This is for the "343" model(There is no catagory for this model,only for the 333")....Plays Every DVD movie I have (15) so far. Excellent sound. Great price for a "Less expensive" player. Mine, NEVER skipped, froze-up or caused any problems at all. Quick loading time. Great picture and sound quality. I never noticed any TRAY noise,but I have mine behind glass in an entertainment center. "I ALWAYS use the button to close the tray,NOT push the tray closed",I think that Will/Would put less wear and tear on this unit. So far, I played my own and rental movies (25)at least, and not a single problem with this unit!

The remote is small and I'm the type of person who likes to "Feel" the buttons without looking at it to controll the 343 Player,BUT,it's small buttons cause me to ALWAYS look to see what i'm doing in order to play a good movie. I got my DENON reciever remote buttons memorized as that I don't have to look at it to controll the reciever. I can controll it when I'm almost asleep.. :)

I wrote my opinion earlier on this model PIONEER #343(My spelling was Horrible,'Cuase I was sick with the flu and wasn't making much sense.)....Anyways,I wanted to tell all of you how well this unit is working after a month and 20+ movies later...This model has me in love with it. I Hardly watch anymore VHS movies with my V.C.R....I watch 10 DVD movies to every 1 V.H.S. movie now. This DVD player has NEVER skipped, NEVER quit on me, NEVER froze up. Sound and picture quality it VERY good! It has a feature to controll the loud and quiet parts for a movie so you don't always have to turn the volume down on the loud sounds, or turn up the volume to here the dialog.(I hope you understand what I mean by all this.)Kinda like an equilizer built into it. The remote is small, and I almost Always push the wrong buttons while getting it ready to play a movie,but someday I'll get it to where I can do It without looking at it.
I think the Pioneer #343 model is worth the $200.00 price, For your first DVD player,anyways. It's EASY to use, just play with the menue screen to see what all it has to offer when you want to play a movie. Try different screen sizes,Suround sound set-ups,etc,etc,etc(Experiment with all the different features). This player can be as simple as just pushing the open button,insert a disk, "PUSH" the button again to Close it,and press Play...Easy! I HIGHLY recommend this model because it's "PIONEER" (Good brand name)I'ts Reliable, easy to use, and gets the job done--Entertains you without you wishing you bought some other brand of a player..I still give this a 5+ star rating..I think I'm going to watch this movie today called "Unbreakable" with Bruce Willis and Samuel L Jackson.

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None...(I'm glad I got this one though!)

Its ability to play different disk formats

TRAY NOISE

I wanted a dvd player for my room so I wanted to purchase an inexpensive dvd player that excelled in performance for its value. The Pioneer dv-333 received many praises in many home theater magazines and in this website which persuaded me to buy the dv-333.

The picture quality of the dv-333 is very good like many of you have already stated. But I do have to put my 2 cents in regarding the tray noise. There are only a couple of dvds in my collection where the disc spins quietly but I noticed most of the time the tray noise is LOUD. Sometimes it's unbearable to the point where you can't really focus on the movie. I had a few reviews on this site regarding the tray noise but I didn't think it could have possibly been that bad.

On the upside, it did play cds fairly quietly but it still left me a little disappointed and angry having high hopes for this product. Yes picture performance was great but I don't know how long you could appreciate its picture quality before the tray noise kicks in. It really is annoying.

I would have rated it 5 stars in value Rating and 4 stars in Overall Rating had not it been for the tray noise.

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Main Home Theater Setup:
B&W 802s Series 3
B&W HTM
B&W Nautilus 805s
Krell Home Theater
Krell KAV-500
Pioneer Elite DV-09
REL Acoustics Storm III
Transparent MusicWave Biwire
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Plays all DVDs without incident, very good picture, CD-R and CD-RW playback.

Loud, Crappy remote, No MP3 playback, No Zoom.

This is a nice player that does everything good. I have to respect the manufacturer of a player that can come out with a product that is inexpensive and can play every DVD and CD-R disk I threw at it. The remote is right out of the 80's and that humming sound you hear during the quiet moments of a movie or Audio CD is the disk saying, "I'm really spinning fast in here!!!" Audio is a little harsh, but well within the expectations of a player below $500. For $189.OO (and lower now,) it is a great player for the first time DVD owner.

