"Holy Grail" of DVD players - Pioneer Elite DV59-AVi ???

[Chris D]

Spiffnme posted a link to this player in another thread. This looks like one definitely worth talking about, as I haven't seen it before. This is just about everything you could want in a DVD player on the market today, short of HD-DVD.

http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/pna/product/detail/0,,2076_15020671_30442807,00.html

In direct comparison to another of the "Holy Grails" of current DVD players, the Denon DVD-5900, this Pioneer model looks like it has just about everything that the Denon has for major specs. The one improvement I see is actual HDMI output, not just DVI (adds the digital sound to the output) and one thing missing would be the BNC component jacks of the Denon. The Pioneer uses only RCA jacks. $400 less than the Denon when comparing retail prices, too.

I haven't seen the Pioneer for sale anywhere. Anyone?




CHRIS
Luke: "Hey, I'm not such a bad pilot myself, you know"

[Lex]

I fail to see the benefit of HDMI. I think what we have here is a set of conflicting standards. One set of folks pushing DVI, another HDMI. Besides, if you pass it to your projector (video), whats the point of having digital audio in the same signal? No pre-pros have it, so you can't pick it up that way, that I am aware of, so I don't get it.

Nice player though, I like Elite.

lex

[Chris D]

Well, Kris Deering answered many of my questions. I'm looking forward to this next Secrets Shootout that apparently is coming in another month!

Just wanted to give you guys a bit of a heads up on the new Elite Pioneer 59AVi. I ran it through some of our tests today while I had the chance. I didn't get to do the full workup though. The full testing will be done for the shootout end of January early February.

The de-interlacer did the same as previous Pioneer's. It passed the film based material but failed the mixed modes and 2:2 material. The chroma bug is not present like the 563a but there is a slight flicker with Monsters Inc and I noticed banding in color on some video based menus (The Big Lebowski) that isn't there with other players tested.

The player is not cropping any pixels which is great and navigation is very quick. The player isn't quite as fast in chapter skips as the 2900 though. The layer change comes in a hair under 2 seconds. The player didn't seem to have any Y/C delay but I didn't have a scope to check. Like the 5900 it has Y/C controls though.

The de-interlacer is motion adaptive but does not pass the Faroudja flag test like the DCDi chips do. I wasn't able to test out any of the HDMI stuff at this time.

Overall the build is quite good, although not as solid as the flagship Denon offerings (5900,9000). It is more in line with the Marantz players.

For audio setup I noticed that there is no time alignement for SA-CD and they used a fixed crossover point for Bass Management, unfortunately neither the manual or the website says what crossover point they're using though.

Again I'll have the full results for the shootout. I just wanted to let some of you on the fence know some of the bigger test results.

The 5900 is a superb player audio wise. The DVD-A and SA-CD section is as good as any I've heard and better then 99% I've played with. The CD section is also superb and has only been outdone in my listening experience by the Krell DVD Standard.

For overall video performance I would lean toward the 5900 at this point. The Faroudja solution is the difference. If the Pioneer had incorporated a better de-interlacer (like their TIVO unit) then I may have been singing another tune.

I cannot comment on the audio side as I didn't listen to the Pioneer, and probably won't get to. The setup isn't as flexible as the Denon but I am sure it still sounds great. You'll probably have to ask some owners for differences.

Again I haven't looked at the HDMI output but it will still use the same de-interlacing solution which won't match up with the Faroudja at this point.

Also a side note. I had a friend with me and we had a 5900 on hand. When we were looking at the Monster's Inc scene we looked at it on both players. The 5900 exhibited much less noise around objects then the 59AVi. This is the scene in the beginning when their walking out of the apartment toward the car. There was quite a bit more noise around Mike when he came out of the house. KEEP IN MIND THOUGH that neither the display or players were "tweaked" in as our tests are based on de-interlacing modes and MPEG decoder tests. The Pioneer has video adjustments that may remedy what we saw. Just as the "macroblocking" can be resolved with the Denon. I did test the Pioneer using all three of its de-interlacing modes (Auto 1, Auto 2 and Pure Progressive On).

On another note, the Pioneer website features the 59AVi now and on the site it claims that the player will upsample other sources to HD resolutions. Essentially claiming that you can input cable or other sources and use this player as a video processor. The player does not feature any of these inputs so the site is misleading.

The HDMI output does not support SA-CD or DVD-A either, only video, DD and DTS. The I-Link does support SA-CD and DVD-A but I was unable to confirm that it works properly.

If I had to choose between the 82 and these players it would go like this so far:

Denon 5900
Panasonic 82
Pioneer 59

That is from a component standpoint. The 5900 is easily the image the 82 produced if you tweak out the macroblocking. It is sharper overall though. The 82 nudges out the Pioneer because of the Faroudja solution. Pioneer's solution just isn't up to snuff against the Faroudja and Silicon Image.

I think overall any of these players will satisfy 99% of owners out there.

CHRIS
Luke: "Hey, I'm not such a bad pilot myself, you know"

[Chris D]

Actually, Lex, I'm learning about HDMI also. Yes, HDMI starts with DVI and adds digital sound. Sending sound to the actual projector or display is pointless for most of us theater geeks, as we use it only for a monitor. But I think that within the next year we'll see pre/pros and receivers with HDMI switching, which can take DD and DTS over HDMI as a MINIMUM without having to do conversions and use coax or optical cables. We may eventually see DVD-A, SACD, and other formats passed via HDMI as well. I see HDMI being a very good thing in this sense, in that hopefully you'll be able to connect ONE cable each from your DVD player, satellite, HTPC, etc, to your pre/pro to carry all the information needed, and in the highest resolution in the digital domain with no signal loss.

As I'm learning, though, DVI is 8 bit and HDMI is 12 bit, allowing for even higher quality digital information to be passed. Apparently HDMI is capable of 1080p, which may imply that DVI is not.

As a side note, I notice that a new Secrets benchmark of Dec 2003 put the Denon 5900 at the top. This Pioneer Elite model was not included.
DVD Player Benchmark comparison




CHRIS
Luke: "Hey, I'm not such a bad pilot myself, you know"

[Lex]

Yeah Chris, that's the part I don't like about it. :evil: Besides, you want to send your signals over basically a computer cable? I wouldn't. For that very reason, I am not that hot on DVI even. There's something to be said for dedication of cables, and silver for video, etc...

They may put me out of business yet, but I won't go down without a fight.

lex