Shortly after my original post in 2013, I purchased an used
Pioneer DV-79AVi Universal Player. I bought it from its original owner, it was very well kept, it came with the original box and all content including the purchase receipt. It is a stock unit therefore it doesn't have the multi region and SDI direct out modifications. It plays region 0 and 1 DVDs in both PAL and NTSC. It doesn't have a format converter, NTSC discs are output in NTSC and PAL discs are output in PAL format. It can also play VCD, CD, SACD and DVD-Audio discs. It has a pure mode for video which bypasses all processing and the player turns into a transport to be connected to a video processor. In this mode, the output is 480i60 in YUV4:2:2 or 576i50 YUV4:2:2 through HDMI 1.2 which can also pass all audio streams including Dolby, DTS, PCM, DSD (SACD).
The built quality of the player is amazing, it weighs nearly 20lbs and feels like a tank. The remote control has the jog dial similar to LD players. The video section has the Zoran Vadis mpeg decoder which has very minor chroma upsampling error(error) but also has a built in filter for it. De-interlacing is done in Silicon Image made Sil504 also found in DVDO Iscan VP30. The players main feature is the pure video mode which bypasses all this. It really should be used as a transport. There are two power boards with two separate transformers. The large transformer with the huge caps feeds the separate audio board which houses the analog audio components and dacs. The smaller transformer but bigger power board with discrete voltage dividers feeds the rest of the unit. The audio section uses very high quality TI opamps and burr brown pcm1738eg dacs (3 of them). The analog audio quality from this player is amazing. There is a pure audio mode which powers off all unnecessary boards. All necessary buttons for CD and SACD playback is available on the front panel, you can even select Stereo, Multichannel and CD layer for the SACD discs. The player also has all necessary audio outputs to be used as a transport if you want to use your own outboard dacs.
I used this player only for a couple of months. I removed it from my setup due to not being a multi region player and ran out of space on my component rack with the addition of my Oppo BDP-105. Unfortunately the player needs hardware modification for multi region. It retailed for $1000 and according to the purchase receipt, the original owner paid $699 for it. I think I paid $250 if my memory serves me right.
I seriously believe DV-79AVI was the very last good player from Pioneer. It has the highest built quality similar to HLD-X9 in the LD realm and it is new enough to have all of the latest DVD technologies like HDMI output with transport and upscaling modes, SACD and DVD-A playback, pure DSD over HDMI and firewire. Oh I have to mention it again, it also has the jog dial found on LD players, the last DVD player to have such a thing. All later Pioneer (and most other) DVD players lacked in quality, became cheap light plastic boxes. I highly recommend this player for die hard Pioneer fans, especially for its CD and SACD playback.