Picture & Sound.

Setup menu not very user friendly or pretty. But then who cares!

I had bought the Sony DVPS306 & Hitachi DVP305U before I bought the Pioneer 333. The Pioneer by far beats the Sony and Hitachi. The Sony had great sound but a soft, even blury picture. The Hitachi had an over all bad, pixelated picture. The Pioneer I am really really happy with.

Similar Products Used:

Sony DVPS306 & Hitachi DVP305U

It does plays everything.

cheaply build.
the one I bought was defective.

Bought the pioneer dv333 at Future Shop in Canada. It cost me about $450 cdn with the extra warranty. I own it for about three weeks then I brought it back. Why? Because it's broken. The first movie I watch on it worked fine, I was very impress with the video quality and all my vcds worked fine too. After a couple of days I start to notice white flickers and stripes started to appear on the screen. Its not Macrovision because I don't even have a VCR hook up to it. It's not my TV because it worked fine for 1-2 days. When I first notice this problem, there were only stripes on screen once every few minutes. On the third week, the video is unwatchable. So I took it back for an exchange. Because they don't have any DV333 left in stock they had to order one in for me. But now I'm not so sure if I still wants a DV333. Maybe is just my bad luck that I'm 1/100 that got the bad player.

Similar Products Used:

none

Picture quality, sound

Remote, cheap construction

As a few other reviewers mentioned, I was very happy when I brought this player home as it was my first DVD player and it worked great. I played about 20-25 discs through it without a problem, listened to CD's etc. But right about the 3 month point I also noticed that the motor was getting a bit louder as it played, and discs started freezing, becoming distorted, etc. The first time it did this I removed the disc gave it a good cleaning and it made it through the bad part...so I thought just a dirty disc. Then it happened a couple of more times and finally in the middle of MI-2 it just became unwatchable. The disc did have some minor scratches, but I went and tried it on my computer DVD-ROM with no problems so I assumed it was the player. It is currently undergoing warranty repair where its been for 2 weeks now...they are waiting for parts. In the meantime I did some more research and took a chance on a Sony-DVP-S360. So far so good...it blasted through the same troublesome MI-2 disc no problem and overall I think the picture and sound quality are better along with some added features such as a much better remote. I have always been a big fan of Pioneer and had a number of their products without any major problems..in fact the heart of my system is a Pioneer Elite VSX-24 receiver which I bought at the same time as the DV-333. I think that being their entry level player, maybe they haven't paid as much attention to details as they should given the number of reviews I have read where people have had problems...if you get working player, I think it is great for the money but I am concerned about reliability with this one.

Similar Products Used:

Sony DVP-S360

It plays everthing I have tried (DVD, Video-CDR, Music CDs, Music CDRs). Very flexible and easy to setup. Excellent Video and Audio quality (note: it is important to set the audio sampling rate correctly for good audio CD sound quality).

I have watched several DVDs, including Matrix, and only noticed very short pause, during which my Sony 333ES momentarily got "confused" (switched audio modes and back), during a scene change in the movie "28 days". It was so short, I almost missed it.
The remote control only works for the DVD player. This make my wife mad, especially because I can't get any of the other multi-function controllers to work with the player. It would be nice to at least be able to control volume for the DVD controller.

Picture quality is very good. The unit is very light, but who cares about that? I have not notice any tray noise coming from the unit (it is in a semi-enclosed cabinet). The display lights on the front don't bother me because the unit is situated about 2 meters to the left of the TV. Audio CDs sounded a little bright at first, but I had the sampling rate set to high at 96k, my reciever only can handle 48k. The good news is that it is easy to make this adjustment (it took me a while to sort through the poor Sony documentation to figure out what it is capable of). I am now hearing source material I never knew existed, wow.

System:
Sony STR-DA333ES
Sony KV-27FV15
Custom built Altec Lansing studio monitors (main)
Sony Center channel and rear channel speakers
Pioneer DV-333

Similar Products Used:

Sony S300, S330, S360

This DVD player is a great buy for the money-

The Good:
-It's very fast, when you press play, it plays and seeks quickly.
-The transport seems quite sturdy and reliable.
-The video and audio qualitiy are outstanding, noticeably improved over my Panasonic DVD player.
-The on screen settings menu is easy to use and understand.
-You can customize the background color for the onscreen displays from either blue to black. I chose black, it looks neat.
-It plays CD-Rs quite well!
-The price is right!

The Bad:
-The unit seems very light and cheap. That's not nessarily bad, if it proves to serve well and be reliable in the long run.
-On a very few DVDs, the transport makes a slight whurring noise. This is a common complaint of this DVD Player and the Toshiba SD-1200. I only notice it on one of my DVDs (Taxi Driver). Maybe it is due to a slightly warped DVD or one with a thick label? I'm not reallly sure. On most of my other DVDs, it makes hardly any sound at all and is quite wonderful. This is a common complaint of the Toshiba SD-1200 model as well. In fact, the Toshiba may be worse in this respect since everyone seems to complain about it on the Toshiba.
-No display dimming.
-It only has one set of analog audio outputs (in addition to digital).
-The remote could be better (wish it was lit), but it's not as bad as some others like my old Panasonic one.

In all, I have used and trusted Pioneer for years. I used Pioneer laserdisc players and have never had a single problem. And, I trust their DVD player's reliability more than any other brand.

For the little money this model costs, you will get professional super high quality, which makes this unit a real gem. You could spend over twice as much and have worse performance!

