AUDIO-VISUAL
T
he optical disc arrived in most of our
entertainment systems with CDs. At
the time, music files were too big to
move around any other way, and movie
files even more so. But by drilling tiny holes in a
layer of silver, encasing it in hard-wearing plastic
and then spinning it around to be read by a laser
in the digital equivalent of a turntable, we could
read back a file with, hopefully, the minimum
of errors. As technology progressed, they made
the holes and the laser wavelengths smaller, and
the amount of data per disc could be increased.
First DVD players, then Blu-ray players and now
Ultra-HD Blu-ray players went from expensive
and rare to mere commodity items.
Today, with storage ‘cheap’ and streaming
speeds which can handle a 4K movie, at least
if you’re lucky enough to have a decent NBN
connection, you’d think the optical disc might
be redundant. And perhaps it will become so.
But it still has quality on its side. An HD stream
from Netflix arrives at around 3 or 4Mbps. From
a Blu-ray, it reads at 15 to 35Mbps. That’s a lot
of information going missing in the stream, even
accounting for efficient forms of compression. If
you want quality, not to mention all the movie
extras and the indefinable joy of actual ownership,
a disc player remains the source of choice.
EQUIPMENT
Pioneer’s UDP-LX500 is an unashamedly
high-end machine. Oppo had this market sewn up
until recently, but then ceased production, unable
to turn a profit from the declining disc market.
A couple of major brands have stepped into the
breach, with Pioneer delivering not only this
$1999 high-end universal disc player, but a still
more lofty LX800 at double the price.
So while we’ve labelled this review as a 4K
UHD Blu-ray player, the correct though lesser-
understood label is as a ‘universal’ player, meaning
it plays Ultra-HD Blu-ray, Blu-ray, DVD Audio/
Video and Super Audio CD. Inside, the manual
(a real 60-pager, no downloads required!) also lists
audio CDs, along with all the writeable and re-
writeable versions of CDs, DVDs and BDs (apart
from DVD-RAM). Not playable is HD-DVD (of
course), nor Video CD, though when we tried
a Video CD, it did play. That’s pretty darned
universal in our book.
There’s also fairly universal media file support,
with the Pioneer able to play from data discs, from
USB plugged into one of the two USB sockets
(one each on the front and back panels), or from
the network. For lossless audio there’s MP3,
WMA, MPEG2-style AAC, Apple-style AAC
and OGG. Those last two support up to 96kHz
sampling, it seems. For lossless there’s WAV,
FLAC, AIFF and ALAC, all at up to 192kHz. Plus
DSD64 and DSD128. It will also show photos in
various formats, and some video formats (MP4,
WMV, AVI, FLV and 3GP).As for network stuff, there’s no Wi-Fi in this
unit. It’s Ethernet, but we’re pleased to see that it’s
full gigabit Ethernet, rather than the half-hearted
100Mbps connection provided on most players.
That ought to mean it can handle just about any
quality and bit-rate of video streaming from your
network. With recent machines using 100Mbps
Ethernet, we’ve been finding that a good Wi-Fi
network can actually outperform the cabled
connection, but not, as here, if you’ve got the
gigabit speeds available.
There are two HDMI outputs. One is the
main output for audio and video, while the other
is for audio only, providing support for home
theatre receivers that may not be able to cope with
the newer video formats. Audio is also available
in S/PDIF format, via both optical and coaxial
connections. And it’s available in two-channel
analogue form. Indeed, on the front panel (and
on the remote) there’s a button labelled ‘Direct’
(see above) that switches off the video and digital
audio HDMI outputs, so all that comes out is
cleaner analogue.
And this is a mightily well-built unit. It’s full-
component size and weighs in at more than ten
kilograms. You can feel the quality.UHD BLU-RAY PLAYER
PIONEER UDP-LX500
From 4K UHD Blu-ray right down to video CD, Pioneer’s
UDP-LX500 premium-level disc player spins the lot with pride.