Customer Reviews

Pioneer Dv610av-k Black Multi Region Code Free Hdmi Upconverting 1080p DVD Player

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I love this DVD player. I own a Sony top-of-the-line blue-ray and this Pioneer player has more features and (in my opinion) has a better overall picture and more features than that Sony at one third the price. The CD features are great and the MP3 conversion and playback are flawless. I did a side by side comparison of the blu-ray with blu-ray disk vs. Pioneer with reg. DVD with up-conversion comparison. The results simply are that I couldn't tell any significant difference. (I have a high-end HDTV for comparison) and I didn't see anywhere close to enough difference between these players to justify paying extra for a blu-ray disks.

In my opinion, blu-ray is going to have to show me a whole lot more to get me to pony up the extra money for disks when I have my Pioneer and reg. DVDs.

Pioneer Dv610av-k Black Multi Region Code Free Hdmi Upconverting 1080p DVD Player

This DVD player is BlueRay quality all the way. It plays your regular dvd's but it is by no means "regular". A side by side comparison w/ my PS3's BlueRay playback makes me wish I hadn't bought a PS3 for the soul reason it had BlueRay capability. Another big plus is that this is Region Free straight out of the box. I travel a lot to Europe and being able to play dvd's back here in the states that I have purchased in France or Germany is awesome. Purchasing from All Region World as an Amazon seller is the way to go.

If you are looking for:

1080p HD upconvert of standard DVD's - Awesome

Multi-Region Capability - Awesome

Sound Quality - Awesome

A great price - Awesome

A player to replace poor quality and cheap upconvert/multi-region Philips players

and an overall sturdy dvd player with some out of this world features,the Pioneer dv-610 is no joke and the way to go!

The Pioneer dvd610av-k black multi region code free hdmi dvd player that i purchased has made me so happy. Since i had this now i can buy and play all my dvds purchased from region 2, 3, 4 areas that can not be purchased here in the usa. The picture and sound quality is crystal clear. This is a very slim device that makes it so easy to place anywhere without a problem. This was so easy to convert this to muti region code free. It plays real good on my regular television set. Before I bought this I made sure I read all specifications and glad I made the right choice. I highly recommend this item to all consumers to get this attractive dvd player.

DVD was invented in 1995 & it's taken more than 10yrs to perfect the DVD player. The early DVD players all suffered from the same problems that plague Bluray players of today. They were plagued with slow loading times & they came locked - region coded. Even today, there are a lot of DVD players out there that are region coded & they need to be hacked, if U intend to play international DVDs.

The Pioneer DV-610AV is a true universal DVD player because of the following reasons:

1) Out of the box, this player comes unlocked. It plays DVDs from all 6 DVD regions.

2) Universal power supply, it works on both 110V - 220V. It comes with two power chords, one with the N. American flat pin & the other one has the Asian (Chinese) round pin. It can be plugged anywhere in the world with the help of the right pin / plug adaptor.

3) It plays almost all formats other than High Definition formats such as Bluray. It even plays DVDA & SACD.

4) Available in both black & silver. This sure adds up to the universal appeal that many other DVD players lack.

5) All the video / audio connections U'd ever want - HDMI, Component video, Composite video, S-Video, Coaxial audio, Optical audio & 5.1 channel analogue outs.

Design, features & performance:

I bought a Pioneer DV-610AV('S' - Silver) from B&H, NYC in Jan 2009 for USD120. After using it for over an year, I'm truly impressed with its capabilities. I have the Pioneer DV-610AV connected to an Onkyo TX-SR604 AVR Onkyo TX-SR604 7.1 Channel A/V Receiver (Black) with Mediabridge HDMI Mediabridge Ultra Series - High Speed HDMI Cable With Ethernet - Category 2 Certified - Supports 3D & Audio Return Channel - (3 Feet). The DVD upconversion to 1080p over HDMI to a Panasonic 42in G10 plasma Panasonic VIERA G10 Series TC-P42G10 42-Inch 1080p Plasma HDTV is as good as anything I've ever seen on an upconverting DVD player. The video upconversion of the Pioneer DV-610AV is much better than that of the Panasonic G10 plasma TV. I found that a lil' hard to digest, especially when the DVD player cost just 1/8th the price of the HDTV. It's a very simple test. U'll output the DVD player at both 480i & 1080p. If 480i looks better than 1080p, then the video upscaling of the HDTV is better than that of the DVD player, if 1080p is better than 480i, then it's the other way around.

