Customer Reviews

Pioneer DV-400V-K Multi-Format 1080p HDMI Upscaling DVD Player

5 star:		(54)
4 star:		(23)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

In the last week, I've gone through a Toshiba SD-5000 and a Philips DVP5982 DVD player. Both had their serious flaws and had to be returned. The Toshiba had audio-sync issues with DivX files. Plus it the display on the machine itself doesn't display the current time of the movie.

The Philips stuttered horribly on DivX files even though it was "DivX Ultra" certified.

The Pioneer solves these problems and is clearly superior to these two other machines. I should have known...the old DVD player we are replacing is 8 years old and is a Pioneer. Served us very well, but it was time to upgrade to a model that has progressive scan, HD Upsampling, and DivX playback. Plays everything great including the same DivX files that the other 2 machines struggled with. The User Interface is much much better. The machine also operates faster...boots faster, menus are snappier, etc.

I highly recommend this Pioneer.

I have a very good experience with my old Pioneer DVD player, that's why I decided to purchase Pioneer again. The color and audio reproduction is very good for the price range. You also get top notch USB and DivX support. It's not free of faults, however. Let's go over the Pros and Cons:

Pros:
1. Excellent color reproduction (Sony DVP-NS77H has more vivid color however, but Pioneer's is by no mean less admirable)
2. Excellent audio output for its class
3. Well-designed remote
4. User setup is very comprehensive for its class
5. USB port (your flash drive must be formated in FAT file system)
6. Plays a very impressive numbers of video/audio formats (DivX, MP3, WMA, burned DVDs/CDs etc)
6. Excellent value
7. Automatically switch to proper screen size (DVDs)
8. Energy Star compliant

Cons:
1. No Toslink S/PDIF (Digital optical sound)
2. Low-quality optical drive
3. Has problem reading scratched/warped VCD/DVD
4. No LED power-on indicator near power button

That last problem can be annoying. It doesn't read anything more than a minor scratch. I would think it's due to the cheap optical drive it uses. I tried Sony DVP-NS77H, and it was no better, however. Only the expensive Toshiba HD-XA2 was able to read my Contact DVD reasonably. It's not the only DVD that gave me the problem.

Since nowadays DVD players (HD and newer SD models) have long boot up time, and it takes about 10-second to boot up this one, having no power on indicator is a problem. You can see Pioneer's logo on the TV screen, but no LED lights or display on the console itself to tell the user it's on.

Remote is excellent. I wish it's slightly heavier, instead of light-plasticky, but it's very well designed. Everything the user would use frequently is right there near the middle where your hand is locked in by the notch in the back. You don't see good remotes nowadays that come with cheap DVD-players often. No backlight, however, but it's intuitive enough.

It has no Toslink (Optical audio cable), but the Coaxial audio (the one that looks like RCA) is excellent. It's the best audio quality I've heard from a DVD player that costs only $99.

The setup screen gives you everything you need to tweak. It's comparable to my Toshiba XA2, but that one is a top-of-the-line HD-DVD player!!! You can select upscale resolution as well as more advanced stuff like picture colors. I disagree with people who think the menu is difficult to use. It's no harder than most newer DVD players. It has a lot of features that can overwhelm users however, but that's what manual is for (it's not an excellent manual, but one can get most information out of it).

I upscaled my regular DVDs, and the output is amazing! You don't even have to touch the DVD player's color/hue settings (and it's advised you should always change those with your TV's controls with a color tuning DVD, such as Avia or Digital Video Essentials). The SD DVDs' output is almost as good as HD DVDs'.

All upconverted video signal does not allow the pass through of CC signals (the TV close caption, not the DVD subtitle). If you need that, you'd have problem. I suggest you connect both component video cables (at 480i) as well as HDMI (at upconverted resolution of your HDTV monitor), so if you need CC, then use component video output and that should solve the problem (though of course, you'd see the video at a lower resolution).

I have a Sony 50A3000 SXRD HDTV, and if you have something similar, I suggest you turn off all the motion enhancement features (there are three of them hiding in Video Options). If you don't, upconverted video signal compounded with motion enhancements will cause some funny distortion near the edges of display (look like fishbowl effect).

My Toshiba XA2 for some odd reason, does not adjust screen size automatically so the entire picture will fill up the 16:9 screen. This much cheaper model does! You don't know how much time you can save with such convenient feature, you literally don't feel it (until you are deprived of it, of course).

Overall, I believe it's the best upconverting DVD player you can buy for under $100.

This review is for the Pioneer DV-400V DVD player.

I compared the Pioneer DVD player to the Panasonic DVDS53K, Samsung DVD-1080P7 and the Toshiba SD-6000 units. All four DVD players are of the "upconverting" type, where the upconversion is to a maximum of 1080p nominal definition. In the stores I looked, all four DVD players were listed at more or less the same price at the time (perhaps a $10 difference between some).

