I was looking on CL and saw a DVL-700 for sale. Would it be any improvement over my CLD-505? I would likely never use it for DVD playing.

Don't think so. The DVL players are usually very average in the LD department, comparable to the CLD-D5*/6* models. Had a CLD-D505 once and remember it being just as average. You can get a better player for those money as the DVL players are generally expensive.

The DVL-700/90 Elite are in my top 5 list...

I usually watch all LD movies between the Elite CLD-95 & DVL-700(VNR set to Standard)

Just wanted to chime in... Pioneer did very good on the Black levels on the DVL-700, 90, 909 and 91Elite. Just shy of the LD-S1 and S2 in those terms. They had to make LD very presentable with their 1st DVD player and LD/DVD combo in 1996...

I was reading the owners manual for 919. It has cinema and standard modes for picture. Is cinema similar to d-ext on japanese machines?

Also the user manual says if you hit mode button twice you can adjust vnr manually, has anyone tried this?

The DVL might be a bit better - if it's $50 or less and you can spend that, I'd say go for it. They're solid mid/upper-mid-range players. People just tend to spend silly amounts on them - for instance grasshopper posted that people pay more for DVL-90's than CLD-97's...

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The US 919 doesn't appear to have D-EXT - there's a line to the board but I don't see anything that actually uses it. That version appears to have the most stripped down GYCB (comb filter etc) board of the entire DVL series. The 909 had the 703/4 noise reduction chip, but not the latter's direct (sic) composite out from it. So the NR control would only apply to DVD noise reduction (if there) or the standard midrange LD-player analog NR methods.

(Also for those thinking of capturing the digital post-TBC data the DVL's are probably among the easiest, the board has 0 ohm resistors for each signal line right by the connector.)

The US DVL-V888 (which I got for a sensible $35 last month) KGYCB does have D-EXT circuitry and a CD-G/LD-G decoding chip. But I don't know if the firmware will actually allow one to use them - I should try it out this weekend since I think I have a combination Pioneer remote that'll control it.

I've got both a D505 and a DVL-700.

700 definitely has a better picture. Not by a whole lot, but it is better. Slightly sharper and slightly less noisy picture.

And yeah, there's no reason to really ever try to use the DVL-700 as a DVD player. It was one of the first DVD players ever released and it shows.

The issue with the dvd players in DVL units is the fujitsu mpeg decoder. All other pioneers use zoran vadis. These two mpeg decoders have chroma upsampling error. Late pioneers use mediatek which is immune to this issue. Chroma upsampling error aka cue is an issue on outlines of red colored objects. Some people see it, some never know its there. Some video processors can even hide cue with filtering chroma.

Second issue is it fails all benchmark tests on performance but this can be fixed with external processing(video processor, tv processing etc..) you can use component output (480i) into a decent processor to upscale it to 1080p.

at first I thought you were talking about LD playback but see now that you are talking about the DVD playback, right

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So the DVL-700 is among (if not the) best combo players released in the US för LD playback? Interesting.

It does seem like most people prefer the 700. I wonder how much price decides this? The 919's always seem to go for the most money. I had a 700 until I broke it in a boneheaded error . Since then, I've aquired a 909 and it looks just like I remember the 700, but never got the chance to do a direct comparison. I've not yet had the opportunity to experience a high end player, but with what I have, the DVL's seem to look much better on a digital display than my CLD units. With CRT, the difference is negligable.

Got me

The European version of the dvl-v888 would be the DVL-K88 or am I missing something here? Would this have the same features besides PAL playback or is this an ntsc only machine? i'm not that big a fan of karaoke machines. there are way too many buttons

Anyone ?

If you read my my first post on here I never mentioned the DVL-919.

totally different LD Main_Board.. The 919 always had a Blue tint to my eyes on LD playback.

Sorry. I meant the dvd stage. The ld sections are not using this mpeg decoder and totally immune to chroma bug. 909 and 919 both use fujitsu decoder. 700 is unknown to me but given its an older design it probably has it as well.

Strictly talking LD sections. Whats better in 909 than 919?

The blue tint grasshopper mentioned might be caused by bad component values in the Y/C board. It's got the same comb filter, just a stripped down board/circuit. I think the main board is more or less the same on both, the 919's just has memory connected to the TBC chip since the DVNR controller's gone.

I would need to see the back of a region 2 DVL-K88 (region 1 is the V888) to see if there's a PAL version. There's one on eBay of a multi-voltage region 3 version which is PAL/NTSC for DVD and NTSC only for LD.

I not here to cut down any players,etc. I have purchased, repaired and sold more 919 and Pal 919E.

It just seems the Tint is off and somewhat bluish to me in everyone but that's with a carefully conservative eye!! Dvd section I see no problems ever.

919 completely different board.

700 90 909 91 Same LD Picture as that's is why the Elite 91(DTS DVD) has always fetched high prices.

Don't ask me why Theta didn't stick with the 91 or 909 for their Voyager as both can output DTS for DVD.

I specialized in the DVL series for 4 solid years and because that what interested in me!!!! Besides the long training and correct flex cable orientation for dvd / LD carriages which I call the "CAGE'

For what they charged for the Voyager, they should've gone to Pioneer and gotten+used the 3D Y/C board off the H9

Happycube. You couldn't have said it better!!!!! and then more!!!!!!

If I have the VNR modded/deactivated on my 700, would it improve the picture that much? Since getting a comb filter, the stability of the 700 really outshines my old D702, but I just hate how soft the image is.

The 700 is easily the best player I've ever used in terms of stability, transport, ease of use and overall performance. It's just that darned built-in DNR that keeps me using my old workhorse 702.

You really fine the Image soft????? That's the first I heard of that!!! Seriously....

First thing I do is enable all dvl-700 into Elite 90 for VNR but I never play with it as I just keep it standard.