Great for DVDs, but avoid for MP3 and DivX's (Pioneer DV 310-K)

Member Name: daniash

Product:	Pioneer DV 310-K
Date:	14/05/09 (67 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: High picture and sound quality in DVD playback

Disadvantages: Badly designed navigation in USB mode, bad quality MP3 playback

I decided to get this after seeing how sharp pictures looked in my friend's Pioneer DVD player. And, as far as playing DVDs, this product delivers and amazing picture, although it has to be used with a reasonable quality RGB SCART cable, otherwise it will be all for nowt (and it's amazing how many people don't realise this). When you play DVDs in this way, the picture is very sharp and the colours very vibrant and it's a very, very satisfying view. It looks pretty durable too, and I like the remote as well.
However, a completely different story must be told for the other functions of this box - the USB mode and the DivX/MP3 player. If you are using USB sticks with only a couple files on them, then fine. But you'd better not use an external drive full of files and folders because navigating the files is a joke. It's very slow and clumsy, takes ages to scroll and read contents and there are no functions to, say, fast forward 10 files. MP3 playback is also poor. It suffers from the same navigational problems, but on top of that, the sound is often distorted for no apparent reason. Very surprising, since the sound in DVD play mode is just perfect. In DivX mode, there are the usual seeking problems although the player itself is to blame only partly in most cases.
All in all, if you want only a DVD player, this is VERY good, and I recommend it. But if you want a full "multimedia centre" for music and pictures too, look elsewhere cause this just won't do.

Summary: If you want a DVD player with good pictures, get it! But don't go near the other functions!

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