Pioneer Blu Ray Player BDP 05 FD

"I believe the manual reference to 5.1 applies to the current situation with DTS not necessarily the future implementation of DTS HD MA."

The manual states that it can already decode DTS HD MA, and it shows it as 5.1 via the analog outs. What I mean is that the manual is already written as if the updates are installed. As far as the Pioneer CSRep saying it will not ouput DTS HD MA through the analogs; I dont believe it. But I dont think it will do all 8 channels. I hope it will, or you are right. People will be upset.

I was wondering if anyone ever tried upgrading the power cord on one of these players for better sonics? I did this with my cd player and found it made an improvement.

Unfortunately, Pioneer has not been very forthcoming on the details of their plans for decoding DTS MA internally. My experience is that manuals are often not written carefully enough to be definitive, unfortunately. The phrase in the footnote in the manual for DTS HD MA over analog is "DTS Surround Sound signals converted to linear PCM audio signals are output". They use the term "DTS Surround Sound" elsewhere in the table to reference lossy DTS signals, not MA signals. That would imply that for DTS HD MA sources, DTS lossy is output over the analogs. I just find that hard to believe and I think you agree. Note the HDMI column explicitly says that DTS HD MA is output. I would expect that same phrase for the analog column, not the DTS Surround Sound phrase. My guess is they carried some of that wording over from the similar table for the 95, which did not decode DTS MA internally. With these problems in the table, I would also not trust that the 5.1 reference is accurate. I think we need to wait for some official word from Pioneer or the actual firmware before we can be sure of this. I like Pioneer products, but they are having a tough time with some of the details on this one. Hopefully, it is just start-up pains for the new platform.

Rumor on the blu ray forum is the 05 will soon have update 1.08 available. It has been mentioned that you can have it sent to you now from Pioneer before it is available on the website by calling them. It still wont decode DTS MA, but maybe it will improve performance.

v1.08 discs have been sent to some.
Even v1.112 will not decode dts MA. ;-)

Kal