The first test involved hooking up the Pioneer, Samsung and Panasonic (via HDMI cables) to two of the same 19-inch wide-screen LCD televisions. The next test involved connecting the Pioneer and the Toshiba (again using HDMI cables) to the same 50-inch plasma TV. (The settings in the three DVD players were left at their default values in the first test, and somewhat optimized for the two in the second test.)

Samsung makes great audio video products but the picture produced by the DVD-1080P7 was a little blurrier than with the Pioneer or Panasonic. It was very noticeable even on this smaller screen TV (I believe the difference would be exaggerated on larger 50-60 inch screens).

The Panasonic had a pretty good picture and impressive sound, and it has the best remote of the four (comfortable to hold and very easy to see the buttons). It only lagged behind the Pioneer because of the display colors. With the Pioneer, the colors on the screen appeared a tiny bit richer and deeper (but take a look for yourself since it was somewhat difficult to see the difference on these smaller TVs).

I was interested in the Toshiba SD-6000 because it apparently has an excellent Digital Picture Zoom (useful if you want to enlarge unusually wide aspect ratios). Yes, it does have an excellent three-level zoom feature (the picture stays quite clear when enlarged, a huge improvement over the Pioneer). At first, I was biased towards the Toshiba, since we already owned the older, interlaced 480i SD-2800 model which we really liked. However, you can only make very limited picture and sound adjustments with the SD-6000 and you will not be able to come very close to what you can get out of the Pioneer. And, on the Toshiba remote control, it is much more difficult to see/identify the buttons than on the Pioneer.

The Pioneer allows you to fine tune all kinds of settings via the user-friendly menus, and this was a big plus to me. The Panasonic has pre-set picture modes and a little less flexibility in setting other picture and audio elements.

Also, the Pioneer has a fully functional USB input on the front panel (however, I don't know if this input can handle high-power USB devices).

You can get excellent picture and sound out of the Pioneer. With some DVD movies, it is truly amazing!

For our purposes, the Pioneer DV-400V was the best choice. (I would place the Panasonic as a close second.)

A big drawback on the Pioneer (to me) is the picture zoom. You have the option of 2x or 4x magnification (you can even zoom-in on a section of the picture by moving the cursor, to some extent, to the desired general area of the screen), but the picture becomes very blurry at either level and you will not want to use this feature.

Another problem with the Pioneer is the SLOW response each time when you turn the unit on (either using the Remote or pressing the button on the main unit). You never know if you have pressed the on-button correctly. (It takes about 5 seconds to actually see in the display that the DVD player is on.) Also, many of the other buttons on the Remote are slow to respond (and inconsistent at times) as well.

Also, the print/font in the paper User Manual is very pale (other than the bold headings) and you may have trouble reading it (but, an on-line version is available from Pioneer's website).

After the purchase of my HDTV, I found the quality of my old DVD player to be abysmal and started shopping around for a DVD player that upconverts. I ended up torn between this product and the Samsung DVD-1080P. Because of limited reviews on the Pioneer product (I could only find one (albeit glowing) review about this product at the time), I chose the Samsung (which is my TV brand) as there were more reviews of it (although some of them were bad). The first time I used the Samsung product, it froze completely and had to be unplugged for an extremely disruptive period of time. Over the next few days the Samsung player froze several more times. Then after a few days break, I tried again to watch a movie with it. The Samsung player had lovely, pristine picture but halfway through the movie it started skipping and showing the movie frame by frame - tried to pause it (no go) and then shut it off when, yet again, it froze and wouldn't do anything. The stupid Samsung DVD player wouldn't shut off for two days, and I wasn't about to go behind my entertainment center and unplug it yet again. (note: the discs were NOT the problem... ALSO I did check Samsung's website and there were no firmware updates for the product I had)

Fed up with the fact that the Samsung player could barely make it through one lousy movie without either freezing or screwing up, after about 3 weeks I gave up and returned it to the retailer where I purchased it where by lucky coincidence, the Pioneer player which I had originally been considering was on sale 30 bucks off so that it now cost the same amount that the Samsung had so I was able to do an even exchange on it - though after my nasty experience with my first foray into the world of upconverting DVD players I did spend 20 bucks on a service plan this time, just in case I had problems with this one too.

It has now been at least two months so I feel safe reviewing this product... I LOVE IT. IT WORKS. I'm not sure how much else I can ask for. It loads much quicker than the Samsung did and has NEVER frozen. I did just recently have it skip for the first time on the DVD for Factory Girl (it was rented from blockbuster and was in pristine condition rented right when it came out) - while autoplaying the garbage ad junk in the beginning they put on there before you get to the menu it was skipping, but I pressed menu, it immediately went to the menu, and the movie itself played beautifully.

x Works wonderfully with burned and factory DVD's
x Picture is great... though I don't know if it's just me but I feel like some of the dark stuff is a tiny shade darker than normal... I haven't tried messing with any of the picture settings or anything though
x Haven't tried it with Divx discs
x Really easy setup - it did everything automatically and I didn't have to fidget with any settings.
x Again, it loads quickly.

