spector