Excellent picture and sound quality

Loud drive mechanisim and draw

This is an excellent DVD player and another good product from Pioneer. I have owned Pioneer products for years and always been happy with them. When you factor in the 5 free movies and 10 free rentals its like getting the DVD for free. Easy 5 stars for value. I bought it 3months ago for $199 at mczone.com. Good luck shopping.

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414

Excellent Unit all around/plays VCD and CDR

noise while playing/remote

I purchased the DV-525 this weekend after a long search in the US of A for one (rare in northwestern NY state!!) I finally settled on a display unit at Circuit city after a long weekend search for 179 US (it was still $200 cheaper after I brought it back over the border!) With the Free DVDs and a warranty.. It plays back all my home-made VCD's no problem at all!! but as most people have said, it is noisy playing back discs, but not noticeable in an enclosed cabinet, and the remote has small buttons..It looks simple and is cheap, but lots of features!! well worth what I paid and more. My primary reason for purchasing this one was its ability to play all types of video discs and CD-R.

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RCA

whistles and bells-to-expense ratio, ease of use

Pioneer and Best Buy Customer Service

A great entry level DVD player for me the clueless home theatre slug. Easy to set up and easy to use. I have run it thru a Denon AVR-1800 audio/video receiver and Energy Take 5 speakers and powered sub. My 10 year old 28 inch TV has a new lease on life.

My only beef? The 6-8 week rebate offers from Best Buy and Pioneer were a big joke. God forbid you have any warranty issues if these guys can't even handle rebates and incentives in a timely fashion. After 16 weeks and a call to the Southern California area Better Business Bureau did I get the rebate, the free DVD's and the free DVD rentals. Suggestion: DO NOT permit the 'alleged' incentives to sway you. Go on the merit of the machine.

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Auditioned Sony and Phillips

Cheap, loads of features, great picture, great sound

According to my wife, "Doesn't look expensive enough"

I have been looking for some time at the DVD's on audioreview and at various stores. After all the research, I decided to buy the Pioneer 525. I must admit, this is one excellent unit especially considering the price. I've got it hooked up to a JVC 888 reciever and have the Polk Audio RM5400 home theater speakers. 5.1 is amazing. I bought Tarzan and it was world of difference. I don't have the noise that everybody is complaining about. In fact, I really didn't want to come on this thing since everybody has already said that this is an excellent machine. The one reason I did decide to come on here is to complain about all the people who de-rate the machine who bought an open box item. If you got a defective machine and it's used, "HELLO!!!!". I don't want to hear about your mistakes and I don't want to see a product downgraded because of it. Keep smiling though!!!!

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First DVD

picture,price

none

This is a very good player. Very easy to use and gives a very good picture. It has both optical and coaxial digital outputs. I bought this at A&B Sound for $400. I have watched about 25 dvds.

I have had only one problem and it was with the Double Jeopardy dvd. At 66:20, the counter starts to go wild. I have tried another copy of dvd and it still does it. I also tried the 525 at store I bought machine and it does it too. After counter goes crazy the sound eventually disappears. Dvd needs to be stopped and started. Has anyone else had this problem?

Picture quality, simplicity, abitlity to play CD-Rs

Nothing

I just bought this unit last night at Best Buy for $236. I searched for quite a while on the net, and didn't find much better pricing, just a little cheaper. You also have to consider the extra shipping and handling this unit will go through if you order one off the net. DVD players are very fragile, more so than a CD player, and need to be handled very carefully. You never know how the online superstores store these things. I am totally happy with the DV-525, it has surpased my expectations. After reading this review, my fiance and I were scared about this tray noise everyone is saying about, so we got it at Best Buy so we have the option of taking it back, without paying return shipping! Anyway, we can not hear a single noise from this unit while playing CDs or DVDs. I put my ear right up to it, with no volume, and I cannot hear anything. If you are a little weary about buying this unit after reading the reveiws below, the noise was not there for me. I highly recommend. Maybe we got the best of the bunch, I am not sure. Great unit!!

PICTURE QUALITY.GREAT PRICE. AND GREAT SOUND.....

REMOTE CONTROL......

