Smooth operation, VCD and CDRW support, inexpensive.

Hmmm, good question. Doesn't have progressive scan and no MP3 support. I think I'll live...

I did quite a bit of research before purchasing my first DVD. Many thanks to all at audioreview.com for pointing me to this little beauty! Does everything except MP3 and progressive scan, but I don't care about either. It handles VCDs quite well (I tried) and the mechanics are smoother and quieter than I though they'd be.

Thanks to my two-year-old I have had one disc jam in the unit. I just had to remove the cover to retrieve it and all is well.

The $170 price above includes a $30 mail-in rebate. It was $200 at the store.

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This is my first DVD player.

Component out, both optical and coax digital outs, 2 stereo outputs (you can send signals to monitor and whatever else) s video out (if you can't afford component), composite out (so what?)

No weaknesses come to mind.

This is being sent directly to a 27" Sony Wega with bettercables.com silver serpent components. Let me tell you something, I was using Monster II's before and after using the serpents, there was a CLEAR difference noticed! Just last night, I had the chance to enjoy a friend's system...He's got a 40" direct view Sony XBR HD widescreen. Directly connected with a top-notch Onkyo dvd player using Monster III components. EVEN in progressive and after I re-leveled the picture settings, turned off velocity modulation, and worked my magic, I SWEAR by this that my Pioneer and Sony 27 looked EQUAL and possibly BETTER. It's unfair because I couldn't put the units side by side but I mean, I thought progressive was supposed to be the savior for all of us, right? How come, then, I still saw scrolling with the 40" HD? I digress...
About the DVD player...the only flaws I've kind of found with it might be with VCD playback. I only have FEW VCDs and they are of live, bootleg concerts. Could've been transfer issues, could be the player, who knows? The bottom line is that the actual movies I have look AWESOME!
I swear by the bettercables, folks, go get some now if you don't have them!
How about sound...? Haven't had the SLIGHTEST problem! DD sounds great all the way around, DTS (my favorite) just blows you out of your seat (perfect with Saving Private Ryan), and conventional stereo is great. I use a silver serpent digital coax cable to run the player directly to my Yamaha HTR 5280 and after making the switch from the Monster optical digital cable, the mids were noticably cleaner and the bass was MUCH tighter!!
All around, a great player. I can't believe I got it for less than 200. It only makes me think if I could possibly improve my system's performance with a more expensive player. While it's possible, I opt to wait for high definition to come down before I entirely redo my system.

For those interested, I use the aforementioned products in addition to:

Energy Take 2's for fronts and surrounds
Energy eXLC for center (WHOA!)
Energy XLS8 for sub
wired up with semi-crumby Monster speaker cables, not too shabby, not too great

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Old RCA player with DIVX <- hahaha
Crumby Samsung

i like the look

none for the price

for the price, especially the 30 dollar rebate, an excellent value.

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toshiba sony and apex

Price

It Ate my GONE IN 60 SECONDS in 60 Minutes

Well boy did I ever think that this player was the $#!^.
I gave it a great review down at the bottom of the page but my mind has dramatically changed.I great point is it will play almost everthing including coaster discs.My problem is it sucked up my gone in 60 seconds cd along with Perfect storm and gladiator.Well there is almost $100 in wrecked CD's and if you want to take the thing back include the $100 worth of AR cables that you bought for the machine and the cost of the machine and you are out a fair penny.Okay the store manager at south keys on bank street future shop says well we wont take back the cables or the wrecked DVD's and we will take back the DVD player if you have the box and SELL IT TO SOME VICTUM AS OPEN BOX.Well I told him I deal with the HEAD OFFICE but before I did that I went to another Futureshop and told ADAM what had happened and he gave me the money back for the Cables,DVD Player, and also the DVD's and saves me $250 on a H/K AVR 201 and I went home with a smile on my face.There is a good lesson to be learned and that is don't buy the product that is a new style the first couple of years that it is on the market because I am a mechanic and ask anyone who deals with any new products and they will tell stay away.

P.S. The Pioneer DVD-C503 and ALSO THE Pioneer 739 recorder have MAJOR PROBLEMS with drawers and other stuff and stay away from the CD Recorder Especially.