Excellent Video & Sound reproduction !
Why Spend More For a DVD Player ?
MSRP is $ 299 I paid $ 165.00 WHAT A DEAL !!

NONE ** NONE *** Yea the remote is not lighted but who care?

This DVD player is a great buy for the money:

It's very fast, when you press play, it plays and seeks quickly.

The video and audio qualitiy are outstanding, noticeably improved over my Panasonic DVD player.

I used Pioneer laserdisc players and have never had a single problem. I trust their DVD player's reliability more than any other brand. I only bought a Panasonic last year
because of the Karaoke feature. The KD-520 sucks and does
not play CDR's ** This dog cost me $ 550 bucks and I sold
it recently for $ 250 ** See yea !!

Buy this Pioneer model and you will be VERY HAPPY !!!

Similar Products Used:

Panasonic DVD KD520 (WEAK) Does not even play CDR's

Plays anything you can throw at it. CD-R, CD-RW, VideoCD, DVD, etc.

Remote control that comes with it.

I bought this unit modified with Country Codes disabled and Macrovision disabled. This bumped the price up but I think it was worth it. Without these modifications you can get it dirt cheap. I was interested in an IR remote controlled DVD/CD player to replace an old wired-remote CD player and to add DVD to my home theater. This single unit does it all. Most important to me was the ability to handle CD-R and CD-RW disks as I've had very little success in finding home equipment that will play a CD-RW audio CD. This unit plays VideoCDs, DVDs, Audio CDs, CD-R and CD-RW flawlessly. The only downside is the remote, which I don't use anyway, I use a Sony programmable remote instead.

Similar Products Used:

None

Great picture, plays CD-R and VCDs, S-video and component outputs

Buttons on the remote are tiny!

I love this player! The picture quality is great, especially with the S-video connection. Although the DV-333 has a set of standard RCA composite outputs, pay the extra cash for a good set of S-video cables if your TV can handle it. It really makes a difference. The DV-333 also has a set of component outputs, but my TV doesn't support them. I can't wait to try it out once I save up enough money for a new TV.

The player supports both Dolby Digital and DTS (both optical and standard digital outputs), but I don't have a surround sound reciever (yet!) so I haven't gotten to try them out. I could have gotten a Sony for about the same price with a built in Dolby Digital decoder but: 1) I read the reviews here and I was discouraged, 2) I figured a stand alone decoder/reciever is going to be of better quality than one built into a $250 player.

The coolest feature is the "last memory" and "disc condition" functions that basically remembers where you left of and how you everything was set up even if you remove the DVD and play something else and come back to the original DVD later. You just press a button on the remote. It can store the conditions of a few discs at once so that's pretty handy.

The worst part of the player is the remote. The remote is pretty small, and the buttons are about the size of Tic-Tacs. It's kinda cumbersome to use.

The fast forward and reverse are not smooth and instead really jerky. The weird thing is that if you leave the button pressed for more than a few seconds, even if you let go, it keeps on fast forwarding or reversing. If you only press if for a few seconds, it will return to play when you let go. I wish it were one way or the other. It's confusing because it's so unpredictable which it will do. My roommate has the same problem with his DV-525.

I agree with the other reviewers when they say the player feels kinda cheap. I guess this comes from the fact that it is really light for its size. There's a lot of hollow space in the case, but I guess that's good becuase it'll probably keep the unit relatively cool. Also the unit looks really plain, and initially I was kinda disappointed, but I've grown to like it. It's sort of simple-cool.

Well, The DV-333 does't have a lot of the bells and whistles that other players might have (ie zoom, fancy display, dolby digital decoder, etc,) but for the $250 I payed, I'm very happy. It has played every single DVD I've put in it, including scratched rental DVDs and those "problem" DVDs like the Matrix.

Similar Products Used:

Roommate's Pioneer DV-525

Outstanding DVD Home Theater & CD Music

On occasion you can hear it spinning the disk

I spoke to a lot of salespeople about DVD players and checked the reviews here before selecting this unit. Everyone spoke of it as best quality for it's price range. So far I am very happy with this unit. I just rented U-571 and I could not believe how good it sounded. When I popped a regular CD in it for the first time I immediately noticed that it played the CD much crisper and clearer than my old Onkyo CD player - that I had been happy with. That was really a nice surprise. I paid $250.00 for mine, but later I saw the same unit on sale for about $220.00 at the Price Club/Costco. If this thing continues at it's current performance level for the next 5 to 10 years, I'll be really happy. It only has one drawer, but that is no big deal to me.

Similar Products Used:

None - this is my first DVD Player

Great picture quality; component video outputs; plays CD-R/RW's; fast loading; affordable

Scanning is a little jumpy; slightly noisy tray (minor weaknesses)

The DV-333 is one of those players that will play any disc with any special features flawlessly. All of the special features on The Matrix, Conan The Barbarian Collector's Edition, Man on the Moon and The Abyss work exactly as they should. Layer changes cannot be detected...there is no pause. CD-Rs and CD-RWs work perfectly and sound great.

As with most 2000 DVD players, the 333 has component video outputs for better video quality on newer widescreen TVs. Right now I'm using composite cables, but the picture quality is still pretty good.

The scanning is not very smooth like the Sony models, but it gets the job done. There are a few improvements over the 525, such as 30% faster loading and 50% faster play resuming. I guess the drive mechanism or firmware was upgraded. I recommend this product to anyone looking for a good quality, affordable DVD player.

Similar Products Used:

Pioneer DV-525, Sony DVP-S330