December 24th, 2007Review Of The Pioneer DV-696AV DVD Player
 
These Products from East Asia have been control our review studio for so long that I’ve approximately become fluent in Chinese and Korean. Oh, I’m not bad tempered about quality or presentation; it’s just that I’d like a change once in a while – a new brand, a different style of design… except that will have to wait for another day. In the meantime I’ve administer to get hold of a thingamajig from Pioneer that’s come all the way from Tokyo, Japan. The business deserves credit for ‘pioneering’ (heh!) a lot of technological advances over the decades – this includes the first CD player, DVD gear, OLED, plasma displays, and what-have-you.
The Pioneer DVD player that came in intended for review is the DV-696AV. It’s been around in the marketplace for a while, and perches comfortably in the middle section. After reviewing so a lot of TVs, it’s quite a relief to do something else, so you can imagine why I was excited.
Performance
We linked the unit to a Hitachi LCD, via HDMI, and proceeded with our not-so-secret rituals. First, test patterns and videos were employed to check de-interlacing. Movement and unevenness were good, but quite honestly not up to the mark of a player in this price segment. I’m adage this as some artifacts were visible here and there, and the edges were a bit off. But this is a minor problem; the depiction was largely good. Color-wise I had no grievance at all; the entire choice was represented – and represented well – with no cipher of bleeding or oversaturation of any hue.
We then switched to a movie to see how it handles film content and what else but Star Wars? Consequently we put the Star Wars DVD in, pushed Play, and sat back. The color was as great as previous to, though a little banding be present. But then, this happens virtually in every DVD player I make sure (except the very high end); it’s like noise in LCD TVs.
Design and Features
The DV-696AV has a very hard, straight-edged look about it, with its flat rectangular surfaces joined at jagged cliffs all around. It’s not like some audio amps which can in fact cut you, but it gives the product a very 90s look, and probably a high-end tag.
The design is simple and straightforward. The unit we got was all in one color, just like Henry Ford’s original Model T Ford. Yes, even the buttons were black! (If you have the silver version, put back the previous utterance of the previous sentence with silver.) It more or less is conservative to one rack component standard as far as size goes; weight-wise it’s average. The Pioneer logo on the top left of the front panel is the only element that’s in a dissimilar color. The menu navigation buttons are on the right extremity, arranged in a round joystick style, at the same time as tiny round buttons for random sense are placed in a line below the screen. The tray is bang center of the front panel, along with a secret eject button.
The actor has many features – it not only plays DVDs but also SACDs and DVD Audio, which would be music to audiophiles’ ears. DivX, JPEG, MP3 etc are all invited to the party. Pioneer’s higher-end models play Blue-ray as well; just to remind you.
This model has an HDMI out, with up scaling capabilities, so it fits the needs of the day perfectly. Dolby and DTS are supported because surround sound outputs, through an optical out at the back panel. The player also has composite video, component video, S-video, SCART as well as analog 5.1 channels out.
The up scaling was adequate. We effortlessly viewed stuff at 720p, though this has to be set in the menu. If you don’t, the default setting is 4:3, so when you first switch on the component you may think either you or your TV has lost it. The menu system is comprehensive, with readable fonts and pecking order.
This DVD player expenses Rs 12,990, so you could consider it if you’re in the market for a mid-range player. The quality is definitely better than that obtainable by the sub-5000 units. Compared to other brands in the segment the Pioneer DV-696AV might have to struggle to catch up, but then the other unit’s contribution the same range of features tend to be much more costly.
