Pioneer DV525 DVD Player

Rating:
Summary: The importance of being earnest
Review: The most important consideration in buying a DVD player for me is the colour. What you don't want when you have a black Sony television with matching black video player is a silver DVD player sitting underneath it. That is a bummer. When you're facing it in the chair it ruins the whole look. My mum says it's something to do with Feng Shui. But let's leave the Dutch out of this. I know about aesthetics and it just looks plain screwy when you're sitting there and something ruins the whole tech look of the piece. It makes you look like a cheap bastard. Do I look like a cheap bastard? That's a rhetorical question by the way, you don't have to answer it. Anyway, the problem is solved by buying a black DVD player. Now everything matches. Apart from the name 'Pioneer' which I was forced to scratch off. So I was sitting there admiring my new DVD player when my mum comes into the room and points out the gap between the video recorder and the DVD player. A big gap. The gap looks big because the 'Pioneer' DVD player is thin and the video player is fat. It's a disparity that wouldn't be there if the DVD player was fatter and the video thinner. Anyway, she says the gap is so not Feng Shui. I don't want to hear it. I keep her around to buy me DVD's, not go on and on about Holland. It does bother me, though, so there's definately something in this Feng Shui lark. Anyway, I sent her out of the room to iron some of my shirts so I could check out some DVD's on my new player.

Now for the picture quality. Well, the trouble with a daylight scene, is it ruins the general blackness of the unit if there's a streak of white in the middle of the television. It's not such a problem with a film like 'Count Yorga, Vampire', which has a lot of nighttime scenes. With 'The Phantom Menace' there are a lot of scenes set in the desert which you know is very bright. So I didn't purchase that particular DVD. I mostly just watch vampire movies. I stick to wide screen DVD's because that cuts down the amount of distracting white ruining your unit because it has black borders. I won't get a widescreen television because it illiminates that extra black. They're called anamorphic DVD's. I originally thought that meant something changing into something else (hopefully black) but it doesn't. It's to do with distortion. I'm getting more technically minded every day and now I know what's important. The film 'Pitch Black', for instance.

I wish in some ways I had bought a Sony DVD player because some models allegedly have a problem with a sign cropping up saying 'No Disk' or 'Dirty Disk' which then causes the player to refuse to play anything. This is great because it solves the problem of white on the screen by leaving you with a totally black screen and hence a totally black unit. But there's a draw back to all new technology and unfortunately mine has no 'No Disk' sign. Well, it does if you genuinely don't have a disk to put in.

The picture is sharp and the owls and bats look good. I've painted some cardboard black and stuck it behind the television thus covering the gap between the video and DVD, thus solving the Feng Shui problem. I'm very happy with this player and I think the whole unit looks very good now. Really cool and black.

But why is the remote grey?

Rating:
Summary: Skips and Glitches
Review: This is a nice DVD player but about 1 out of 5 DVD movies are starting to skip and stutter, this is after these same movies played just fine on my roommates Toshiba player! Cleaning the DVD doesn't help and the discs look fine. Too bad...I hate taking things back to the store, but I've no other choice.

Rating:
Summary: What else could you need?
Review: This is a relatively cheap DVD player with all of the basic options that you need: letterbox V.S. pan-n-scan, Different dolby outputs: DTS v.s. 5.1, and a well thought out remote control. I love this thing.

Rating:
Summary: No VCD or DVD+R support
Review: This is a very dissapointing unit. The error correction is lousy.
If your CD is lightly scratched you are out of luck with this player.
It does not support VCD's (they say they did on the manual).
Also no support for DVD+R.

Rating:
Summary: Not so good
Review: This model is probably based on 505/515 - i heard it - sound quality just isn't good enough. It's not deep and detailed enough. Video performance and features are good. But if you're planing to hear CD's on it - forget it and take something else like Toshiba or Yamaha. You can check Pioneer 717, Sony 7700 which are superb or Kenwoods - but all of them are more expensive. Don't try to save 50-70 bucks because you'll regret.

Rating:
Summary: Sound better that it looks
Review: This player has advanced picture and sound quality for its price. It out performs JVC and Toshiba in the mid-low price market because it has higher picture resolution and better sound. It is certainly true in this case that a mid-price DVD player can sound better than some pricier CD players (I am comparing it to Nakamichi SS-8b). Only some audio specialist brands like Rotel and NAD have CD players that sounds better than this DVD mechine. The remote is adquate, but not great. I examined the components inside the player and found that the design is very clean and economical, and the quality of this player is better than how it looks from the outside.

Rating:
Summary: IT'S GREAT JUST LIKE THE OTHER HIGH PRICED ONES.
Review: THIS THING IS GREAT. IT HAS GREAT PICTURE QUALITY AND GREAT SOUND QUALITY. IT HAS A LOT OF FEATURES AT A GREAT PRICE. ALSO PIONEER IS A GREAT NAME. YOU WONT BE DISSOPOINTED IF YOU BOUGHT THIS DVD PLAYER.

Rating:
Summary: Pioneer DV525 DVD Player
Review: Top notch for the price. Although I found this for less elsewhere on-line, gave Amazon the order. It arrived in two days. Easy installation. Great picture. Great sound. A little light on the instructions. The on-screen command icons not as intuitive as I'd like. Overall, a good buy.

Rating:
Summary: Glad I bought it.
Review: Very good picture and great sound. I've had it for several months now and no mechanical problems so far. It actually plays my audio CD's better than my normal CD player. It had many standard features compared to the other DVD players I looked at.

Only thing I didn't like about it was the awful remote control with it's small, badly organized buttons (although I noticed recently in the store that this model now has a better remote). Also, the spinning of the drive is a bit loud. It was noticable during the quiet parts of a movie. Overall, I still think I made a good decision buying this player.

Rating:
Summary: Great for the DVD begginer.
Review: Well, I just purchased the DV525 and i must say i am very pleased. The setup was around 5 min, and could not have been easier. I dont know what all the "hub-bub" is about the remote, but i dont see a thing wrong with it. Its a simple design and easy to use. The main features that drew me to this particluar model was the duel laser pick-up, and the simple cosmetic design. I would recommend this player for the begginer or those who want to up-grade their current player. All in all the features compared side by side the higher priced players, and costs roughly $50 less. All in all, I looked high and low and finally decided to get the DV525.