Rating: 
Summary: Great Features, but poor workmanship
Review: I bought this unit over 2 years ago. It was the only unit with progressive scan at the time for 300.00. The picture is great and the motor and transport seemed quite enough not to bother me during playback of movies. I thought I bought a great unit.Enter the present. When I place a DVD in the tray, the ... thing just hangs up on "loading". IT NO LONGER PLAYS. Since it is out of warranty (1 year parts), I opened it up to look inside. Not much there. That's why it is so light. Pioneer used the cheapest circuits, components and plastic inside. Now I have to pay about 40.00 for a repair estimate from a Service Center. I will decide what to do with it depending on the repair cost. I have a feeling that I will just toss it in the trash!
Rating:
Summary: Great Features, but poor workmanship
Review: I bought this unit over 2 years ago. It was the only unit with progressive scan at the time for 300.00. The picture is great and the motor and transport seemed quite enough not to bother me during playback of movies. I thought I bought a great unit. Enter the present. When I place a DVD in the tray, the ... thing just hangs up on "loading". IT NO LONGER PLAYS. Since it is out of warranty (1 year parts), I opened it up to look inside. Not much there. That's why it is so light. Pioneer used the cheapest circuits, components and plastic inside. Now I have to pay about 40.00 for a repair estimate from a Service Center. I will decide what to do with it depending on the repair cost. I have a feeling that I will just toss it in the trash!
Rating: 
Summary: Great DVD Unit for the Price
Review: I have been looking at DVD players that could work best with my new 46in Mitsubishi HDTV. Each and evey sales person I talk to said that I would need a $400 - $700 progressive scan player to get the picture quality that I needed to support my TV. While at a local Costco store looking or other items I ran across the DV434 for $180.00. Even though it's progressive scan is not the same technology as the higher priced units IT LOOK GREAT! It has worked perfectly so far and I would recomend it to anyone who wants a great DVD unit but is on a budget.
Rating: 
Summary: Great for six months, then ...sudden death!
Review: I originally bought this player because of the value. It had a great variety of audio options and progressive scan at an unbeatable price. Indeed, it worked flawlessly for six months and played DVD, CD, SVCD, VCD discs well. The setup is comprehensive and simple. It's a bit of a lightweight, but for the price I was willing to accept a unit without "heft". The unit died without warning last week....hanging up during scene changes. I am in the process of seeing if it's worth it to repair the unit. My next purchase will be a player with better quality and a longer warranty.
Rating:
Summary: Not a good long-term buy
Review: I picked out this DVD player for my birthday in 2001, and for a year and a half there were no problems at all; it worked beautifully. Then just a year and a half later, poof! the sound quit playing. Dusting it out, replacing cables, and all that stuff had no effect; the thing is shot. Don't expect this DVD player to last you for very long.
Rating:
Summary: Not a good long-term buy
Review: I picked out this DVD player for my birthday in 2001, and for a year and a half there were no problems at all; it worked beautifully. Then just a year and a half later, poof! the sound quit playing. Dusting it out, replacing cables, and all that stuff had no effect; the thing is shot. Don't expect this DVD player to last you for very long.
Rating:
Summary: Great all around player - and progressive scan output too!
Review: I purchased this player after having seen the picture from a similar Toshiba unit, switching progressive scan output on and off to compare the difference. The progressive scan output (only available when using the component video outputs) provides a much more filmlike picture; smoother and virtually free of horizontal scan lines. The setup, when using Expert mode, allows you to tailor the display and features to your liking. There is also a "standard" setup for novice users. I compared the picture with this Pioneer to my Panasonic A-310 and I must say the Pioneer unit, even when not using progressive scan out, provided a cleared picture with better overall quality, especially when displaying dimly lit scenes. A fantactic bargain at the Amazon price (I paid $349 on sale!).
Rating:
Summary: Standard Panasonic Quality? Apparently so...
Review: I unfortunately purchased one of these units. Unlike my Creative Labs PC-DVD player the unit had some serious flaws. The unit emits mechanical noise during playback. Usually this is mediocre, but when playing some DVDs (such as Godfather part 2) the motor assembly emits an extremely loud whining sound. This seems par for the course with Panasonic products, as a CD player I owned by them had the same problem with some CDs. Additionally the unit puts a fuzzy light colored vertical bar along the right side of the television set. This flaw is quite obvious when the scene on screen is composed of whiter colors. This DVD player would be a 4 star product if it werent for these glaring flaws. Loud mechanically generated noise during playback is unforgiveable in a modern product. The display glitch can also be quite distracting once you notice it.
Rating:
Summary: Great! even though it's not supposed to be true Progressive
Review: I was very hesitant to buy this player because I had read that the progressive scan in this model is not "true" progressive scan, instead it's line doubling. But for the price I figured I could use it in the bedroom if I had to buy a "real" progressive scan in the future. When I got it home and hooked it up to my Toshiba 43HX70 I was extremely impressed with the picture quality, it looked like HDTV to me. It looks great, the picture is so crisp and clean! I wouldn't spend the money for a "real" progressive scan (Harman Kardon DV5, Toshiba SD-6200 were the ones I was considering) at this point, I don't think most humans could tell the difference. I've only watched 5 movies on it though, but I am extremely happy I didn't spend the extra money.
Rating:
Summary: Not a good choice...
Review: I've had this DVD player for only 2 months, so it is fairly new. One minute the DVD is playing good the next it is muted. It does this off and on with every DVD I have. The company is unwilling to help. You shouldn't waste your time with this product.
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