A unique selling point of the Pioneer DV-610AV is its capability of playing home made / burned DVDs without a hiccup. This function is important to me as I make a lot of Windows Media Videos (WMV). This DVD player is especially very good at playing WMVs & DVDs that contain it. There are far & few DVD players that can boast this capability.

The Pioneer DV-610AV has a 24bit/192khz DAC due to its ability to playback DVDA & SACD. The budget DAC in the Pioneer DV-610AV sounds a lil' warmer than the budget DAC used in Onkyo TX-SR604 receiver. Most budget / cheap DACs sound almost the same, but I did enjoy listening to 2 channel music in my Zone 2 setup consisting of Mordaunt Short 902i bookshelf speakers. I had the analogue out of the Pioneer DV-610AV connected to Zone 2 in the Onkyo TX-SR604 receiver. I was happy with this 2 channel setup till I upgraded to a Musical Fidelity V-DAC Musical Fidelity V-DAC Upsampling Digital to Analog Audio Converter. Of course, the MF V-DAC sounds richer, warmer, wider & deeper than the budget DAC used in the Pioneer DV-610AV. It gets more evident when used / tested with better amplifiers & speakers.

This DVD player comes with the 'auto turn off' function, it's especially good if this player is ever to be used as a CD player / source for Zone 2. When activated, this function turns off the DVD player, 30mins after the CD has stopped playback. This is surely an option to have when U do not have a 12V external trigger. The 12V trigger is an impressive function & one that I really like a lot. It may be used in sync with other devices, such as an a/v receiver that has a 12V external trigger and a sleep timer, to auto turn on / off all devices that are connected to the 12V trigger. It is not to be expected in devices at this price point.

These days, almost all manufacturers are turning to 'Black' as their choice of color, possibly due to cost cutting. Not that silver color costs more, it's just that making a product in multiple color options adds cost. Gone are the good old days when most equipment was available in Silver, Gold & even Champaign. As much as black looks cool, it's sad to see that customers are now being forced with no color choice. Brushed Aluminium (Silver) used by Onkyo remains my all time favorite finish for an audio equipment. It's got a vintage & nostalgic feel to it. I'm glad that Pioneer at least gave a choice of both black & silver colors for this DVD player. Sadly, even Pioneer has taken the 'Black' route & now offers all its Bluray players only in black. As of this writing, the only budget Bluray available in silver color is the Onkyo BD-SP807 & that too in Europe. Europe is the only market that still demands & has a taste for silver colored audio / video equipment. It really looks classy & that's what sells there. Only the very high end brands like Lexicon, Mcintosh, Krell etc still sell silver colored gear in the U.S.

Before buying this player, I had considered the following players:

1) Onkyo DV-SP506: This player came region locked & at the time, there were no known hacks for this machine. This player had the best build quality of all the budget DVD players I had considered. Brushed Aluminium (Silver) looks stunning. Onkyo DV-SP506 1080p Upscaling Super Audio CD/DVD Audio/Video Player - Silver.

2) Oppo DV-980H: This player is easy to hack. It was available only in black color & I wanted it in silver color. It had lots of issues with home made / burned DVDs, especially the one consisting of WMVs. It also lacks auto off which is found even in the most basic DVD players. They don't have this function even in the Bluray players they are selling currently. C'mon Oppo, wake up. OPPO DV-980H 1080p Up-Converting Universal DVD Player with HDMI and 7.1CH Audio.

3) Cambridge Audio Azur 540D V2: Very identical to the Oppo DV-980H, except that it is available in black & silver colors. The silver here looks more like raw aluminium. All other short comings of the Oppo DV-980H is applicable here. Cambridge - 540D v2 - HDMI DVD Player - Silver.

4) Denon DVD 1940CI: It looked like a product with great potential but there were lots of issues with home made / burned DVDs. Denon DVD 1940CI - DVD player - upscaling.

5) Marantz DV6001: Very identical to the Denon DVD 1940CI & it had the same short comings too.

6) I w'd never consider any of Sony's products that are almost always plagued with company made proprietary hiccups. So why buy from a brand that's always so non flexible?

7) LG, Samsung etc were never up to my taste for a DVD player.

