Crystal clear.
Written: Apr 20 '02
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Pros: One of the best at his price, good simple design, great picture, easy set-up.
Cons: The remote is an ergonomic nightmare, especially in the dark.
The Bottom Line: An excellent first player for all discerning buyers on a budget. Simple design, fast operation, razor sharp picture, variety of out-puts, plays all zones and most media.
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| chocolateelvis's Full Review: Pioneer DV-343 DVD Player |
A follow-up on the 535 model, the player is pleasantly simple and solid looking - it has that understated, chunky, black appearance as if it was a top piece of British Hi-Fi gear. Certainly not a head-turner as such, which is quite refreshing amongst the flood of "Internet age" boxes with zillions of knobs and buttons, fake glass and technicolor displays with dolphins swimming on it. This is the kind of quiet quality that a lot of people overlook - especially those folks that leave all the brand marketing stickers on their gear and buy for the envy of their friends and not for their own enjoyment.
All that aside - it just loads the DVD and gets on with it without delays, no matter what DVD Zone you feed it. Connected just with an S-Video cable the picture in a standard mode (there is also a cinema version for higher contrast effect) on a late model Sony TV was absolutely sharp and clear without any pixilation or distortion during fast movements. Scanning and pause also clear, low light color contrasts are excellent.
The sound-scape too is clearly defined and rich (Dolby 5.1) and although it couldn't (in CD mode) compete with my $1000 CD player, the sound was excellent and it could easily satisfy someone with a reasonably good Hi-Fi music gear as an all-in-one DVD/CD player. In that case it could however benefit from more than one RCA audio output. It also plays 700Mb CDR-W's without any problems
"It can't all be superb at this price," said the accountants at Pioneer and ordered the R&D department to make the remote as bad as they could, in order to offset the player's overall excellent features. And it happened.
It's not that the buttons are confusing or something, the main problem is that they are all the same size - microscopically tiny (for the Japanese?). Even my girlfriend with her delicate hands complained. If only the buttons that one uses the most were a little bigger and clearly separated from the others. Kids, do not try this in the dark!
Once you got your tweezers out, the set-up is as easy as it can be, in the basic mode there are only 3 steps and - done! Simple enough even for those of you, who bought a VCR with a G-code and still can't figure-out how to record Jerry Springer while watching Info-mercials.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 190
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Epinions.com ID:
chocolateelvis
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Reviews written: 1
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