written by Cave Homme. on 20/01/2003
I spent a good few months researching and physically seeing many DVD players. Looking for something inexpensive (don't want to invest a lot in something that may be outdated in 2-3 years due to fast rate of technology change), yet needs to be of good quality in the meantime. To cut a long story short, ended up buying the Pioneer 350 multizone version over Christmas. Tested various the following DVDs via a Sony TV, the most recent being:- 1. Lord of the Rings 2. Harry Potter 3. Spiderman 4. Jethro Tull Some brief feedback of what I experienced, Film #1: the original 3 hour film on one DVD produced some occasional and slight blocks instead of a fine, gradient sky, for example. I thought that was the DVD player but realised this is down to quality of decoding / compression used. How? Well, the next version of this film, 3 1/2 hours long over 2 DVDs does not suffer from this, so they were trying to cram in too much information in to on to one disc, compressed it and lowered the quality in my opinion. Both other films, excellent quality, especially Spiderman ' flying' scenes. No degradation. Jethro, well, superb audio quality. All of them change layer without me noticing a thing, except ever so slight on just one occasion. Then tried my music CDs on the 350, outputted to my pretty decent audio hi-fi amplifier's CD input (as opposed to DVD). Made me very quickly retire my Marantz CD component, the Pioneer was that much more precise in details and actually controls a previously 'wallowing'and soft bass I got through the Marantz. Very surprising turn of events, but the difference is clearly there on my system / room's acoustics. So I hope to give it some heavy use over the next 2-3 years, and then it will be the next progressive, DVD-A, blah, blah, that will be the thing to buy then, perhaps a descendant of my excellent little Pioneer 350 ? (and no, I don't work for Pioneer, don't know anyone who does, never bought anything from them before, but many years ago acquired some old budget speakers from someone, and was not especially impressed but were ' OK')
written by mudstuff. on 02/12/2002
The dv350 is a great piece of kit. The first dvd player i had was a Pioneer over 4 years ago. I sold this to a friend and it is still going strong and playing ALL dvds, even RCEs, which his Sony F-11 did not! Next in line was a Sony DAV-S300 as i wanted full 5.1 in a sleek little all-in-one unit. However, the Sony lacked power and i decided to go the whole hog on the home cinema front - I am a film production undergraduate. I therefore, bought a good reciever - Sony STR-DB940, a good tele Sony KV-32FX60 etc. The one thing lacking however, was a quality dvd player, the ideal parter being the Arcam DV88. However, this is £1000 and though i have had the money for it three times, there have always been more important things and it has been put off - Rent, bills etc! So all this time i have been using an old grunding player that i bought for my girlfriend years ago - she now has my old Sony DAV-S300. The cables in the back of this machine almost cost more!! - A reference coaxial interconnect from QED and the limited edition QED Sqart, both costing around £60 each. So, my point (EVENTUALLY!) is that this is to finally replace the crusty old grundig which has been the weak link in my £5000 system for too long with this stunning Pioneer model. This is a step up until i get the Arcam, if i ever get the money to spare. Basically, all you need to know about the player is the rating and the details in the GOOD POINTS section. Picture quality is as good as the pioneer i had years ago, sound through my reference cables to the reciever is first rate with a fast attack and finally a good dvd player that plays all video types and mp3s. For a dvd player, i wouldn't go for anything except Pioneer (unless i had a grand for an Arcam), just like i would never buy a vcr that wasn't made by JVC. Quite simply because, they are the best! If you buy this machine, you will not be disappointed - hopefully throughout this review-come-mini-saga you have learnt that i obviously know about the technology and can therefore be trusted when i say something is GOOD. Thanks for reading (",)
Written on: 07/01/2004
DanT, its impossible to know if a player is multiregion or not without trying other region discs!
<br>
<br>Did you buy it off the high street? If its from dixons etc then it will be region 2.
<br>
<br>If it was from an independant, video store or off the internet, chances are that it could be.
<br>
<br>Find out where it was purchased from and contact them if it is not immediately obvious.
Written on: 05/01/2004
Can anyone tell me how I check whether or not my 350 is multi-region without actually testing a region 1 disc?
Written on: 18/09/2003
Purecult, it sounds like neither of the tvs are NTSC compatible and that the pioneer does not down-convert the signal to PAL.
<br>
<br>Basically, get yourself a convertor or buy a new TV!
<br>
<br>As for copies not working, they are probably in the wrong format or something - ie if they are divx they would obviously not work as the machine does not decode these
Written on: 04/09/2003
Hi,
<br>I have one of these(multiregional) dvds but I am having a problem playing region1 discs and copied ones.Firstly on my sanyo tv which is about 8 years old it only plays in b+w. If I try it on a brand new portable ,toshiba, a copied dvd starts off in colour the goes to b+w and a r1 disc just plays b+w. Any ideas?
Written on: 09/07/2003
Hi matt, have you checked the region of the disc or capabilities of your tv? If you have a multiregion version of the player and have region 2 films, they will naturally play fine on a PAL tv. The pioneer does not downsample to NTSC however, so it could be that this dvd is american and your tv is not multistandard.
