I've had this player for 5 months and it's excellent. I upgraded to the DV-414 from a Panasonic DVD-A310 that had the chapter skipping problem at the layer change on dual layer DVDs. I've found the Pioneer's much sharper and clearer compared to the Panasonic DVD-A310, which is the DVV-A110's higher end brother. The 110 should have the same, if not worse, picture quality of the 310, which is bad when compared to the 414. The 414 doesn't output a 200mv signal at full output, as what GDS would have you think. He has his right to opinionize, although I feel he's wrong. The actual output of the 414 is 2.0 Volts. The actual spec. they give you is 200 mv at -20 db. Most electronic knowledgable people know that a 2 volt signal at 0 db, reduced by 20 db, is 200mv or .2 volts. I know GDS is electronic knowledgable, so this must be an imposter posting under his name or he simply overlooked this. I have watched over 50 DVDs with not "1" problem. This is the best DVD player for the price, on the market right now. It includes component video, S-Video, composite video, coaxial digital output, optical digital output, 1 set of analog audio outputs, DTS compatable and has 96Khz/24 bit DACs for the low Circuit City price of only $300. What a deal!!

Just recently picked up the DV-414 and am impressed. This is a fine unit. I have not experienced the lip sync problem at all. Looks like Pioneer has got the problem fixed. The cd performance is good for a DVD player and the video is superb. The 96/24 output is nice, especially from the optical digital output. Overall, a good unit, though lightweight and has a somewhat usable remote, plus it beats the comparable Panasonics, JVCs, and Sonys, IMHO.

I Have read all the reviews from sony, panasonic,jvc,and so on, I have come to the conclusion that none of these players and or disc are flawless. I,ve owned my dv-414 for about 6 months and I've bought about 25 movies and probably rented 25 to 30 more. I've seen a few dropouts on certain dics and I've only noticed one lip sync out of all the movies I've watched. This technology is what a little over two years old needless to say the manufactorers of all these player and dics have a lot of work to do. So any way it goes your going to be taking a chance with whatever player you buy. I bought an extended warranty and suggest you do the same. For the money this machine can't be beat. with the features that it has compared to other players, of which none are in this price range you can't beat it. I give it 5 stars.

Great DVD player!Music CD's sound rather dull but i bought it mostly to watch DVD's anyway.
Sound and picture quality are superb!
Price is exceptional!
Remote is average, once you figure out where the play button is, that's all you need.
Plays CD-R's!!!!

I would give this DVD player 5 speakers but, although i have not encountered any lip sync problems, i did however encounter an audio dropout and a picture freeze in chapters 13-14 of the Aliens: Special Edition DVD. Hope it's just the DVD and not the player...

This DVD player sucks. I own the DVD 414 and Panasonic DVD A110. The A110 never has lip sync problems or freeze ups like the 414. In addition, my DVD 414 is doing something new, AUDIO DROPOUTS. Instruments on my CD's fade out and I am left with missing sound. IF you press stop when watching a movie on the player, it resets its position. The remote is garbage. Overall it has a nice picture when it works properly, but that is a rare occasion.

I have to disagree with some of the reviews stating that the lip sync problem is related to a preamp, dvd (other than 'Lost In Space'), or anything other than the DV-414. I did a side by side comparison with the DV-414 and a Yamaha DVD player, running through my Acurus ACT3 preamp. There were obvious problems on some DVD's that I noticed on the DV-414 that were not noticible at all on the Yamaha player. I was using the same disc (Mission Impossible), keeping eveything constant other than the two players. I also got the opinion of three other people who all agreed that they could see a difference. (I had begun to think I was the only one seeing the problem - and maybe I was seeing things that wern't really there.) After letting everyone make their own observations - I concuded that although subtle at times, it was nevertheless there. After contacting Pioneer several times, customer service finally admitted that there was indeed a firmware problem, but they had no fix yet. They offered to give me a full refund, but my dealer had already agreed to do that. After many months of trying different units all with the same problem, I gave up and bought a Toshiba player. I'm not trying to bash Pioneer - in fact, I did everything I could think of to keep the player. I loved eveything about it other than the lip sync problem, but once I noticed the problem I really couldn't live with it. If you can't see the problem then by all means buy it - it's a great player for the price. But if you see what I could, you'll have to look elsewhere.

