Mapleleafs3

Overall Rating
 5 of 5

Value Rating
 4 of 5

Used product for
More than 1 year

Price Paid:  $400.00

Summary:
Very good DVD player and I also use it aas a transport fed to an outboard DAC. Great versitiale unit.

Strengths:
DVD Player

Stinkpit

Overall Rating
 2 of 5

Value Rating
 3 of 5

Used product for
More than 1 year

Price Paid:  $369.00 from Ultimate Electronics

Summary:
First off this player has a good picture and generally works pretty well. It is a bit noisy, but it is not that bad and I am picky in that area. In the beggining I noticed that this DVD player was a bit picky on how a DVD is set into the player. It has to be centered just right or the machine will open up. Over time this pickiness became excessive and it would take many tries to get it to accept a DVD or CD. I took it in for service about 1 year after I purchased it to repair this issue. The repair lasted about 10 months and the pickiness returned. On the 2 year birthday I returned it for service. It has been in the repair shop for 12 weeks now. Ulitmate Electronics says that parts were ordered 10 weeks ago and they are still waiting for them. The sales people seem to be surprised that I have had such problems with Pioneer Elite so maybe this is a rare lemon. It is frustrating to buy a DVD player that is in the mid level price and higher quality that can be put to shame by a $30 P.O.S. Player. (as far as reliability and ability to digest different media types)

Strengths:
Good picture, good functionality, fair remote.

Weaknesses:
Durability, repair service time. I expect more from Pioneer Elite

Similar Products Used:
JVC, Bose, Philips, APEX, Panasonic

Price Paid:  $450.00 from Ultimate Electronics

Summary:
Before purchasing this unit, take a look at a DVD player featuring a Faroudja DCDi chip... You will be astounded how much better it looks than this player. The progressive scan processing chip in the DV-C36 in reality is pretty bad (do some searches for web sites comparing progressive scan players). For the price paid for this unit, you can find much better elsewhere.

Strengths:
This player does accept every disc format I have tried on it, including PAL-formatted discs. (The TV has to support PAL of course).

Weaknesses:
- Component output can't be used at the same time as S-Video and composite - Progressive scan chip is sub-par

Similar Products Used:
Panasonic PV72 Philips DVDR985

Price Paid:  $260.00 from Ebay - New

Summary:
I purchased this unit to go with my new Pioneer Elite VSX-41 receiver. I am very happy with it. As far as movies are concerned, the video is as near to flawless as I have seen. I am using this with a Toshiba rear projection 43" TV. I don't like it (the TV) but the Elite does a much better job with it than the SOny I owned before. Functionally, the DV-C36 is fantastic. It has flawlessly handled every format I have thrown at it; including DVD, CD, CDR, CDRW. A reference type player does make a sound quality difference! I am enjoying far more carity and "punch" of bass with this unit than my previous unit. I am running this with a VSX-41 receiver, Pioneer Elite PD-F09 CD Changer, and Pioneer Elite M72 Amplifier in stereo mode, Mirage M-890i towers for the fronts, Mirage BP150 Subwoofer, Paradigm Atoms for the rears, and Paradigm CC-170 for the center. In my opinion, you may be able to buy a DVD/CD player at Best Buy for $100, but you will never know what the movie is supposed to REALLY look like or what the music is REALLY supposed to sound like. You may wonder where I got the price listed. I did not buy this at my local dealer. He quoted me $450 for this unit. It can be found on E-Bay Brand new for $260. The drawback is your warranty is no good if you don't buy it from an authorized dealer. At that price difference, I think I will take the risk!

Strengths:
Tremendous Video Resolution Great Color rendering Format workability is flawless That "Pioneer Elite" piano black finish is beautiful.

Weaknesses:
Dealer price is too high for Elite stuff. So, I gave up the warranty.

Similar Products Used:
Sony "Best Buy" crap

Price Paid:  $340.00 from Ultimate Electronics

Summary:
Just an addendum to these very helpful reviews (which sold me on this player over the competition). I burn a lot of super video cds (SVCD), so playback of this format was very important to me. Before buying this unit I had an older, non-progressive scan Sony changer which I liked well enough for its day... but it would not play SVCDs and was even fussy about VCDs. As a compromise, I bought an Apex Ad-5131 3-disc changer. Yes, Apex is scary, but that cheap little thing ($85.00) played EVERYTHING I put into it, even video encoded with oddball bitrates. It even has component video out! No progressive scan, and the video quality wasn't up to the Sony, but for 85 bucks I wasn't going to complain much. Well, I just bought a 65" widescreen HDTV, so it's time to move into progressive scan territory. I went to Ultimate Electronics and found a very enthusiastic salesman who was willing to put up with me to try out literally every progressive scan dvd changer they had on the wall to see which ones would play my test SVCD (an episode of the tv show 'Firefly' I downloaded and burned onto a cd-r with a menu I designed). After trying out about 10 changers, only two played my SVCD properly: a Sony dvp-nc655p and this Pioneer. Some of the other players from Denon, Panasonic, etc., would play the SVCD, but the video had little jerks and hiccups. The Sony was only 200 bucks, but it has one big flaw: though it played the video just fine, it didn't play my menu! It was the only player (among the ones that worked at all) which failed to do that. My menu has 2 options: play the episode or show the cast (which I had cribbed off the Firefly website). There seemed to be no way to bring up the menu afterward or to view the other menu pages of the cast I had made. The Pioneer, as I said, worked perfectly and was the ONLY player there to work perfectly, playing the menu and the video... except for a $57.00 single-disc Apex they had... :-)

Strengths:
It plays everything I want.

Weaknesses:
Let's be realistic: why is it so expensive? The Sony 5-disc changer is only 200 dollars and worked almost as well. I was unable to do a side-by-side video comparison between the Pioneer and Sony, however. I never saw the remote so I cannot comment on it.

Similar Products Used:
Sony dvp-nc655p