Almost mistook it for a pizza box. Doh!
Written: Dec 04 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Slime design; great picture & movie sound quality; Easy-to Use.
Cons: Poor CD-playback; remote could be nicer.
The Bottom Line: If the CD play setback was improved; a flawless player. If only.
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| MichaelHatton's Full Review: Pioneer DV-444 DVD Player |
Pioneer DV-444
£279 DVD-V Player
Pioneer sees this as a novelty item, for it’s roughly half the normal height of DVD players. Standing roughly 5½ cm tall, it has a low centre of gravity, and so better performance. Not true.
Everything these days have become smaller, and it was only a matter of time before the wives of the designers got on their backs so much the change had to be made in DVD-players. Not that it will make much difference though. The design, really, is this way because of the limited space some people have fitting VCR’s satellite boxes and other stuff under the usual twin shelf rack under the next-gen TVs.
Looking like a rectangular pizza box the unit has some slim-counter parts, such as the re-arranged display window which now goes over to the right, and the slim buttons underneath; no jog buttons and whatnot. The design is symmetrical and very neatly finished. The brushed aluminium effect eschews the norm at this price. And it comes in the black/silver variation, like many AV stuff these days.
The remote, which is quite boring with good button placement and solid construction, holds all the detailed settings and menu cursor buttons leaving the fascia and its seven buttons in peace. Pioneer have rarely changed the style of their systems since ages ago, I still have a Pioneer Midi System from the late 80’s with similar styling found on the DV-444.
Around to the butt part of the 444 holds some clustered bits & bobs. Noticing a single Scart “RGB Video Output” from the front it says, a set of RCA stereo sockets, a couple of digital outputs (both kinds; optical & coaxial), and finally the usual S-Video & Composite video sockets. Not to mention a control socket for Pioneer equipment. Since there’s no component outputs, Progressive Scan is out of the window, and for you Plasma or Projector owners this means you’ll have to make do with the S-Video connection.
Internally the 444 has been riddled with novel inclusions, like CD-R/RW replay from a dual focused laser mechanism, and will play MPEG3 files compiled on CD-R/RW’s. Since it’s Pioneer it comes set to play Region 2 (UK) digital versatile discs only, depending where you buy it of course. You can find a “chipped” DV-444 on the net for around £160, taking into account its Registered retail price of £300, that’s not bad.
For tuning and improving, the 444 comes standard with loads of picture tweaks, image sharpening, contrast/brightness control, but out of the box it runs very well without a doubt. With good overall contrast, except for really black textures, and very good colour separation, detail and definition are most impressive. Even on a pretty old Sony VEGA TV it looks good. I hooked it up to a Toshiba LCD projector, and it was better, still RGB scart is much preferred if you can use it. It’s also likely that you can hook it up to modern Plasma screens which have scart, or you could use S-Video. Yet the picture performance remains highly impressive for the low-price. I’d say it was a natural and balanced presentation.
As for sound, well, it’s a little hit & miss. For movies it’s pretty flawless, but for CD’s it won’t rock your world. It doesn’t have on board decoding, but give remarkable stereo separation and detail on DVD-V. When connected in full 5.1 sounds it brings high levels of ambience and dynamic levels, for this price. Panning and position was absolute, and detail – while no match for CD was good. The deep and spooky music on House On Haunted Hill can through with real personality. The eerie echoes and atmospherics were also enjoyable. As for action, the gut-wrenching pace in some of the scenes in The Sixth Day we well dramatized and focused, the gun-plasma shots were remarkably quick.
The tower of power soon comes crashing down, as with CD the 444, is not exactly great. It would be cruel to expect typical £100 CD player comparison but this comes close to a little mini system. The effort in improving this sector are in the spec sheet, a high speed 192kHz/24bit DAC is no guarantee of great sound. This DAC is also used for stereo DVD-V replay, and is why it’s better to use an external DAC (ie in a receiver) than the stereo one, plus you also get the extra four channels. From the moment a great CD is put in it becomes obvious a DVD-V player won’t do your CD collection justice. With a bright and thin CD like the latest from Jamiroquai, the sound is hard, clustered and badly timed.
Out of numerous positives the main area the 444’s clean streak comes to a close is with CDs. However with the excellent picture, classy DVD-V sounds and good spec sheet the Pioneer offers and intelligent and convenient option for consumers. From the stylish solid casework to the easy menu systems, this has a fine sleek silver lining, and it isn’t only on the bottom.
Film Video ●●●●●
Film Sound ●●●●●
Music Sound ●●●○○
Build Quality ●●●●○
Overall: ●●●●○
Images:
http://www.techtronics.com/uk/images/dvd/pioneer-dv-444-s-X.jpg
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): £170$238
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MichaelHatton
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Location: Darlington, England
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