Pioneer DV-535 DVD Player

    The Pioneer DV-535 DVD player is the latest basic model in the Pioneer DVD player range. A solidly-designed player, it takes all previous criticisms that have been levelled at Pioneer players in the past and well-and-truly buries them. It may have taken them a while to do it, but Pioneer have finally come up with a killer DVD player at a killer price point.

What's In The Box

• The player itself
• A power cord
• A remote control with batteries
• A composite video cable
• A stereo analogue audio cable
• A 55 page manual in English, and a 55 page manual in what is either Spanish or Portuguese
• A warranty registration statement
• A coupon book with a series of offers, mainly of the "buy one get one free" type including DVD rentals, movie tickets and Village Roadshow DVDs.

Front Panel

    The Pioneer DV-535 has a basic and functional front panel which is almost identical in appearance to the model it replaces - the Pioneer DV-525.

    The left side of the front panel carries a soft power on-off switch, operation of which takes the player in or out of stand-by mode. Stand-by mode can also be entered via the remote control.

    The center of the front panel carries a rapidly responsive and quiet disc tray. The most impressive aspect of the disc mechanism is that it opens and closes quite quickly and the type of disc inserted is recognized very rapidly. This is a marked improvement over anything I have seen from Pioneer in the past.

    Underneath the disc tray is an attractive orange fluorescent display which cannot be dimmed.

    To the right of the fluorescent display is the OPEN/CLOSE button and the basic DVD navigation buttons. These all have a nicely positive feel about them. In combination with the rapid response of the DVD player to these buttons, this makes the player a pleasure to operate from its front panel.

Rear Panel

    The rear panel of this player is equipped with a good selection of outputs. From left to right, we have;

• NTSC/PAL/AUTO switch, which either forces the video output mode of the player to one or other standard or allows it to switch between video modes automatically.
• Component video outputs.
• Analogue Left & Right audio outputs.
• Coaxial digital audio output.
• S-Video output.
• Switch to select between Composite/S-Video output and Component Video output.
• Optical digital output.
• Control in, to allow other Pioneer gear to connect to the DV-535 to pass remote control commands from one piece of Pioneer equipment to the other.
• 240V socket, in the standard figure-of-eight configuration.

Remote Control

    The centrepiece of this remote control is the circular arrow key arrangement with a central ENTER key. The remote is shaped so that your thumb naturally falls onto the ENTER key. All of these keys are exactly the right size to ensure easy operation, and to make sure they are easy to identify, are all appropriately shaped and have a little raised pimple in the sweet spot of each key. Excellent work, Pioneer, as these keys are a breeze to locate and use without looking at the remote.

    Surrounding these keys are the basic DVD navigation buttons. Again, these are shaped and have a little raised pimple in their sweet spots, making them easy to locate blind. The PLAY button deserves particular mention as being particularly easy to locate and operate, being intuitively shaped and placed below the arrow key mechanism.

    About the only minor criticism I'll make of this remote control is the placement of the AUDIO, SUBTITLE, ANGLE and MENU buttons towards the top of the remote control, not offset from any of the other buttons at all. These are relatively hard to locate and to differentiate from one another.

    The operating range and angle of operation of the remote control were as expected. As with the responsiveness to the front panel controls, the DVD player responded very promptly to remote keypresses.

Manual

Set-Up Menu

    More advanced users will be pleased to find full control over the digital output of Dolby Digital, DTS, MPEG and Linear PCM audio, even to the extent of this player allowing the output of 96kHz Linear PCM digitally, something that many DVD players do not allow.

Video Playback

    The Pioneer DV-535 produces a beautiful image that is a pleasure to watch. It could best be described as producing an image that is very "film-like" in its quality. The image is exceedingly easy to watch for extended periods of time without exhibiting any of the image harshness that some other DVD players produce. This is not to say that this is a soft image at all, as it simply isn't, but rather it is a very smooth image. Fine detail resolution, both in the foreground of images and in the background of images was exemplary, with no MPEG decoding anomalies. This player produced superb results from film-based material.

    It did not fare quite as well with interlaced source material. Scan lines became discernible when interlaced material rapidly panned, more so than with other DVD players that I have seen. This is really quite a subtle effect, and so only degrades the image quality slightly, and seems to be a characteristic of the Fujitsu MPEG decoder solutions used in Pioneer DVD players.

    Another area in which this player doesn't fare quite as well is in the area of chroma noise, particularly in fields of intensely dark blue, where chroma noise is clearly visible. Whilst by no means overly noisy, there is a little more chroma noise in dark blues than I would have liked to see. Again, this is quite subtle and only degrades the image quality slightly.

    The review player was marked as a Zone 4 player, but it happily played both Region 4 and Region 1 DVDs, including The Patriot R1, which is protected with RCE code.

    The fast forward and fast reverse functions of this player are quite jerky in comparison to other DVD players. The functioning of the remote control for these functions is a little unusual, with the appropriate button needing to be held down for approximately 10 seconds before it locks into either fast forward or fast reverse mode. Otherwise, the mode ceases the instant the button is released. In some ways, this is a good implementation of these functions, with short rewinds or fast forwards able to be accomplished easily. In other ways, this is a little counter-intuitive. It's something that owners of this player will undoubtedly get used to soon enough. In the initial stage, the player seems to fast forward or reverse at x4 speed. When locked in, the fast forward or reverse speed seems to speed up to approximately x8.

    RSDL layer changes resulted in a very short pause, typically of the order of 1/4 second, and may well go unnoticed by many viewers.

On Screen Display

    The DVD player knows a fair number of full names for languages, so you either get the full name of the language displayed or a two letter abbreviation if the player does not recognize the language in question.

    Functional key-presses on the remote are accompanied by various text messages appearing on-screen.

    The on-screen display font is a little blurry and hard to read at times.

Standards Conversions

CDR & Video CD

Audio Playback

    In particular, this DVD player did not exhibit any audio sync problems whatsoever. I tested the majority of the passages that I have noted to be specifically problematic with Pioneer DVD players in the past, and they all played perfectly in sync. This is the first Pioneer DVD player that I have ever tested that did not have a problem with audio sync, so it appears as if Pioneer have finally laid this problem to rest once and for all.

    Subjectively, there were no audio sync problems whatsoever noted with this player which could not be attributed to the source material. Objectively, the analogue vs digital delay in this player was 0 milliseconds. This compares with previous measurements in other Pioneer DVD players of around 30 milliseconds. This means that there has been some fundamental design changes made to the audio path within this DVD player, and it shows in the complete absence of sync problems.

    DTS digital output is supported by this DVD player. MPEG audio bitstreams are output as either Linear PCM or native MPEG depending on the setup of the player.

Disc Compatibility Tests

User Convenience Features

Screen Saver
Zoom

Overall

The Good Points

    No audio sync problems (finally)!

    Decent quality remote control (finally)!

    Fast, responsive and quiet tray mechanism.

    Plays CD-Rs.

    Outputs 96kHz Linear PCM digitally.

The Bad Points

    Crowded rear panel.

Features At A Glance

Video	Component Output		RGB Output
Audio	DTS Output		MP3 Playback
Plays CDRs
Conversion	PAL-60
Inbuilt Decoder	None

In Closing

Performance
Build Quality
In Operation
Compatibility
Value For Money

© Michael Demtschyna
1st December 2000