<br>
<br>Also, some region 2 dvds are NTSC stangely.
<br>Check what your tv is and what the dvd is and get back to me here if you like.
Written on: 06/07/2003
The DV-350 is indeed a fine piece of machinery and looks pretty good too! I have, however, a problem which I hope you may be able to help with. It refuses to play a particular dvd in colour even though it plays on my friend's player just fine. All my other dvds play as they should, just not this one. Any ideas?
Written on: 16/05/2003
I agree, for what you pay the DV350 is an excellent player. It has CO-AX digital out which is every bit as good. If you think of it, an optical interconnect has to do the following
<br>1 convert electrical signal to light
<br>2 send the light via a "pipe to the reciever
<br>3 the reciever converts the light back to an electrical signal
<br>Using a co-ax means there is no need for electrical-optical conversion
<br>For those of you who want to disable the macrovision you can get a hardware solution. I have built a box years ago to do this (I am an electronic eng)
<br>for my VCR. You can buy these off the shelf from someone like www.maplin.co.uk (they may be marketed as video restorers)
<br>One think I would dislike is the display only shows the first 8 characters of the song title I would have liked a scrolling display This means that navigating an MP3 disk is awkard without having the TV on
<br>
Written on: 03/02/2003
Hi Lion.
There are millions of ways to convert DVD to avi, svcd, mpeg1+2 etc.
To convert avi to svcd to test the pioneer, i simply used a small 2 minute video clip and converted it using burning software such as nero or instant cd+dvd. If you go to create a svcd in these programs, it will convert the file for you before burning to cd/dvd.
If i was doing films, i use software such as TMPEnc, DVD2AVI, Flask Mpeg etc.
Search for these online and search for tutorials. And remember, do not copy DVD's etc unless you own the film yourself. Copying films and selling them is illegal.
Written on: 31/01/2003
Mudstuff. How did you convert an avi file into svcd? Please can you tell me the instructions.
Written on: 05/01/2003
Hi. The Pioneer does indeed play SVCD. I burned an avi to SVCD and it worked fine on CD,CDRW and DVD formats.
There is not an optical output, no. How would a lack of optical output affect the results?? Not sure what you mean here Robert. The Pioneer features a coaxial digital output which is my preferred type - generally, coaxial cables are a lot better than optical.
As for Mark, the DVD player was purchased from Amazon for £199.99
Written on: 02/01/2003
I am planning to buy a dvd player and have been looking around for a good one that plays dvd-r and dvd -rw does it play them? How much did you pay for it and where did you get it from. I am also looking for a tv to play it on which has to have pal and the ntsc capability does yours if so could tell me where and how much was that too. Thank you very much. All this looking is giving me a head ache. cheers
Written on: 01/01/2003
Hi Mudstuff !
<br>What is the status now, can you play S-VCD allready and can you explain how you did it ?
<br>I see on other reviews a comment it hasn't have an optical out, does this effect the results in any way ?
<br>Thanks
Written on: 05/12/2002
Right on.
Eventually
Written on: 05/12/2002
You are quite right ty, i got carried away!
Macrovision is enabled and the machine does not downconvert except to PAL60hz.
I have a mulitstandard tv which is 100hz so i have no problems playing back different video standards.
To the general public, to which this £120 dvd player is going to appeal, i believe i covered the strengths of the player in the good points section.
You can burn mp3s as a data cd as opposed to a normal cd, therefore having hours of music on one cd - the pioneer only plays the first 250 mp3 tracks on a cd though.
Multiregion is automatic and i have had no problems and have tested several region 1 and 2 videos. I have also burnt films to vcd which also play fine. I am in the process of converting an avi to svcd to see if it plays those. Hope this helps and is more technical for you. Any q's, let me know. (",)
written by Chalky. on 27/08/2002
An elegant and stylish piece of kit, the Pioneer DVD 350 is a snip at the price. It comes with a range of functions which would normally put it into a much higher price bracket and once you've seen it and used it a few times you will be hooked. Go out and get it today - don't waste your money on inferior supermarket 'bargains'!
written by Rigpig. on 09/08/2002
This machine is well worth the £150.00 I paid for it it has played every format of disk that I tried without so much as a glitch it's packed with features and as an added bonus it's great to look at and most people would think it was in the £300 + bracket.
Disks that I've tried
VCD
SVCD
DVD-R
Mp3
DVD's from regions 1,2,3 and 4
RCE disks no problem and all region switching is automatic.
Why pay for an inferior "supermarket special" when this is only a few pounds more?
Do you have a question about this product or company? Simply type it in the box below and one of our community will give you an answer
Once we've checked over your question we will put it live on the site and our strong community of experts will hopefully give you some great answers that you find useful.
We will email you when the question is on the site
55668_Ty.'s Response to mudstuff.'s Review
Written on: 04/12/2002
life story but very little useful information.
does it output to pal from ntsc?,
can you disable the macrovision??
for somebody who claims to be technical this review reads like a homage to pioneer and other kit he aspires to own - bit of an anorak!!