Well what can I say that hasn't been said already. This machine is great. I have a Sony 550 which is a good machine but cost $200 more. I needed another DVD player for my Brother. so after reading so many good reviews on this site I decided on the Pioneer 525. After hocking it up I couldn't believe the picture quality that was coming out of this inexpensive machine. After one movie I decided to switch machins. My brother being one that believes that name and price means better machine. Was more than happy to take the Sony. Boy was he wrong. The only drawback is the remote control....
I have had no problems with spinning noise. so if you are thinking of buying a DVD player this is machine for you.... many

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SONY 550

nice picture and sound

sensitive to fingerprints on dvd's, noisy, so-so remote

I just bought this model this weekend and have been having a blast with it. This is my first DVD player, so I have nothing to compare it too except my VCR which is not even a comparison, there is nothing quite like the quality of a DVD movie. I don't know if I'll ever make use of my VCR again.

I'm using a Yamaha RX-595 audio receiver
it does have a Dolby Digital audio decoder built it, however it doesn't have a DTS audio decoder. This is one issue I investigated thoroughly before purchasing and I suggest you do also. The Pioneer 525 DVD unit does not have a built in DTS or Dolby Digital decoder. Since my receiver has DD I can enjoy DD sound but I cannot listen to DTS sound.

I discovered even the sales people are quite ill-informed about this stuff so do not blindly trust them - they tried to convince me that I would be able to hear DTS sound with this unit even though my reciever does not have DTS - this is false. Very few DVD players have built in DTS *decoders* built in, most of them have a passive DTS out like this model does which means all it does is send out a DTS signal, it can't decode them. Other models of DVD players have Dolby Digital decoder, but also only have a DTS passive out (no DTS decoder). So a tip: watch out for this, don't bother purchasing a DVD player with a DD decoder and a DTS passive out when your audio reciever has Dolby Digital only (you won't be getting any DTS sound, the reciever needs the DTS support).

Even so, I bought this DVD player because I figured Dolby Digital sound would be good enough for me, and no doubt it is. I connected the audio for the DVD into my reciever using a fibre optic audio cable and I have very high quality Paradigm centre/souround and tower main speakers. And wow! I could not be more pleased with the sound, it's quite trilling to watch a movie in Dolby Digital, it make DVD's all worth it.

I have standard format (4:3) 20" TV, so all my widescreen DVDs are horizontally squished when playing (I assume this happens with all models of players) but it really makes me wish I had a widescreen TV - it will be my next major purchase.

Other than that, the 525 has very nice picture quality, extremely clear, crisp image edges, full bright color, no bleeding. Animation seems to be very good, no jerks or image splitting or distortion.

My 2 gripes:

It's a fairly loud unit, you can easily hear the disc spinning during a quite moment in a movie or while it's starting up, and the tray opening sound is very harsh (almost makes your spine shiver). However I don't notice it at all while watching a movie during music or dialogue or anything. If I had it in a cabinet it wouldn't be an issue at all.

I did have one major problem when I played Starship Troopers, some fingerprints got on the disc - not a lot mind you, but the player was not able to function properly. I had major picture distortion and pixelation, stalling, audio drop outs, completely unwatchable. When I looked closely at the disc I was surprized that the prints were the problem. My Yamaha CD player can play a disc with far more fingerprints without any troubles, but this unit cannot handle anything. I manually cleaned the prints off the disc, and then it play perfectly. So I'll just make sure I keep my DVD's super-clean - and I won't let my oily handed friends toss around my DVDs.

Overall I'm a happy consumer, I got a fully working and splendid quality DVD player at a reasonable price, $400 CDN, which is about $250 less then similar quality players that have DD decoders built in.

So I give it a near perfect rating, enjoy.

Excellent audio quality (analog as well as digital), perfect picture, good remote

A little noisy while running

This is the best DVD player you can get for your money, hands down. The picture quality bests all other models I've tried, and the sound is incredible.

Thanks to Pioneer for putting another excellent device on the market!

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All Sony models

Cheap

Noisy transport, weak picture, ugly appearance, no display dimmer, remote

Sorry, I just don't get it. All the good reviews. This thing is a piece of crap. Unless this is the only player available where you live, I don't know why anyone would buy this. The Toshiba SD-2108,2109, and the 1200 all blow this thing away at the same price. And the noise. You have to put a pillow over it so you don't hear the mechanical noise during quiet passages. So what if it's under $250 I wouldn't give you $50 for it. Now I have an Elite DV-05 , this is much better. Now I can pay attention to the movie insteard of the buzzing noise in my head from the player. How can Pioneer sell this thing ? Can't they hear ? I know most people care about how their system looks. This thing makes your system look cheap no matter what surrounds it. Comparing it to what else 's available in the same price range I rate it accordingly

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Toshiba SD-2108 Pioneer Elite DV-o5