The first flurry of HD players having left a seriously mixed impression, the pressure is on the next batch to really make an impact. And of all the players making their debuts, few have raised higher expectations for us than Pioneer's offering, which is arguably the UK's first truly 'premium' Blu-ray deck.

The LX70 is beautifully built, with a gorgeous, minimalist design and its terrifically opulent and robust finish promises high-quality innards.

It initially looks well connected, too. Obviously there are the de rigueur HDMI and component video outputs, but you also get two digital audio outputs (one optical, the other coaxial), a 5.1-channel audio line-out able to deliver Dolby TrueHD to a suitable AV receiver, control-in and IR-out jacks for system integration and a LAN jack.

This is used, uniquely, in the current HD player world, to deliver a healthy variety of audio and image formats from a connected PC, all handled with total assurance by Pioneer's Home Media Gallery software.

However, there is one significant shortcoming to report: the HDMI is only v1.2 where we'd have expected a new, high-end Blu-ray player to have the v1.3 connection, especially since Pioneer's new plasmas have v1.3 HDMI inputs. Without this version there's no way of digitally distributing HD audio formats, no auto lip synching and no 'Deep Colour' extended colour palette functions.

At least the HDMI provided is compatible with the industry's CEC standard, permitting control of multiple HDMI-connected CEC devices with just the one remote.

Also, very significantly, the HDMI can ship out the 1080/24p HD image format. This matters because it's the format most movies are encoded in when mastered to Blu-ray discs, so the LX70 is effectively outputting pictures in the 'purest' form possible.

Pioneer, again uniquely, offers a fully rounded 'HD story' by not only making sure new plasma TVs can take the LX70's 1080/24p outputs, but also by fitting those sets with a 72Hz scanning mode for simpler and less messy '3:3' conversion of the incoming 24Hz images.

This feature, more than any other, could potentially justify the LX70's £1,000 price tag, especially if you also have a recent Pioneer plasma.

The LX70 upscales SD discs to 1080p too, and unlike a couple of its HD rivals, plays a mean CD.

However, it does not play CD-R or -RW discs, and far more disturbingly, it isn't compatible with the BD Profile 1.1.