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Toshiba SD-2008, Toshiba SD-3109, Sony DVP-S7700

Plays any dvd you throw into it.

Its past its prime.

Well, its time to say bye, bye to this solid machine. Moving up to a progressive player w/ mp3.

Kudos to Pioneer for making a reliable player with excellent sound and video. Not one iota of problems with this baby. Didn't have the bells and whistles like zoom and 100x rewind like the other players, but came through where it matters most - DVD audio and visual playback!

I gave the 333 a great workout and it came through with flying colours. Brilliant video playback and helped to make the room shake at the appropriate times. I rented most of the DVD's and VCD's I saw over the past year and this baby played them all without a hitch. And I'm talking about dvd rentals from the corner korean convenience store not blockbuster. The only time the 333 stuttered and/or pixelated was due to a badly scratched/mauled rental which I returned and was reimbursed.

CD play was all right too but hardly used it for this purpose. Get yourself a real CD player if you want the best musical sound from your system. Stop your whining!

Well done Pioneer!

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panasonic, sony, toshiba

Great picture, good sound, although I'm not running it to a home theatre system yet.

Remote sucks big time. If you have the lights down low you invariably fast forward to the next chapter instead of pausing.

Don't buy this model anymore. The DV-343 is its replacement, and you can get the 343 for $150 with free shipping at Amazon this week.
Better yet, the DV-440 is only a few bucks more (I just paid $170 at Best Buy) and has much-improved hardware, upgraded functions, plus is much smaller. I can stack my VCR and the 440 on the same shelf again.
So, I'd say buy the 440.

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I just bought a new Pioneer DV-440 today, based on online opinions, and this time I got myself a programmable remote too. The 333 is heading upstairs to the bedroom, and the 440 will be the new toy.

pioneer owns when it comes to dvd players, and this dvd player just proves it! for a low priced dvd player, it can top players that are $400+ crisp vid, crisp aud, twin laser, nuff said

no mp3, but ahh, who the heck cares?

Just GET IT!!!

pioneer owns when it comes to dvd players, and this dvd player just proves it! for a low priced dvd player, it can top players that are $400+ crisp vid, crisp aud, twin laser, nuff said

no mp3, but ahh, who the heck cares?

Just GET IT!!!

Price, DTS in-built decoder, nice image and sound.

A little noisy, but with a good and decent volume, who cares?

This is my first DVD (this review is in fact for the DV-344), but I spent my time well researching for the right one. After reading many reviews and viewing many DVDs I think that for this price you can't get anything better. I recommend this DVD with my eyes closed and have friends that have bought it too and are happy also. None have had any problem reading any CD/DVD inserted in it. Oh, and I forgot, I bought it encoded for region 4 only and took it to an authorized service center and they encoded it so that it would read region 1 also without opening it or changing anything in its inside and for only 5 bucks and in 5 minutes!!!

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My 1st DVD.

Good price

Will no longer play music cd's

I hate this thing. It was great for a few months, then all of a sudden decided not to play the occasional music cd. After the warranty ran out, it quit playing all of my music cd's. I will be buying a Sony next time. Pioneer is cheap just like it always has been. I just got sucked in by the deal. Save a little more money and use it to buy something better!

Great picture, great sound

Breaks down completely after four months

This would be a great DVD player...if it worked. Under light use it broke down in the fourth month after I got it. It seized up 10 to 30 seconds into the beginning of each movie and would not play, no matter what I did. And I tried everything. I am not a first-time user or buyer of electronics and I know a good bit. Nothing I did got it to work.

I contacted Pioneer's repair rep here and his advice was to buy a new unit. Surprised, I did some research on various consumer sites and found out that the Pioneer DV-333 and its big brother the DV-343 has a HISTORY of doing this. It works for three, four months (sometimes less) and then seizes up, refusing to play DVD's past the Menu function.

Pioneer's website has nothing about this obvious manufacturing defect, nor do they offer any particular solution to your problem other than to return the unit for another one (why, so I can trade THAT one in on another one in a couple months?).

In the final analysis, I would advise NOT buying this unit until Pioneer addresses the problem. I don't foresee them doing that anytime soon. I can't recommend this unit.