I finally settled for the Pioneer DV-610AV which was cheaper than the above mentioned DVD players, & yet it had all the functions, features & performance that I was looking for in a budget DVD player.

The Pioneer DV-610 c'd have improved on the following:

1) The build quality of this DVD player is nothing to boast about. I really wish the build quality of this DVD player was at least close to Pioneer's own Elite DVD players. And may be a lil' more quiet operation w'd have made this a hell of a DVD player.

2) Random play is good but shuffle play w'd have been better for CD playback. Almost all universal Bluray / DVD players suffer from this. This is where a dedicated CD player still has an advantage.

3) It w'd have been great if we c'd change the player menu settings without stopping the DVD / CD, a la (in the style of) Oppo.

4) I don't have SACDs or DVDAs but I do have HDCDs. If this format w'd have been included, this w'd have been the universal DVD player to beat.

5) Auto turn off is good, but a 12V external trigger w'd have been a dream come true.

Conclusion:

I know I'm expecting too much from a USD120 budget DVD player, but that's just me. With the DV-610AV Pioneer has managed to make a superb universal DVD player at a decent price point & goes on to prove that it does not have to be expensive to really perform well. This is a great DVD player regardless of price. Unfortunately Pioneer c'd not perform a similar trick with their Bluray players which severely lags behind in the competition. Anyone who is not ready for a Bluray player yet & is still looking for a truly capable universal DVD player, sh'd put this player right on top of their list.

This DVD player was especially made for the Asian & European markets. The ones sold in the U.S. come without a warranty. Now that's a risk U'll have to consider before buying the Pioneer DV-610AV universal DVD player. And it's almost the same risk U'll be facing, when U plan to buy an unlocked universal Bluray player.

Just my $0.02.

Brgds.

The Pioneer Dv610av has made my life a lot easier. It is hard to believe a machine that sells for such a small price can end up being so very good. I use this unit for DVD's , both factory and home burned, single and dual layer , SACD , CD and DVD-A discs as well. I play loads of AVI files, both DivX and Xvid and it plays them flawlessly from a USB thumb drive.

The upscaling is as good or better than an Oppo machine costing more than twice this price. The sound quality is BETTER than the Oppo (IMHO) and the easy of use and GUI is better as well. Great picture quality adjustment can be found in the menus and submenus. You can dial in the picture quality to the point of near perfection. I got a very good calibration using my DVE disc.

The build quailty is a bit on the cheap side and it is small lightweight unit, but that is deceiving as far as functionality and quality of the audio and video output by this bad boy! For under 150 dollars you simply can not beat this unit. Oh yeah, not only is it region free but it can output in native Pal, NTSC or convert either to the other easily. I use it with a multisystem display and output each format as is for best PQ. BRILLIANT! A shamleless plug for All Region World is in order. Amazon fullfilled the order and everything was as advertised. No matter who you get this from, you really cant go wrong with this machine.

One final word, it was manufactured to be sold to British(and other)tourists while visiting in Japan (apparently) and as such it is very unlikely the Pioneer warranty will be valid here in the US. But at this price, buy two and have 1 for a back up as you wont want to use any other machine once you get spoiled by this thing.

I bought this DVD player specifically to play the Merlin TV Show DVDs (from the BBC) I bought from the UK site. They play beautifully right out of the box. I didn't have to set it for region 0 or do any other configurations. I'm so thrilled. I just couldn't wait for NBC to get around to releasing the the show. The player has great connection options including HDMI and component. It's smaller than I expected too.

This is the most amazingly satisfying electronics product I have ever bought. The features are many and easy to learn. I especially enjoy some of the audio and video adjustment features:

Audio: DRC setting helps bring up quieter sounds while controlling loud peaks. Great for taming those annoying audio surges in 'background' music or battle scenes, etc. The Dialog feature lets you adjust the dialog perception so that you can hear the voices better over the background sounds in the soundtracks.

Video: You can adjust the Sharpness, Brightness, Contrast, Gamma, Hue, Chroma Level and BNR (block noise reduction). Each one has several levels to choose from and you get to sample it as it adjusts, so you can skip back and forth and compare the difference before you decide what to settle on.

The USB mode has great, easy to navigate menus. You can also record to your thumb drive from a CD that you are playing. There is a choice of different bit rates to do this and you can record individual tracks or all tracks. Very user-friendly menus for all these choices.

