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Pioneer DVD-344
Entry levl to mid-market DVD player
Recommended retail price: $549
(inc. GST)
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Reviewer: Richard Morgan
The DV-344 is the latest introduction to Pioneer's extensive range of DVD players. Despite its recent introduction, and is entry-level position in the Pioneer range the unit has already has gained a reputation for value for money, giant-killing performance and flexibility that maximises it's involvement with the DVD medium.
In terms of appearance it's much the same thing as we have come to expect from Pioneer - neat, clean, attractive lines and a pleasing, compact overall presentation. The bevelled edges are a nice visual touch and help with front fascia control delineation.
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While the unit is similarly specified when compared to the previous model, but there's definitely more refinement in the way the DV-344's controls and remote handset operate with the 344, more substance to the performance and more features and facilities.
Compared to the DV-535 from Pioneer, the DV-344 is more compact by about 8mm in depth. It has a truckload of features that you'll find useful and a range of controls that feel solid and functional under-finger.
Video processing is the current standard for all but exotic machines: 10-bit 27MHz processing and 10-bit video digital-to-analogue conversion. Audio is handled by a 24-Bit 96kHz digital-to-analogue converter. It's all the latest technology and it works very well.
Pioneer has made the DV-344 compatible with a variety of disc types: DVD video, CD audio and Video CD. Thanks to a twin-wave laser pickup the unit also plays CD-Rs (recorded CDs), CD-RWs (re-writable CDs) and, apparently, DVD-R (recordable DVDs). I didn't have any DVD-R discs to confirm this function, but everything else worked tickety boo.
The unit is also dual signal (PAL and NTSC) with automatic switching so you don't even need to make any manual adjustments to avail yourself of the feature. Meanwhile, digital signal output on the DV-344 makes it eminently compatible with DTS, Dolby Digital, MPEG Audio and PCM digital sound formats.
A claim to fame for this (and other) Pioneer machines is that the on-screen graphical user interface (GUI) has been engineered for three levels of proficiency with the DVD medium - beginners, intermediate and advanced. It works as advertised and will doubtlessly be a boon to users of across the levels of proficiency.
The remote control is rather good. The buttons, while small, are logically laid out and I found it easy to navigate the operation of the player from my armchair.
There are a number of features that make living with DVD really convenient. There's programme memory for up to 24 discs, auto-play, disc condition memory for up to 15 discs, last memory for up to five discs, cinema mode, animation mode, frame pause (manual and automatic), a transfer bit-rate indicator and quick start and resume functions.
Video enthusiasts, or even the rest of us who simply want to watch the best picture possible will definitely appreciate the component video outputs, which maximise the capacity of the DVD player to extract and pass on those images to a television with component video input facilities of one type or another. It's a feature of note in a product in this area of the market (and its supported by an S-video facility).
Sound quality from this player is just fine and operation quite a delight. The machine operates quickly and directly and with surprisingly little control lag or mechanical noise. It will sit neatly in any home theatre system up to good quality mid-line set-ups.
On well engineered discs the picture quality of the DV-344 is well balanced and leans towards the neutral section of the visual scale. It's detailed, well balanced across hues and saturation levels and definitely easy on the eyes. There's also minimal edge disarray on images and resolution is good enough to max out the capacity of most televisions.
Simply put, the DV-344 is one of the best value DVD players on the market at the moment. It looks great, caters for virtually every digital disc system you could want, performs exceptionally well for the price and makes some more expensive players look very ordinary indeed.
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