Universal Player for cheap!

Resizing is a disgrace when you do not want to view DVD's wth the Black Lines.

Do not buy if you need a player where you need to resize the screen. Does an adequate job at it's regular Screen size though. If you are looking for a cost effective DVDP for DVD playback I suggest getting a Panny unit as I have their changer hooked into a Panny Plasma and it is stuning for the price and is able to switch screen sizeing withhout any grain. The Pioneer I cannot tolerate when resizing using a Samsung TV in my bedroom. The reason I bought the player anyway is for it's multi purpose playback of CD material. I have no SACD capability although I have no SACD's I wanted one to roundout my system in case I ever have a collection. If you have a Redbook collection of CD's it was explained by JA of S-Phile that it is better to use an older player that does not include MP3 processing as that will diminish the playback do to the remastering clock. I am not that technically orientated ,but I assure you he is correct.Some of the newer players do have seperate reclocking designs ,but you will neeed to pay considereably more for them. It has been said that Toshiba makes some great value DVDP's that also are able to have aceptable playback of Redbook. I use a 1989 Phillips CD-80 for my Redbook CD's and a Panny DVDP for other sources like Video. Anyway for the $$ I would prefer the Panny Changers for Video and this may be good for a universal player

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Panny F-65 which is better value for the $$ but will not play SACD's and a few other formats I think.

Price, compatability, MP3/SACD/DVD-A/VCD/JPG

At 99 bucks...nothing.

If it wern't for this product at this pricepoint, I'd prolly still be w/o a SACD/DVD-A player. For my current, entry-level setup, it's perfect. That system consists of: Marantz SR-4400 Paradigm CC-170 Paradigm Mini Monitors Paradigm ADP-100's Velodyne VRP 1000 It sounds great! It's oviously no Rotel or Lynn by any means, but for 99 bucks, it rocks! It's comparable to a Denon or Sony running at a $400 pricepoint. Pioneer knows how to make products. 99 bucks for SACD/DVD-A/24-bit Burr-Brown CD DAC...can't go wrong. Too bad you can't find it retail anymore...try to get yourself one on eBay. As for Picture quality...I couldn't say as my TV atm is horrible.

Multiple formats, great framerate on dvd video.

None at this price.

There is no other dvd audio/sacd player I've seen at this pricepoint. By no means is the price compromising quality. Pioneer does it again with another quality product that's cheap.

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Panasonic rv-30

Looks good, sounds good, plays everything. VERY INEXPENSIVE

Cheap remote, unit is a bit light on weight.

My system: Carver C-1 Sonic Hologram Preamp Harman Kardon T-40 turntable Harman Kardon Citation 15 tuner Harman Kardon Citation 22 amp Koss CM-1020 speakers Tascam 202 MKII cassette deck Pioneer DV-578A DVD-A/SACD player I bought this for my bedroom as a replacement for the 15 year old Magnavox CD player which died. I don't use it for video, but bought it because it plays just about every audio format around. Even at full retail, the price to performance value of this unit is outstanding. This will play just about anything: DVD-Video, video CD, DVD-R, and video-mode DVD-RW. It plays super-high-resolution DVD-Audio and SACD (stereo and multichannel), as well as compressed audio files (MP3 and WMA) on recordable CD. The literature says it does slideshows of digital photos -- JPEG digital photo CDs, Fujicolor CDs, or Kodak Picture CDs. As a bonus, it has progressive scan, and lots of other nice video features including nearly twice the video processing power of previous Pioneer models with a 12-bit/108 MHz video digital-to-analog converter (DAC). I never use them. The video is fed out to the tuner card in my computer, so you can see my values! MUSIC! There is nothing in this price range which will do what this unit will do. You would have to spend at least twice as much to get any other combination SACD/DVD-A player. On my home theater system, I have a Sony SACD player and a JVC DVD-A player. I had to run both through two 3-channel switching boxes with lots of extra audio cables, because both SACD and DVD-A require the one six channel direct feed input on my HT preamp. This unit solves that problem.

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7 disk JVC DVD-Audio player, Sony SACD player.

DVD-Audio, Super Audio CD, mp3, progressive scan DVD-Video. Easy setup & bass management that works.

