3D movies have been a hit at the box office and now, with a wide selection of 3D TVs hitting the market, your clients can enjoy a similar experience at home, writes Stephen Fenech.

The problem for those who’ve shelled out for a Blu-ray Disc player even as recently as 18 months ago is that they will need to buy a new one if they want to watch 3D in high definition on their 3D panel.

Unless they own a PlayStation 3, it is not possible to upgrade a 2D Blu-ray player to 3D.

But the good news if you’re looking to buy your first Blu-ray player or looking to upgrade, is the price of 3D Blu-ray players is not that much more than a regular 2D player.

A great example is Pioneer’s new BDP-430 3D Networking Blu-ray Disc player.

The product combines both 3D full high definition playback along with the ability to connect to a home network to not only enjoy your own content but to download extra material using BD Live.

The BDP-430 won’t hog your rack space. It is just 6.8cm high and weighs 2.5kg. The unassuming device has a glossy black front face with minimalist look with slim buttons which are hardly visible.

On the right side below the display is the biggest button you’ll find on the device apart from the power button – the play button.

Connections on the rear panel include component, HDMI out (1.4a with 3D) and optical digital out. There’s also a LAN port to connect your home broadband connection along with a USB port. There’s also a USB port on the front panel.

The LAN port is handy if you happen to have an internet Ethernet cable handy but those who don’t, and want to connect wirelessly, you will have to shell out extra for a USB Wireless LAN Adaptor (AS-WL200).

Once connected the BDP-430 is a gateway to the digital content on your home network and can also provide access to YouTube to watch videos streamed off the site on your display.

The USB port can also be used by connecting a USB memory device with at least 1GB of storage for saving content downloaded using BD Live because there is no internal memory aboard the BDP-430.

There is also no RS232 port which is a control protocol used by AV control and automation systems leaving just the sensor on the front panel to remotely control the device.

When it comes to playback the BDP-430 supports 2D and 3D Blu-ray Disc and, of course, is backwards compatible to play your existing DVDs and CD collection.

One of the problems with earlier Pioneer Blu-ray Disc players was the time it took to load the movie and get to the top menu screen.

The BDP-430 had sped things up slightly and while it’s faster than its predecessors, we found during our testing it still takes about a minute to load the disc before your ready to go.

Some discs took even longer – up to 90 seconds – before they were ready to play. This might not sound like a long time but when you’ve settled in with your drink and popcorn at home ready to watch the movie it can seem like an eternity.

Fortunately the wait was worth it because we found the playback virtually faultless and the device operated so quietly we didn’t hear it.

3D and 2D movies were smooth and clear thanks to the 24fps playback which is exactly how they were presented in cinemas.

This was also helped by Pioneer’s HDMI Deep Colour which is a built-in feature that ensures colour reproduction is accurate with increased contrast ratio and reduced colour banding.

2D movies played on the BDP-430 will forever remain two dimensional as the device does not offer 3D conversion. This function is reserved to some 3D TVs which can perform this task in real time.

One thing we did appreciate with Pioneer’s player was the quality of the DVD upscaling to near HD quality. You can’t expect a DVD to be upscaled to the quality of Blu-ray but there was a noticeable improvement in picture quality.

On the sound front the BDP-430 excels thanks to the internal decoding and bitstream output of all of the high definition audio sources including Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio.

Under the hood the Pioneer BDP-430 uses it proprietary Precision Quartz Lock System (PQLS) to provide clean transmission of uncompressed 2-channel or multi-channel Linear PCM sound.

With PQLS, the BDP-430 and a Pioneer or any other compliant AV receiver can synchronise their digital clocks to optimise digital audio playback.

There is also wide support for a number of video formats – MKV, DivX, WMV – plus MP3 audio playback and JPEG for viewing photos whether they are stored on a CD, DVD or on a USB memory device.

Apart from the included remote control the BDP-430 can also be controlled with an iPhone , iPad or iPod Touch using a free app which can be downloaded from iTunes.

iControlAV, created by Pioneer, can control the latest Pioneer AV receivers along with selected Blu-ray Players including the BDP-430. In control mode users can access the basic functions of the device like power on/off, play, stop, forward, reverse and, of course, volume up and down.

The Pioneer BDP-430 is a value choice for first time 3D Blu-ray Player customers with excellent playback results in both audio and video whether it’s just plugged into a TV or integrated into a home theatre system.

Despite the absence of some features like built-in wi-fi connectivity, no internal memory and no RS232 for easier AV control and automation integration, the BDP-430 still delivers when it comes to doing the job it was designed for – playing back 2D and 3D Blu-ray movies in high quality.

At just just under $500 the Pioneer BDP-430 3D Networking Blu-ray Disc player is well priced and pound-for-pound one of the better options on the market.