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Review 1 of 3
Price Paid:
$1200.00
from Magnolia HiFi 1999 Summary:
My experience with this unit has been extraordinarily satifying. Besides the ease of use and convenience, which made it worth the money, is the fact that the picture is better than most progressive scan units. BONUS! I had recently purchase one of the new Mustang 2 DLP chip televisions. When I watched some sample movies in the store I was happy with the picture. When I hooked it up to my DV-F07, it was pristine! I had been researching a new DVD player to augment this unit. Now I have all but stopped that search. The fact that you have 3 set modes and 3 programable video settings that adjust sharpness, detail, gamma, chroma delay...., is so comforting. Because DVDs vary in quality, and because my DLP HDTV exposes and ampifies poor product, this feature is essential. Because this unit is one of the Elite line from Pioneer, it has all of the usual refinements and quality you'd expect. It has every kind of input and output and can even be used and a AV pass through if you have a receiver that has all of its sources used. Moreover, its circuitry increased the quality of the AV signals that passed through it.
The menu driven selection capability blows my guests away, although it is a little dated. I have my dvds organized by genre. So I just ask my guests what type of selection they prefer, I just toggle through the ten catagories the Elite allows. What are you in the mood for?...action, drama, horror, scifi, war/documentary, comedy, animation, martial arts, porn... whatever. Then I select it and there is the list for that genre. We don't have to get up. We don't have to look for the DVD in its case on some wall rack. We don't have to put the dvd in and then go sitdown. I don't have to clean or descratch them because they are not exposed to the elements. ARE YOU STARTING TO GET IT? The unit has the most attractive and refined appearance of any I have yet seen. It even allows for that rental or borrowed dvd by have the +1 slot. Does any body own the Lord of the Rings Director's Edition, with all of the edited out scenes that are split onto two disks (not to mention the extras on the other two disks)? This unit goes from disk1 right to the next with only a few seconds of delay. Again, I did not have to get up, turn on the lights etc... I have to state again that the picture quality is better than most of the newest progressive scan players have demo'd.
The only thing I have not tried is the Master/Slave function that allows the daisy chaining of two units together to function as one. Now that the prices are low enough, and now that I have filled the player with nearly 300 movies, I think will use that function. I was hoping that Pioneer would have newer version or that they would have offered new graphical user interface to bring it into the new century. I bet however, that they did sell as many of the units they expected. A contact of mine has said that they don't plan on producing a new one. I think that this unfortunate. I believe that this component was ahead of its time. I think it came out before people came to realize what dvd had to offer. The cost, I am sure made it that much more undesirable. Strengths:
Menu driven, video adjustment options, quality of AV, AV pass through, ease of use, and its a NON-Labor of Love. Weaknesses:
Outdated look to graphical user interface, I wish it could be connected to a computer or the internet movies database that would allow for review of each dvd. Similar Products Used:
Sony multi dvd player, several progressive scan units under $600.
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