This unit has too many features to list, especially for someone like me, who is not quite fluent in tech terminology. Suffice it to say that it performs all the functions beautifully, the manual is very user-friendly and not only tells you how to adjust/change the various settings, but also explains the technical terminology in real English, so you know what those settings actually do when activated.

And if all that weren't enough, I scouted around a bit and bought the silver version (DV-610AV-S)of this unit for $30.00 less than the black one! (look for the one that ships for free with Amazon.com) Other than the color of the case, it is identical to the black one. I know, I looked them both up on Pioneer's web site and compared them point by point.

I do love the region-free feature too. But for me, this is more ho-hum, since I already owned one - a far inferior quality Philips one.

About the only thing I can think of to improve the user-friendliness of this product would be to have an alphabetized index in the manual. But, since it's only a 61 page manual, it's not such a big issue overall.

Another suggestion I would have would be to allow to record audio from DVDs also. So often, the audio track on a DVD sounds so much better than the soundtrack that is published on CD (i.e.: Brassed Off, Eyes Wide Shut), although I recognize there may be some copyright issues with that concept.

For the record: I am getting a second unit for my upstairs TV. Have I mentioned that I love it...? This is a really great product!!!

P.S.: Adding this comment on Jan. 17, 2010: I see the price difference between the black and the silver model is now up to $90.00!!! The silver one is the very same model, folks, but $ 90.00 cheaper!!! I am still just as enthused about this player as I was when I first reviewed it. I now own 2 units. Superb product!!!

For $120, there's not much more I could ask for. Actually, now that I have it, I think I would pay a little more. Design is cool, features are great, format compatibility is great, all possible outputs are available (including analog 5.1 audio). Setup is easy, but it also has many advanced functions if I want to play with them. USB input works well (subtitle font for DivX could be larger, but it's OK). Played lots of different discs/files without a single glitch (haven't tried SACD or DVD-A yet, as I don't have any). And the image quality, well, I really don't know how to describe it. Stunning might be the best word.

In summary, it does everything it should do, and it does it well (unlike the ** it has replaced, that has lots of bugs, and that **'s customer support doesn't want to hear about).

Things I like the most about it:

- Picture quality, of course.

- Saves all settings when powered down, including resolution (the ** keeps "forgetting" the output resolution).

- Allows jumping to chapters using number keys - good for concerts and demos (the ** makes me go through two menu pages to do that).

- DivX Ultra, VCD compatible (the ** also has many incompatibilities with these).

- Display shows everything I need to see (not just the time count).

- Buttons in front panel allow to operate everything without the remote.

- Multi-format, multi-region (from this seller): plays anything I throw into it.

- Design.

Things I'd like to have improved (although I already gave it 5 stars...):

- Less labels on the front panel - would make the unit look even better (cleaner).

- A display dimmer would be nice.

- Remote control could be illuminated (I use a Harmony, but for other users this might be worth noting).

Note: the unit in the picture is not the 610, it looks like the 600, which is slightly different (you can check it out on Pioneer UK's website, for example). I already told Amazon about it, but for some reason they couldn't identify the problem. Main difference is the USB port position, on the 610 it stays right beneath the display.

Edit: I found one minor glitch: sometimes the display will flicker at scene breaks, which is a bit distracting. I couldn't really notice a pattern, but it seems to happen with some discs and not with others. So I guess it's related to how the discs are authored.

The product came in its original carton. No additional package was

used. The box seemed have been opened before.

Batteries and said HDMI cable were missing from the carton.

I tried the DVD player and it is superb. It is multi-region and all promised

features are available. It can even play some of my old classic music CDs which

I thought is impossible. The HDMI enhancement is also superb and much better than the

same feature provided by my Onkyo receiver.

This made in China product is much better than other made in China product. My

original cheapy multi region dvd player's fan will sound like a train when it is

connected to my receiver. This replacement is as quite as a rock.

I do not like this seller though. The product is sold as new and it is not quite that new.

I rate the seller as 3 star. It reacted to my purchase order pretty fast.

This player allows me at last to watch DVDs from the UK and Australia that I have wanted to see for years: Blackpool (UK) and Games(Australia). Furthermore, it is so easy to use-just plug and play. Picture quality and sound quality are outstanding. To me, it would be worth twice the price I paid for it. Can't recommend it more highly.