NOTE: (I only reiterated the product name so many times so that somebody skimming the review will know which player I am referring to)

Other reviewers have discussed various attributes of the Pioneer DV-400V DVD player: Sparkling, clear images, great sound, ability to play a multitude of disk formats and ease of operation. In addition to its other qualities, this Pioneer player has one important attribute that can be found on very few DVD players: The ability to output 480i over its HDMI port.

If a TV or projector has high-quality internal de-interlacing and scaling circuitry, the Pioneer DV-400V's delivery of 480i content through its HDMI port might provide the best possible picture. This 480i output is the native video format as it is encoded on DVDs and the Pioneer player can transport this 480i content from the disc in digital format to a TV or projector. The TV or projector can then perform its own de-interlacing and scaling, often producing better results than a DVD player can produce using its internal processors. In many cases, "jaggies" will be completely eliminated and 3:2 pulldown will be consistently perfect when a high quality TV is presented with 480i digital content. This 480i output is also the ideal format to send to external video signal processors.

Other DVD players can produce 480i output, but only through their component outputs. While other DVD players have the ability to output 480p, 720p, 1080i and 1080p from their HDMI ports, the Pioneer DV-400V has the unique ability to also output 480i -- an attribute which gives this player a distinct edge over its competition. Quite often, de-interlacing as well as film cadence and detection can be best performed by a high quality TV, when presented with a 480i digital signal.

Wow!

I just got a 42" LG LCD 1080p tv, and really did some research looking in to upconvert DVD players. I was all set to go with a Samsung unit, but then I saw this Pioneer player at Best Buy. Now one of the BIG selling points for me (besides the 1080p upscale) was that I wanted a unit that was DivX compatible. What I liked about this unit was that it's officially DivX certified, and has USB ports. I put the Samsung down and picked this one up instead.

Again, WOW! The picture quality is great, and I love, love, LOVE the DivX playback. As a test I burned a standard 4.7GB DVD-R with like 20 DivX format TV shows, and loaded it into this player. It played through each show with no problems! As a second test, I took a 4.7GB DVD+RW and burned 8 feature-length DivX movies on to it, and fired up the Pioneer player again. On the DVD+RW, I noticed an occasional stutter effect, but picture quality was great, and the stutter really had no lasting impact on the playback of the movie.

I highly recommend this Pioneer DVD player! My 5-disc DVD changer is getting no use these days!

I love Pioneer so I was biased already, but the picture this produces on my HDTV is incredible. My only complaint is that it doesn't have an optical out but that is my fault for not reading the specs closely. I do wish Amazon provided good photos of both the front and the back of electrical components on all items. My HDMI cables are on the way, so hopefully that will take care of the optical out problem to get audio to my tv and also receiver.

I've had this player for a couple of weeks now and am quite pleased overall with its performance. I have it connected to a Toshiba Model 37HL67 HDTV via a $12.25 "Cables Unlimited" HDMI cable (also from Amazon) and to a Yamaha RX-V430 receiver via the audio coax. Although my TV is only 720p, after some experimentation, I set the player's HDMI video output resolution to 1080p and find that the picture quality, even from my oldest legacy DVD's, is truly awesome. Audio performance is also excellent on CD's and DVD's alike, but especially on DTS encoded DVD's.

The remote control and on-screen menus are well-designed and are generally intuitive and easy to use. One very minor complaint is that the playback mode settings are available only on the on-screen menu, so if you are listening to a CD, for example, and want to switch to random playback, you have to turn on the TV and change the settings there.

The included USB port is a plus on this player, but may be of somewhat limited utility in practical application. It would not recognize my Sansa MP-3 player (only allows FAT 16/32 format) but did a great job of playing back JPEG files from my Fuji digital camera and WMA music files from a flash drive. I wouldn't necessarily go out and buy this player for the USB feature alone, but it's nice to have and may come in handy some day.

All in all, I would say that the Pioneer DV-400V is an attractive, full-featured player that performs very well and is a good value for the money. I would recommend it highly.

I Purchsed this player about 1 month ago.... and I am happy with it. It works great, doesnt overheat, resumes where dvd left off, if I stop it. It is very easy to hook up, the Set up if very user friendly. The owners manual really helps with audio/video adjustments. You have the option of changing many audio/video settings to get your movies to look and sound better than before. Who needs blue ray and HD DVD, not me. This player really makes the 480 DVD look like 1080p, check it out for yourself.

I was at the store for 2 hours trying to decide between Samsung, Panasonic, Sony and Pioneer. I have always owned many Pioneer products and so I went with this one, one of the reasons was an easy remote to use in a dark home theater and for the 1080p upscaling. I've seen alot of upscaling players at this price perform, but when I got home and saw this on my 150" tv with my 1080p projector, wow, this comes close (but does not match) the best expensive upscalers. I am very happy with this product. I wanted the Pioneer dvd recorder, but unfortunately most dvd recorders are only 1080i.

Highly recommend.