Pioneer Elite BDP-05FD Problems

I'm not sure if this belongs in the hardware or the software hi-def forum, but I'll start here.

I just jumped into the world of Blu-Ray and bought the new Pioneer Elite BDP-05FD player. Generally, I'm very happy with it and Blu-Ray looks GREAT but...

1. I can't get any sound on the Blu-Ray disc extras. A Blu-Ray movie's sound plays fine, but when I select any of the extra material -- no sound. The sound on standard DVDs (including extras) is fine. I have a Marantz SR5001 receiver which I thought could play any kind of audio source.

2. I would have thought that for the expensive price of this player, and the expensive price of Blu-Ray DVDs, they'd be easier to use than standard DVDs, apart from the lengthy load time (which I knew about and expected, and from what I'm told this model's loading time is much shorter than earlier models). But...

The new player won't let me stop and resume watching a Blu-Ray DVD from where I stopped it. It always says "resume off" if I press the stop button and I actually have to load up the menu and select the scene I was watching rather than just hitting "play" and starting up from where I had stopped it. This is an extremely cumbersome process which I've circumvented in some instances by selecting "pause" for brief breaks, but sometimes when real life intervenes I have to stop watching and can't start again for hours at a time or even the next day. However, with standard DVDs I can just press stop and play and the DVD will resume from where it stopped.

There doesn't seem to be any "last memory" feature with either Blu-Ray or standard DVDs. I've looked at the manual and inspected the remote and can't find anything to let me do "last memory" which I found a very convenient feature as sometimes I would interrupt the watching of one DVD by myself to watch a different one with my husband or friends. Is there a "last memory" feature that I'm missing or is it really not available on the Pioneer Elite BDP-05FD?

Re: Pioneer Elite BDP-05FD Problems

The only way of playing the HD audio from blu ray movies, is over the 5.1/7.1 analog inputs. Are you using these to listen to blu ray movies?

In the owner's manual, the first page of chapter 4 (top right of page) it says this:

 Resuming playback from where it was
stopped (resume playback function)
• When  STOP is pressed during playback, the point at which
the disc stopped is stored in the memory. When  PLAY is
pressed, playback resumes from that point.
• For CDs and music files, playback starts from the beginning of
the track/file that was playing.
• To cancel the resume playback function, press  STOP while
playback is stopped.
Note
• The resume playback function is canceled automatically in the
following cases:
– When the disc tray is opened.
– When the file list window is switched.
– When the power is turned off. (For BDs and DVDs this does
not cancel the resume playback function.)
• The resume playback function cannot be used for some discs.

So, it looks like it cancels the memory if you open the drawer. Leave the disc in the machine, when you stop it, and want to go back later. It shouldn't hurt anything to do that.

I hope this helps.......

Re: Pioneer Elite BDP-05FD Problems

>The only way of playing the HD audio from blu ray movies, is over the 5.1/7.1 analog inputs. Are you using these to listen to blu ray movies?

I have absolutely no idea what that means but I will call my home theater tech and ask him about this.

I find it very strange that the sound is fine on the feature films but will not play on the extras.

As for the resume function, I am NOT opening the disc tray! I'm talking about literally just pressing the stop function and getting a "resume off" immediately on the screen. I'm beginning to wonder if I have a malfunctioning player.

Re: Pioneer Elite BDP-05FD Problems

I'm not familiar with Marantz to know how they word it, but on the back of the receiver there's "5.1 Inputs" or "Multi-Channel Inputs". On back of dvd player, there should be something like "5.1 ch. outputs". They may also be labeled LF (left front), RF (right Front), CTR (center), sub..............etc. Connect those from dvd player to receiver, making sure they match on both, to the same cable. These are RCA type connections, but should be better than just red and white cables. I think most folks use two sets of component cables. When watching a blu ray movie, use the "Multi-Channel" mode, instead of "DVD" mode, on the receiver. You may need to set distances, etc.. for speakers, in the player's setup menus, since it will be doing the processing, instead of the receiver.

It may be malfunctioning. Contact Pioneer about it. You can get a bad one of anything, I guess.