So after a month of researching, shopping and haggling, i've finally bought an upscaling dvd player to replace my htpc for dvd use, and multio channel audio use...

The other players i auditioned during this period included the Denon 2910, Denon 3910, Marantz 7600, Pioneer 969avi, Pioneer 989avi

I could see a lot of Macroblocking on the Denons, and they were unable to send a 576i signal throught hdmi so they were immediately of the list, the marantz Picture was o.k and 9600 was way out of my budget, the pioneers were a keeper from the start, great upscaling capability, and can also send a 576i signal through HDMI

The pioneer 989, is the replacement of the 969.

Basically the same player, but i think the major upgrade has been the fact that it sends 576i through hdmi, which can then be processed by an external processor like a vp30, the 969 also does this but there has been various reports on forums that pre processing is done to the signal before sent to the hdmi out... the 989 retails for $1499, but with haggling i was able to get 1250 from HN, though i must admit i'm a terrible haggler, and better price can certainly be squeezed out.


Expectations..

My initial edxpectations were that i was not going to see a dramatic improvement in my picture, over my htpc, as i had a few software filters through FFDShow, such ad Lanczos 4 Resize to double DVD Resolution, and Denoise 3D for Noise Reduction, i was also using a bit of Luma and Chroma Sharpening. In fact i ws actually expecting the picture to be a bit worse in comparison with the HTPC, but my only gripe with a htpc is infact its ease of use..

Impressions..

This DVD player looks so brilliant on my 100" screen thorugh my sony hs51, that its convinced me to move away from htpc's. compared to the scaling of my htpc, the 989, was solid, colors looked rich vibrant yet natural, the picture soaked my screen with detail and colours for which i did not see earlier, my reference dvd's "Monsters INC", Mr & Mrs Smith, LOTR all dropped jaws when played, the ammount of detail this player is able to pick up is truly amazing. The improvement i noticed the most was that with my htpc i was getting a bit of lag, and therefore the picture was not smooth infact i think in some cases i was dropping frames due to the ammount of processing taking toll on the cpu. So immediatley i noticed how smooth and fluid the picture looked, just showing what ive been missing out on all this time. The 989 also does an impressive job on cleaning up any noise on dvd's too, it certainly does a better job of the denoise 3d filter in my htpc.

Audio wise, the coax output is excellent, i let my rotel 1098 do all the processing because most probably it has the better dac's, i think the jitter on the 989 was measured at 160ps, which is outstanding, in comparison to the denon 2910/3910 with have a jitter measurement of 300+ps. So even though i wasnt expecting a sound sound improvement as my htpc also sent digital audio through coax, i was pleasantly suprised as i coul quite noticeably hear an overall improvement in audio quality, this player also plays DVD-A and SACD but as of yet i havent tried any.

bottom line anyone in the market for a great universal upscaling player with hdmi, in the price range od under 2000 AUD, i think the pioneer 989 or 969 are players that are hard to beat..

And people complain that current DVD is crap

Just goes to show you when your willing to spend money on good components you'll be rewarded with fantastic picture quality.

It's amazing that people will spend $5000 on a display and not spend more than $50 on a Conia DVD player, thinking all DVD players are the same.....it sends shivers down my spine.

Know what you mean! Crap in crap out I say

Everyone is getting hard ones over HD-DVD & Blu-Gay, but at the end of the day yes current DVD is only SD but with good equipment the results will look magnificent.

Spend $5999 on a 43" Pioneer, what's another $1500 for a Pioneer HDMI dvd player?

Awesome, thanks for the review.

sorry to dig up an old thread, but what settings are people using for their 989's?

i just started running mine via HDMI (720P) into my Pioneer PDP (1366x768) but haven't had a chance to calibrate it properly yet.

any recommendations re the RGB / Full RGB / Component / Component-12bit settings in this box + the raft of other settings (NR, chroma, etc) ?

probably dumb questions, but i'm a forum newbie...

Good relevant questions giddy up ; welcome. Just as a rough guide ; go with either the component or better 12 bit component [ if your display can take this] as the rgb settings require a colour space conversion from the component on the disc . Also try it on 576i for hdmi to compare the deinterlacing/scaling with your plasma.

Just program a preset for any discs you have to apply NR too ;shouldnt be many ? My 989 feeds a projector so any chroma /black level/gamma settings I have would be out of whack and I still need a calibration in any case .

thanks for the info. the component over HDMI setting looked better than RGB when eyeballing it upon initial setup last fortnight. the Bank Manager has allowed me to run a couple of test scenes since, but further testing has been difficult as She is enjoying the sumptuous picture quality improvement in the evenings by watching more movies ("it looks like film, dear" ... "yes babe, that's why i bought the machine")

i have one of the earlier generation Pioneer PDP's (504) so the scaling in this player would be far better than the panel's ability (which is why i bought the 989 )

fair enough re your settings not being transferrable. thanks!

comments from anyone else?

I have connected this DVD player to my newly bought Samsung LA46A650A1F, but I found that there is no audio output through the HDMI cable. The user manual said that the TV is not compatible with HDMI 1.1. May I know anybody who own the Samsung 6 Series have this problem too

Just to add my 2cents worth.

I have both BD player and this DVD player.
THis player certainly produces a crisp detailed image close to par with that of blu ray from the seating position.
However looking right up close to the screen the bd30 leaves it for dead. but then hm of us sit 15cm from the screen?