I've tested a lot of Bluray players and owned the Pioneer LX51-FD before getting my Oppo. They all seem to perform equally well with Bluray disks over HDMI, but the differences in usability are enourmous.

The Pioneer I had was, as David2350 found with the 52, incredibly slow. I can't understand why the Open/Close button can't have it's own circuit to let it extend and take a disc while the operating system loads. The Oppo is a remarkable departure from the slowness of all the other machines I've tried bar the PS3 which I hear is also lightning quick. As usability is such a big factor in enjoying using your player I'm surprised that manufacturers have made such poor implementations of basic functionality. Even the big Denon DVD A1UD is slow. All the money there goes into video processing and the analogues and so you wait ages for the machine to start up, just like the cheaper players, and even then we put it last when we tested it!

For usability I don't think you can beat the Oppo at the moment. Multi-Region for Bluray as well as DVD, Universal disc playback, SACD, DVD-A, CD, DVD, BD and with DSD digital output for SACD it's a remarkable piece of kit. But really useful for me was the Yellow Button on the remote. It only works on DVDs but it's brilliant. You load a disc and as soon as it's spun up, hit the yellow button and the Oppo takes you straight to the start of the main feature on the disk. No menus, trailers, warnings - just the movie. Now that is what I call FAST! Why buy anything else?

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