What weaknesses. For Fifty bucks - you can't go wrong!!

An awesome product and my last DVD Player. I've owned 2nd & 4th Gen Toshiba's, & recently a Marantz DV-4300. This player does it all and does them well. I've played the infamous Fleetwood Mac Rumours (no clicking) and Pink Floyd's DSOTM. ELP's Bran Salad Surgery and it paseed my tests for both bass management and overall audio quality. The best part, Black Friday at Best Buy had one left on the shelf with no remote, no box, no owner;s manual, & no AC Cord. No problem when you have a One-For-All Remote already at home with the IR codes already loaded into it. Just imagine connecting a tube amp to this killer machine just for litening to 2 channel Hi-Res audio.

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Toshiba & Marantz DVD-Video machines

Style,Playable Formats and Cost

Video P)erformance (Initial Impression)

This is very initial and I only hooked up the player to see what it could do in my system. For Audio it easily beats the Panasonic F65 I am using,but do have trouble with flutteringJitter or image outlines.They are just not as detailed as with the Panny,but it might eed some burn in time so I am not trying to be to judgmental of it's ability at this pint. The Panasonic is mainly used because of it's synergy factor as I am using a Panny digi receiver and Plasma. I will try it agains my Phillips CD-80 after I have more time to see weather it can do Redbook CD's well. At this price one cannot expect everything and if it performs well at Audio I would be a happy camper as that is why I bought it really.

Similar Products Used:

Panasonic F65 for Videos and Phillips CD-80 for Redbook CD's.

dvd-audio/sacd sound quality low price cd sound quality dvd picture quality dvd surround decoding

mp3/wma sound quality random/program not available with mp3/wma/jpeg on screen adjustments cant be made during playback

For the money you can't hope to find a similar product that even comes close to this one. The dvd-audio quality is great, better than my old toshiba dvd-audio player, and that one cost $400. I have not had any problems with the popping sound while playing dvd audio like some people have experiences, and i even have the fleetwood mac disc that another reveiwer says is especially bad and it plays perfectly on mine in 2 channel and 5.1 channel configurations. If you have a receiver with 5.1 channel inputs you should definately buy this player, it is worth it just for the dvd audio. The sacd quality is amazing as well. I think that sacd sounds slightly better than dvd audio. I have never owned another sacd player to compare to this one, but i have listened to a few at best buy and circuit city and this one sounds much better than the sonys that were set up in the store. Pink Floyd's dark side of the moon is absolutely incredible in multichannel surround. In my opinion it is worth the $99 for the player just to listen to this recording and metallicas black album in dvd audio. The dvd player does a great job with movies as well. The picture is slightly better with this player than it was with my toshiba, but it was not bad with the toshiba, the pioneer loads discs faster and the colors seem a little bit brighter. The player has built in dolby digital and dts surround decoding and does a great job with both formats. It does almost as well at decoding dolby digital and dts signals as my $1100 harman kardon receiver. This player also did a better job of playing cd's than i expected it to. It sounds as good as my old pioneer 6 disc changer and comes close to the sound quality of my sony es changer. With a 24 bit/192khz d/a converter it could have been a fantastic cd player if they would have included a dedicated laser for cd pickup. It does not have hdcd decoding built in which would have been nice, but it does pass the hdcd signal through its digital outputs to be decoded by a receiver. The wma/mp3 features on this player are lacking. The sound quality of wma/mp3 is not very good. My mp3s and wmas sound much better through my sound blaster platinum card, being upconverted to 24 bit/96khz before being decoded by my receiver. The random and program features do not work for mp3 wma discs, which is where they would be the most useful. The tracks on the disc can be viewed in the disc explorer menu which is some what helpful, but only the first 12 characters of the title appear on the screen. The jpeg viewer is nice, but it could be better though. Again program play and random play is not useable in the jpeg discs. The remote is simple enough to use although it would be nice if it was larger. The onscreen menus are a bit confusing and it is annoying to have to stop playback of he disc to change any settings. My old toshiba and sony both let you change settings while discs were playing. The instruction manual does a good job explaining the functions of the player and is well laid out and well written. There are plenty of outputs for every system. Video outputs include component, s-video, and composite video. Audio outputs include: 2 channel analog, and 5.1 channel analog and coaxial and optical digital. Both digital outputs are compatible with dolby digital, dts, and hdcd formats. If you have a receiver with 5.1 inputs, you definately should buy this product. You will not be dissapointe with the quality of the dvd audio and sacd sound. This would be an especially useful dvd player if you have a receiver with 5.1 inputs without a built in dolby digital dts decoder. This player would give you access to all the new surround formats without having to buy a new receiver, making it an even better deal. If you are buying it for the mp3/wma/jpeg capabilities, you can find something else that would do a much better job with that.

