None of the sissy stuff...... (Pioneer DV 737)

Member Name: Recess

Product:	Pioneer DV 737
Date:	28/07/01 (919 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great Picture, Lots of outputs, Not going obselete soon

Disadvantages: Pricey, Need good TV and amp to get best use

I'm one of those people who when he has money, doesn't really think "Hmm, there's a nice ISA I could put it into, and make myself a bit more in the long run...." I like the spend. Pretty dangerous actually.

Couple that with the fact I'm a dumb male who has to get the best when I buy something, and you'll understand all the hate mail I get from my bank-manager.

Hence why he tried to lock my in a small room when the 737 was released.

My brother in law has the model before it (717 I think) and said it was a fantastic machine - so, when I heard of the 737, I thought not only was it a chance to get one up on him, but a chance to get a great DVD player.

Why is it great? Well, one of the main things I love about it is the amount of different outputs you can have for picture:-

1) Normal composite - pretty basic way of sending information, like using 10 words to describe the beauty of a tree. (not enough information) But still just as nice as a normal TV aerial picture.

2) SVHS - funny thing is, on most TV's now, the SVHS input tends to be concealed in a panel on the front of the set making this a pretty ugly connection - but, SVHS is a really nice carrier for a tv signal, so a good option to have. The 737 has two outputs for SVHS too - which in time I've found useful to have.

3) The universal Scart output. Love it or hate it, scarts are here to stay because they carry the picture and audio signals really really well, and are a sinch to plug into the both ends.

4) The best one - component. Ok, I'm pretty new to the DVD game, so I don't know how many other DVDs have this as standard, but component is the best way to go (well, other than having a serial digital connection out the back of it - and I can't see that happening for a while to come yet.....) Basically, if you go back to my "using 10 words to describe a tree" statement, taking a sig
nal out in component is like describing a tree with 10,000 words. Hmm, maybe a bit over-zealous - but it's a great way of getting picture signals across, it handles the reproduction of image quality and colour translation exceptionally well.

BUT!! That's not the main reason for wanting to get this DVD.

The REALLY groovy thing about the Pioneer 737 is that it has a Progressive Scan system. Quickly (and simplified), a picture is made up of 625 lines, this is then split into two fields, both made up of 312.5 lines. They are played one after the other (duh!!) in a fashion you don't know it's happened- and then make up one frame of picture. (To all tech people out there - I know that's VERY simplified, but I don't want to get too far off topic).

So - by showing a picture this way, the quality could be a lot better - in fact, twice as good. Which is what the 737 does. It shows both fields at the same time - so instead of having two fields of 312.5 lines, you now have two fields of 625 lines - doubling the amount of picture quality.

The drawbacks to this method that I've found are 1) You have to buy a new TV which accepts Progressive Scan to get this particular function, and b) some scrolling text across the screen can go kinda ka-ka because of this doubling of the fields.

But, apart from the odd teething problem to it, it's a great system to have if you're REALLY into your picture quality.

Everything you'd expect to be on a DVD player is on here too - from having basic stereo audio phono outputs to digital 5.1 surround outputs including optical, to being able to play normal CD's, CDR's, Mpeg1+2 VCD's, having a good, solid, simple look (I love the blue twinkly light) - this DVD has everything you could ask for in regard to what you want to play on it.

I got mine from Techtronics (I think) who supply it with a Polygon upgrade which not only makes it multi-
region, also means the new RCE way of doing things isn't an issue, and - in my case just as important as I put it through an LCD projector, the MacroVision thing is disabled when feeding to something other than a TV Screen.

So, to sum up - it's a pretty expensive piece of kit to buy, I think I spent £700 on it when I bought it last Xmas, but, if you're into having close to top of the range consumer stuff - then it's the one to get.

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