Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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67 of 70 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Finally a great DVD player that plays DivX, June 8, 2007
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.
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30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
User friendly with lots of custom settings., August 2, 2007
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).
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36 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good overall DVD player, some problems, February 13, 2008
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.
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