We love to talk about calibration, but soon, our TVs and disc players will calibrate themselves. Pioneer's new sub-$400 BDP-320 and the $600 BDP-23FD sense the picture settings when it's connected to a 9G Kuro plasma, and adjusts the video output. If you want to tweak it yourself, the disc players have 13 different video adjustment options. (Most Blu-ray players have like three or four.) And if you don't have a Kuro 9G, not to worry: The same technology at work here will soon be able to sense what TV you do have, and—assuming you have the TV in some default or preset configuration—will be able to make adjustments there too. That same "Kuro Link" also lets you control Blu-ray, TV and Pioneer A/V receiver with one remote.

That's not all these higher-end models can do. When paired with a soon-to-be-announced Pioneer Elite receiver, it will also stream perfectly jitter-free surround sound audio including Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. It uses the same Precision Quartz Lock System that makes Pioneer's current flagship Blu-ray player one of the greatest CD players ever made, only now it can sync up multichannel, too, so that every packet of sound data that leaves the disc player is accounted for on the receiver end before it's played.

The BDP-120 player is no slouch, with BD-Live, a 1GB flash drive, fast disc loading, USB expandable memory that includes bus-powered hard drives.

You may notice that there's no Netflix or any other video-on-demand capability like the Korean Blu-ray players have; Pioneer noticed that too, telling us only to stay tuned, and that features like that are "definitely coming" later this year. I went so far as to ask for wi-fi, and was surprised to hear that even that may happen soon. But probably for way more than $250. [Pioneer]

• Black level is "lower than any other flat panel we've ever measured."
• "Full-on/full-off contrast ratio...is nearly double that of the next best flat panel."
• Watching Pirates of the Caribbean, "the bright spots really popped. Highlights were actually brighter than other areas of the picture. [And] the bright scenes had dark areas that were actually dark. Color was vibrant and natural."

The trouble is, at $5,999, it's not exactly the best deal, though Morrison mentions the newest non-1080p 50" Pioneer has "nearly identical performance" and costs $3,500.

Consumer Reports just named Panasonic's Panasonic TH- 50PZ700U "Best Flat Screen Ever Tested," and it lists for around $2,900. (I think HDGuru Gary Merson chose the Panasonic TH-PZ750U as his fave.) Morrison might be right about which is best of the best, but that's not to say it's the one we'd buy.

Regardless, the take home is that LCD is nowhere to be found on these lists. To date, it just doesn't hold up as well under criticism. Could it be that plasma will stave off the LCD invasion until OLEDs enter the fray? [Home Theater Magazine]

The receiver does a few other things too, most notably acting as a media streamer for PC content from Pioneer's Home Media Gallery system. The box will be available in October.

Pioneer® Elite® BDP-95FD Blu-ray Disc Player

The new Pioneer Elite BDP-95FD offers unprecedented high definition picture and sound as a result of HDMI 1.3 connectivity. In addition to superb picture performance, the increased bandwidth capacity means the player has internal decoding of high resolution audio formats: Dolby® TrueHD, Dolby® Digital+, and DTS-HD™ as well as bit-stream output for all advanced audio formats including DTS-HD Master for 7.1 surround sound performance. The BDP-95FD can faithfully reproduce the 1080p 24 frames per second (fps) rate needed to preserve feature film sequences as the director intended. The Pioneer Elite Blu-ray Disc player incorporates HDMI Consumer Electronics Control (CEC) to ensure streamline integration with other HDMI-CEC enabled high definition theater components. This feature allows users to control a whole home theater setup with a single remote for maximum convenience capability.

The new Blu-ray Disc player offers Pioneer's exclusive Home Media Gallery that allows users to directly access and playback music, movies and photos stored on a home PC. The user-friendly home networking feature also provides IP networking for immediate downloading and of new digital media files straight from the computer through the BDP-95FD to a connected flat screen television. The Pioneer Elite Blu-ray Disc player is compliant with Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA), Window and Apple computers video, Windows Vista or Windows Media Connect as well as Microsoft playsforsure™ DRM technology.

Availability/Suggested Pricing: October 2007/$1000

The new models are the VSX-90TXV, VSX-91TXH, VSX-92TXH and VSX-94TXH.

It has HDMI 1.3a, 1080p upscaling by Farouja chips, of any video source. The $1600 VSX-94TXH is the first Elite to stream music from the Internet, as well as from a PC. And all four new receivers are XM and Sirius Ready. The press material pushes that the receivers will be able to decode all HD DVD and Blu-ray audio formats internally, which is still a surprisingly rare thing. That puts it on par with many of the many of the Onkyo's main points, although lots of press has favored the Onkyo's Reon HQV video processor over the Elite's Farouja.

These two receivers sound nice, but the flashy new UI on the Denon receivers could give Pioneer's usually lackluster interfaces a spanking.

I'm also glad to see that people aren't quoting power ratings much anymore. Stuff these days is loud enough. I can't believe I said that, but then again, I'll be 30 on Wednesday.

Anyhow, this stuff will be out during the summer, according to Electronic House:

The VSX-90TXV and VSX-91TXH will be available June for the suggested prices of $650 and $1,000, respectively. The VSX-92TXH and VSX-94TXH will begin shipping August for the suggested prices of $1,300 and $1,600, respectively.

– Brian Lam

Product Release Pioneer's Elite AVRs Connecting With New [Broadcast Newsroom]