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toshiba sd-3900 sony dvd player

Good CD-d Audio sound Better speaker management in comparision to the Samsung HD841

DAC problems on DVD-Audio

I bought this unit to play DVD-Audio and SACD's, and I wasn't interested in it's DVD video playback. I use the Samsung for DVD Movies. AT $94.99 this was a bargain. Initially, I compared CD-Audio music with the Samsung HD-841, computer (via emu sound card and computer DVD drive), and found that this unit has a much cleaner sound than the HD-841, but not quite as good as my emu card (I set my Marantz to source direct). Now, as far as the "Popping" noise that was reported on other reviews, I did notice that on the song "Dreams" by Fleetwood Mac, Rumors album--the second track. If the DVD-Audio is set for 2-channel, that popping noise is barely audible, but if set to 5.1 channel with the Front R/L speakers set to large, it's really noticeable throughout that 2nd track. If set to 5.1 channel, and small Front R/L, the popping noise still exist, but not as loud. The unit was made in July 2004. I am returning this unit.

Similar Products Used:

HD-841 Computer with EMU sound card

Hi-res 2 channel listening, 480i/480p component video picture

.1 output is underdeveloped, menu is really poor and difficult to navigate.

I'm currently working on my second of two players in as many weeks. In that time I've done some fairly extensive listening and viewing tests. The 1st player stopped playing DVD-Video discs after about a week. I returned it and took home another identical unit. As a CD player it functions just fine. As a multi channel audio player (DVD-A/SACD) it functions very well for 5 of the 5.1 outputs, but doesn't handle the sub channel well (to be covered later). For High Resolution 2-channel audio it really shines. As a DVD-Video player it performs exceptionally. I've not used the other functions it's capable of. The menu and navigation screens are a horrorshow. They can be learned and used effectively, but are so counter-intuitive that it's far harder to enjoy quality audio/video than it should be. Reliability may be an issue, given the track record of it's predecessor and the faulty unit I initially purchased. As far as the .1 channel issue, here's what I've found. Using 5.1 analog outs on DVD-A/SACD with speakers set to LG on the player, drastically reduces the amount of signal sent to the .1 channel leaving bass output pretty scarce. Setting the speakers to SM adds output to the .1 channel but removes quite a bit from the other 5 channels, the .1 signal is still too weak and it doesn't seem to blend the sat/sub combo very well. As far as DVD-Video sound output, again using 5.1 analog outs with speakers set to LG, there is virtually no LFE output to the .1 channel. Changing to SM brings a bit, but way too little. For movies this isn't really a crime because there is the option of Dolby Digital or DTS output for your 5.1 pleasure. For multi-channel audio you're left with weak/innacurate bass. My recommendation is this; If you're after 192/24 or 96/24 for stereo listening, as well as a great DVD-Video player with DD and DTS capability, this is a very affordable upgrade over existing entry level rack sytems with separate cd/dvd players. The high resolution 2 channel audio function is pretty sweet and the 480i/480p component video output resolution is enough to satisfy most. If you're trying to bust into the multi-channel realm and are serious about it, the bass issues will leave you lacking.

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Toshiba SD2109

Sound quality - highly detailed and balanced. Superb Base. Superb video. Versatile.

User interface is a bit clumsy. Random play is a pain.

I've owned probably 5-6 CD/DVD players in the last few years, and this is clearly the best sounding and best looking player I've had. It appears others have had some compatibility problems, but my DVD-As, SACDs, DVDs and CD play perfectly. The detail in the sound is unsurpassed by any other player I've heard. And given the price? It can't be beat.

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Onkyo Players Other Pioneer players.