Video Asylum

Posted by kelsci on July 30, 1999 at 11:14:04:

In Reply to: Pioneer DV-414. Is this a good DVD Player? posted by Dave Z on July 29, 1999 at 09:52:09:

My brother owns this player. Videowise on his system, the picture quality seemed superior to a Magnavox 815 and a Toshiba 2109. The picture was more lifelike on this player with somewhat overall better color correction.
If you are using the standard video output of this machine into a standard video input on your tv set you will certainly get a watchable picture. We noticed a better overall picture when the S-Vhs system is used. We do not have a set to determine whether the component video outputs are the same or better than the s-vhs.

On the audio side, this unit is run over a Yamaha 2095. The best overall audio perforance with this machine was using the toslink optical cable which appeared to give better stereo surround imaging over the use of a good co-ax cable. It handled DD and DTS quite well. The 2109 which used coaxial reproduced superb ambiance and wtereo surround imaging in DD but I detected some overmodulation in some sound reproduction. In DTS, this unit sounded quite distorted. It could have been defective but I am not sure. There was no dynamics in the dts sound either on the 2109.

DD does not necessarily mean that the dvd has a five channel mode. Look carefully an any dvd you purchase to see that it says it has a 5.1 soundtrack. Some do come in two channel DD which may be monaural or stereo with a dolby surround track. The 414 can display on picture for you what kind of soundtrack you are listening too. There may be a choice of different types of sund tracks on the main menu of the disc as well. I would also check the manual of the 414 which I believe has a section how to set the machine on an audio priority basis. I also think that on occassion that some 5.1 soundtracks play 5.1, the 4l4 states they are 5.1, but the movies rear channels are in Dolby Surround. I tended to think this on the DVD of the "Black Hole" which is a story all to itself.