Pioneer with sites like this you can't afford to not recall equipment that is defective and it costs you hundreds of thousands to pay the future shop technicians and they laugh when you say DVDC503 and PDR739 or Bose Direct Reflect so why?
Need Speakers go to goodsound.com or soundstage.com and read the review of the axiom M3ti (250.00) because the pros are saying it is competitive with $2000.00 speakers and I agree and Axiom Makes speakers for many companies like PSB,cerwin, onkyo and so on and BELIEVE ME take the time out.

Optical & coaxial out. Change 4 disc while 1 plays. Useable onscreen display. Quiet play mechanism. Loads discs very quickly. DVD/CD/CDR/CDRW compatible. Good resume feature. Lots more.

Limited fast scan features. Noisy when changing discs.

I started shopping around for a new DVD player after my Toshiba started pixilating and locking up on most every movie I played.
I wanted to try something other than Toshiba...not because of the problem I had, but I just wanted to have an idea of what else was good.
I looked very seriously at Panasonic, Pioneer, Sony and other Toshiba models. I had almost decided on the Panasonic changer, mainly because of the MP3 capabilities.

I decided to drop into Best Buy before making a purchase and they had the DVC503 for $169.00 after rebate (I took advantage of a typo in their circular).
I figured for $75 less, I could skip the MP3 feature.

After setup and the initial few demo discs I ran through, I was very impressed by the picture quality. Using the s-video connection, the picture was much better than my old Toshiba.
The remote, though pretty much trashed below, isn't that bad. For the price range of the unit, a poorly laid out (and non-backlit) remote isn't that big a deal. It's very funtional and give you pretty much complete control over the player.

The first negative I noticed was the lack of search features. My old 2109 had 3 different search speeds. 4x, 8x and 30x. This made getting to a certain section of a scene very easy.
The Pioneer has one speed. 4x I believe. And you have to hold the scan button down for about 5 seconds before it'll stay in scan mode. This was a pretty big drawback since I like to skip to different parts of the disc fairly often.
Granted, with DVD, this isn't that big a deal, since you can always start out in the general area you want, but I don't think a multi-speed scan would be that big a thing for Pioneer to include.

The only other thing that I didn't like was the lack of zoom. Granted, that's kind of a novelty feature, but it's nice to have from time to time.
I knew the player didn't have this feature when I bought it, so it's not really a negative. I don't think Pioneer uses zoom on any of their players.

Otherwise, I can't think of any thing to complain about. I thought I might have to take it back at one point because my universal remote didn't have keys for changing discs on a DVD changer, but I had enough empty learn spots to take care of that.

I really haven't tried it on many CD's or CD recordable discs yet. I put a couple of CDR's in it, and one of them skipped quite a bit, but that's not an issue since my CD jukebox plays CDR's fine. The book doesn't specify that it plays CDRW, but I've heard it does a fine job there too.

So overall, I'd say that if you're looking for a functional, no frills DVD player, the DVC503 is a great choice in the under $200 category.
If you're after alot of features and gee-whiz type stuff, it's probably not for you.

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Toshiba SD-2109

Lots of features, low price for a changer

kinda plain faced

I was really apprehensive about getting into the DVD world at first. I watched a few DVD's at friend's houses every now and then and liked what I saw and heard, but I wasn't sure if it was worth it. I had originally wanted to wait until DVD recording came out to replace the old VCR. I had heard from people at work that DVD changers existed, and I knew that they could play audio disks as well. Then it was like, "OK I am buying a DVD Changer....now what?"

Since single disc units are a dime a dozen anymore I was glad to see that there aren't many changers on the market.....fine for me because that made the decision much easier. I know I didn't want the all out "stereo-jockey" audiophile special with the latest and greatest stuff sporting some japanese name that is only well known to movie studios and the rich elite, I didn't need all that garbage, so I went with the "low end" brand I trust the most...Pioneer. Sony laser systems and I never got along very well and I don't trust their longevity. Every Sony disc player that I've owned has crapped out in a year, maybe two max...and not from over use either. I've had a pioneer car in-dash cd player for almost 7 years now and I can't kill the damn thing. No problems.

Best Buy had it at a decent price, so I had them hook it up and watched it. I liked what I saw and what it had to offer in decoding so I bought it. I relented on the whole "service plan" thing which is an immense load of horsesh*t....I hate that, "Let's charge for our servicing so it's all profit for us." The changer had everything I need: Dolby Digital, DTS decoding; S-video and composite outs (for the eventual new TV); and an optical output....what more is there? I read in a review that there is one feature missing on it, which I really can't remember what it is, but it must not be that important. It was a cinch to set up and it has read every disc I've played in it....DVD, music CD, CD-ROM copy.....everything cool so far.