I recently joined the ranks of DTS/Dolby Digital and wanted a DVD unit to cash in on my Surround Sound setup. Through all the hype on Lip Syn problems, read errors, etc. WHich ALL seemed to have when you read all the reviews, I decided to buy the DV-414 by Pioneer. I have watched 3 videos so for and 2 of them have had subtle lip sync problems. I tend to wonder if the technology is a little "green" ....I like the Audio sound and picture. I even can live with the remote that some complain about. Whats with the Lip Syc though? That part is annoying...Granted I only paid 299.00 at sears for it, but this flaw is not accepted either way.

I purchased the Pioneer DVD-414 (mfg in April 1999) and compared it to my PC DVD-rom player (hollywood plus and toshiba 1202). For Surrond sound i'm running a Yamaha 995 with boston acoustics speakers all around and a MK sub, tv is a Stereo 20" RCA that isn't too bad but no big screen either. I got this unit home and unpacked to find out how light it is. Now I did not think much of it and plugged the unit in. Noticed this unit makes a lot of noise when open the tray and when a disc is loaded. Tray also seemed a bit slow and rough when opening/closing. Well so far not blown away by a stand alone unit but still needed to see how it player a DVD movie.
I loaded up Aliens special edition and being viewing. Picture was good and so was sound, did some chapter skipping and notice a slight hesitation each time but nothing too bad. Got to the layer switch scene (bishop/microscope) and was aghast at the layer change, more of a pause than my PC dvd unit. Oh well let's try reverse/forward. Now my pc-dvd with the latest software (1.62) can go two speeds both ways and really flys and stops on a dime. The pioneer was choppy and slow when scanning. Very disappointing.

I packed the unit up and decided to wait for the 4th generation of DVD stand alone players. Not a bad player but for $350 or so but also not worth it for me.

To sum it up the picture and sound were very nice, no lip sync noticed on both Aliens, Alien and Lost In Space, and no wierd artifacts showed up.
The build quality/operation and DVD scanning capabilities were poor in my opinion. Hopefully the 4th generation will correct the problems of third generation players and handle the minor annoyance like layer changes and such better.

Glenn was right as was everyone else who noticed the lipsynch problem with this machine. I bought a 414 in october last year and- I don't have a sony preamp, its a classe pre/pro. I noticed the synch problems repeatedly with this player. This machine sucks. I traded up for a sony dvp7700 and it was like going from a vcr to dvd all over again. People aren't fabricating the lipsynch problems with this machine, my wife and I noticed it repeatedly on numerous movies- not just lost in space, i remember austin powers being particularly bad as well. Do yourself a favor, if you're in the mkt. for a budget machine just skip this piece all together- that's my honest advice. If i could I'd give it none, perhaps 2 if it were a vcr.

I'm not a newbie to this site. I am a very frequent visitor here.I'd guess at least 75% of the reviews here are from people who have tried the products or bought the products reviewed. That's why you see so many great reviews for crappy equipment (like JVC Recievers or Consumer (825, 925) Sony Receivers.

I admit my Toshiba DVD player isn't the best in the world (the downconversion isn't up to Sony's quality) but I was willing to sacrifice a bit to pay a bit less, and get zoom (and as it turns out, there are reports of lipsync with the Sony DVD players as well).

I agree that everything written on this side needs to be taken with a grain of salt, but when you see tons of reports of lipsync problems, you've got to start thinking that some of these reports are true.

And as many of us visitors to this site buy online, we rely on other user's for information. Some online retailers do not accept returns (only exchanges) and you have to pay for return shipping. The Pioneer DVD 414 is obviously a player plagued with a lipsync problem. If you still want to buy it, buy it from a local retailer like Best Buy. If you got lucky and don't experience lipsync, keep it and good for you - but don't return it thinking there's no lipsync problem and then go and buy it online - cause chances are you may not be so lucky with the one you buy from onecall.

Like I said in my Toshiba review - the majority of DVD Movie Watchers won't notice or be distracted by poor downconversion from Toshiba's DVD Players, but you have to admit seeing a lipsync problem in a DVD player would be distracting for anybody. 'nuff said.