DVD and laser disc (Pioneer DVL 91)

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Product:	Pioneer DVL 91
Date:	18/05/01 (116 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Watch DVD and Laser Discs, plus listen to music CDs.

Disadvantages: the price

Yes this is a player made to play your DVDs CDs and your Laser Movie discs. Why would you want one with a Laser Disc? There are movies out there like “Star Wars” that was released on laser Disc and not on DVD, so if you want to have quality viewing of some movies you will have to use the Laser Disc format. The laser Disc is not gone yet! Even if the laser disc dies in a few years, remember this is also a DVD player, so you will get use out of it for years to come.

Pioneer Elite equipment is built with the best components available to make it last longer than other manufacturers products. Not only is the inside components with quality the outside shows it as well. Gold trim, high-gloss black enamel with polished rosewood side panels and gold-plated outputs in the rear. This unit has one tray for the Laser Discs and one tray for DVD movies or CD music.

The DVL-91 has a dual-sided play mechanism, (For the Laser Disc) this means you can play both sides without having to take the disc out to turn it around. There are controls in the front for power, play, stop, forward, reverse, side change, (for Laser Discs) display off and the display itself. There are two eject buttons, one for the Laser Disc and the other for the DVD.

The remote has all the controls as on the machine except the two eject buttons. The remote makes it easy to navigate through the menu system on the TV. The remote is a fairly good size, a lot of buttons, but once you use it awhile, it is easy to use.

The Connections
This beauty is loaded with gold plated connections for the best connection possible. Remember you only need one video connection to your TV and one to your Digital receiver. Now you can hookup to more than one TV or receiver if you wish them to play all from the Pioneer DVL-91

For video you have three choices: Component, S-Video and Composite.

Component is the best connection you can get for your video, there is one
Component connection, the only problem is, it is found on mainly the newer TV sets in the upper price range.

S-Video is the second best connection and does an excellent job as far as picture quality. There are two S-Video output connections on this player and most TVs today have at least one of these.

Composite is the old “RCA Type” connector connection and there are two of theses outputs. While the video isn’t too bad with this connection, if you have one of the other two connections, I highly recommend them.

For the audio you have three choices: Optical Output, Coaxial Output and Analog.

The Optical output is your best connection from the player to the receiver, one fiber optic cable makes the connection of 5 speakers and one subwoofer.

Coaxial output is also a good connection with one cable, though if you can connect optical, I would recommend it.

Analog Stereo is the connection of the “RCA Type” connections.

Some other Features
Digital Memory for Laser Discs so it remembers where you left it in case you turned it off.

Last Memory is for DVD and Laser Discs that recalls the last scene played for 5 DVDs and 1 Laser Disc.

Condition Memory for DVD recalls set-up conditions such as language, Subtitle, and Aspect Ratio, for up to 30 DVD discs.

Dual Focus Pickup with being DTS ready. (Needs to hook to a DTS receiver)

Dolby 5.1 digital built in.

MPEG 2 Decoder built in.

A On-Screen Contents Calendar

Region Play
This player will play from all regions from 1 through 6. As you know most DVD players are all set to region 1 which is the US area, Europe and other countries have different region numbers so their DVDs cannot play on our player. Now you can buy and play any of the regions in 1 through 6 and Pioneer guarantees this for life of the player or Guaranteed future-proof!

There is a
Parental Lock from the remote to the screen for you to lock out what you want someone else to not to view including the six different regions.

Overall
One thing I did not like is having is to make two video connections if you use the Component for the DVD, the Laser Disc only plays through an S-Video connection. Another con is the price of $1800, if you search you can buy one for around $1100.

The video of this model was second to none, though it was connected to a Pioneer Elite Big Screen TV, you could actually see the pours in someone’s hand. The color was great and makes the people look like they are live in front of you. The sound was unbelievable in the DTS sound and the Dolby 5.1 digital surround sound, it is like you were in the movie.

The quality it produces and the craftsmanship that went into the Pioneer DVL-91 is great, I do highly recommend it if your budget is for it. The quality built in it comes with a two year warranty.

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