I would highly recommend this (and DO highly recommend this) changer to any "normal" person with "normal" audio and optical abilities and a typical wallet. Since the unit only outputs line-level audio signals I can't see where the big mystery is finding a unit that "sounds" great. Sound you're listening to comes from the power amp in (or connected to) your stereo. The only thing I can guess is that you are listening for the separation of sounds, that makes more sense to me than anything.

Oh yeah, if the salesman tells you that you need a new TV if you don't have S-video minimum, look at him and laugh and when you check the thing out make sure you DON'T tell the cashier who was helping you so the moron doesn't get the commission. The schmuck tried singing that song and dance to me....obviously one of those self-important audio-halfwits who thinks his junk is the best because he was stupid enough to pay a king's ransom for it. He said I should use the money on a really good VCR until I saved up for a new TV. I had to laugh. Oh yeah, stay away from Monster cable, complete rip off and waste of time. Buy a good set from Radio Shack (I hear the sound of you audiophile guy's heads hitting the floor from passing out) ESPECIALLY fiber optic. $80 for 10 ft.? They said it had the best shielding...Uhh...it's LIGHT, dude!!! What are you shielding LIGHT from? More light? Stray light? Please-add-another-$10-to-my-commission light? Please.

Anyway, have at it.

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none

5 disc carousel.

will not play some VCDs.

i bought this player with high expectations. my co-worker has a DV-c503 and he says it plays all his VCDs. i already have a DV-525 which plays everything i throw at it. what i wanted was a multi disc player and what better to get than the DV-c503 for a little over $200. i expected this carousel to play anything my DV-525 did. NOT! i spent about an hour yanking out my old 525 out of my entertainment center and putting in the 503. when i finally got it installed. it would not play an original VCD, in fact, it didn't even recognize it. i got a 'NO DISC' status. i tried another one and it failed. i tried a copied VCD and it worked. hmmmm. i tried one more original VCD and it worked. i popped the first original back in and it still failed. i reinstalled my 525 unit and played the same discs and they all worked. the 503 is going back in the box and back to the Good Guys. the next time, i'll bring my VCDs to the store to test out before i buy. either i got a lemon or Pioneer made some changes to this model since my co-workers work fine. he bought his early this year. oh, it digest DVDs with no problem.

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pioneer DV-525

lots features for the price, play almost everything,

remote

Just buy the Pioneer C503. At first I wanted an entry-level DVD player, but for the price of this one, I had a lot of outputs, play almost everything, as a nice 5 discs carroussel.

On the bad side, I think the remote could be much improve. Hard to use in the dark and the button are very small.

Very nice product.

This is a moderately priced all in one machine. It was designed to do it all.

Unit has broken down twice within six months....the problem being frequent video breakup (laser). The issue has been compounded by excessively slow response by Best Buy to repair this new unit. The unit, as I write,has been sitting in their repair shop for six weeks with no idea when it might be repaired. Apparently it has been difficult to order parts from Pioneer for this new unit.

While this model has great picutre clarity, I have experienced significant breakdown problems. This particular unit appears to be a lemon. I would not recommend -- either this model or purchasing it from Best Buy. Best Buy doesn't mean best service in this case.

Great bang for the buck. Plays CD-R/RW's Good All-in-one machine

remote, noticable layer changes

Over all, i have to say this was a great purchase. I had an old 5 disc cd changer that i needed to replace and when I saw this DVD changer I figured that it would do the job nicely. Besides that it allowed me to put my sony on another TV so that my wife wouldn't be forced to watch the movies that I wanted (ok so maybe i wasn't forced to watch Beaches with her. . . . details!) This changer has good Audio, i won't go so far as to say great since I know that there are better out there, but it does sound better then many of the lower to mid range cd changers out there, and certainly better then many of the DVD players out there. The picture is crisp and accurate. I do think that Pioneer could have done a better job on the layer changes. Some other reviewers have metioned the pauses, those are the layer changes i'm talking about. They seem to be a bit more pronounced then on my sony. This is slightly annoying but something i've learned to live with.(and if i could live with it anyone could) I also think that the remote could have been better laid out. I wish my Dennon AVR-3300 remote would have had multi disc control functions, but i guess i will learn to live with the pioneer remote. All in all I think this is a good machine, definately not the best out there, but for the prices they are charging it's a definate "best buy"

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sony DVP-S330