Originally posted by RONM
When making video adjustments the 59 avi's menu takes up almost the entire
screen.Is there a way to make the size of the menu display smaller so you
could see more of what you're displaying and trying to adjust?

Yes. I never tried it yet but Bob P posted it in this very thread somewhere.

Originally posted by Bob Pariseau
Welcome Doug! We need more SDTV/59avi owners to flesh out the reports in this thread.

When you get a chance, post some details about your setup. How are you cabled? What are you using as aids to calibrating your TV? What are the firmware numbers from your 59avi? Any problems? In particular, are you seeing any of the problems that "doctorG4" reported as regards his European version player?

As far as "high bit", my understanding is that this feature, available on various RedBook (Newbie Translation: Conventional CD music disc) players including the 59avi, is that it is a "good thing", but that there are some who feel it hurts certain CDs and thus the option is in there to turn it off.
--Bob

Thanks, Bob. I'll report back in a few weeks after I've had a chance to play w/ the unit.

Doug

Edit: I just read doctorG4's post and I won't be able to test the RGB glitch. My Toshiba 32" is about 10 years old and doesn't have component inputs, so I'm forced to use S-Video. I'll check out Casablanca anyway and report back to confirm that I don't see the problem.

RONM,
It's in the manual but easy to miss. When looking at the full page of Video Adjust settings, simply scroll to the item you want to adjust and then hit Display on the remote. That will switch you to a one line display of just that item so that you can get immediate feedback of what changing it is doing to the image.

Up and down arrow in the one line display will switch which item is in the one line display just as if you were scrolling in the big list, and hitting Display on the remote will get you back to the big list. Changing the item will result in an immediate change to the movie image you are seeing in the background. Hitting Enter will make the current setting permanent and will exit Video Adjust.

Remember to hit Enter when you want to leave the Video Adjust display so as to make the changes permanent. If you exit in other fashions, theres a chance the prior setting(s) will get restored over your temporary changes. Frankly I haven't quite figured out Pioneer's logic behind that, so after making changes and exiting, I go back into Video Adjust to double check the changes really "stuck".

The Pioneer manual, in the trouble-shooting section, says that some changes made in Video Adjust will only take effect after the next time you Stop the current disc or open the disc tray, but so far I haven't spotted any such cases. If anyone finds such a case (changing a setting doesn't seem to change anything while the movie is playing but DOES change something if you then Stop the movie and then hit Play again) I'd be interested in hearing about it.

It also says you can lose changes you make if the power fails before the change actually takes effect. Just tossing this in for completeness, as its never been an issue for me.
--Bob

Doug,
In addition to S-video, your TV undoubtedly has a normal "composite" video input -- a single RCA jack, usually yellow in color. You can use either of the "Video" out jacks of the 59avi to hook up to that if you feel like trying to test for the doctorG4 problem. He reported that it happened on composite video as well -- although apparently on fewer discs. But as you noted, for some unexplained reason his problem doesn't show up on S-video.

For normal viewing, S-video is a much much better connection than Composite. So be sure to switch back to S-video when you are done playing with Composite.
--Bob

Has anyone run across the blue bar/film camera icon located near the top of the screen? I picked up "Grave of the Fireflies" and that blue bar/icon does not go away.

Doug,

thanks for trying but I suspect you will get all OK on S-Video so it will be a negative proof. What I want to do when I get the "thing" back is to test Component out.

Bob
Someone just posted on European thread with an 868 and RGB (with SCART and Panasonic TV) and he cannot see any banding with Casablanca....(he has FW 506)

I asked my repair shop to chek mine and also it says : Region 2: 1.506(16) AV1: 2.0/2.8. I'm puzzled. It is then not the FW.

What I would love is to put the 868 in pause then attach an instrument of some kind to the output and somehow be able to measure/acquire the signal to check that for red title on black the voltage after the red part has ended does not go back to black voltage but to soemthing else....this would prove that in the default config the 868 is generating something funny at transition color-black. But to be honest I do not have the necessary equipment/expertise to do this...pity I'm really curious.

Also observing better the smearing it appears (but I could be wrong) it does not start exactly at the top of the lettering but a bit below, as if (when electron beam scans the screen top to bottom , left to right) the black needed a "bit" of lines to saturate and become bright (and for the banding to appear) like:


b = black, R = red, w = white banding


bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb
bbbbbbbbbbbRRRRRRRRRRbbbbbbbbbbb
bbbbbbbbbbbRRRRRRRRRRbbbbbbbbbbb
wwwwwwwwwwwRRRRRRRRRRRwwwwwwwwww
wwwwwwwwwwwRRRRRRRRRRRwwwwwwwwww
wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb



but maybe it's just an impression al this...

doctorG4,
Actually that post indicating no problem is good news. I doubt it is a firmware issue. Most likely that person just figured out how to adjust the player and TV so that the signal levels are compatible.

This means the damage being done to the image is NOT intractable. There's some set of settings that should make it work. The correct settings may vary between different TVs. Despite that, you need to get that person to post a detailed list of the settings he is using in the player and TV to achieve this clean image, so you can see what might be worth trying first.

Of course it is possible that his TV is just more flexible than yours in the range of signal levels it will accept.
--bob

Bluesea,
Use the following menu item to get rid of this:

Initial Settings / Display / Angle Indicator / Off.

What you are seeing is the indicator that multiple camera angles (alternate video streams) are available for you to switch between "on the fly" using the Angle button on the remote. This is a seldom used feature appearing on only a small portion of all DVD discs.
--Bob

I still cant get a dvd-audio menu to show up via hdmi to dvi..makes it impossible to choose the two channel or multi channel track ...The funny thing is I was messing around with the remote buttons and I saw the dvd-audio's menu on screen for a split second ? ..so I know its there somewhere, but how to get it to stay on screen long enough to choose a track I havent a clue ( I dont know what combination of buttons or button I hit to get the dvd-audio menu to appear on screen for that split second)

psujohny,
I seem to recall someone saying that the Pioneer 59avi won't show the on-screen DVD-Audio disc's menu from its HDMI output for copy protected DVD-Audio discs. The HDMI video and audio are disabled when a copy protected DVD-Audio disc is playing. I have not confirmed this.

If true, you'll need to run a Component or S-video connection to your TV to see those menus.
--Bob

Yea Ive heard this too ..But the funny thing is that I did see it on screen for a split second or so

Originally posted by Bob Pariseau
Bluesea,
Use the following menu item to get rid of this:

Initial Settings / Display / Angle Indicator / Off.

What you are seeing is the indicator that multiple camera angles (alternate video streams) are available for you to switch between "on the fly" using the Angle button on the remote. This is a seldom used feature appearing on only a small portion of all DVD discs.
--Bob

Thanks, it worked. I haven't been into such features but should probably check it out.

Originally posted by Expletive
Just a quick update. I watched a few films over the weekend (sky captain, and 'extende 'something else about mary') using the lumagen and 480i HDMI and its really been stunning on my H77. Ive never seen DVDs look this good and while i dont have the time right now to do an in depth comparison with the onboard 59avi 720p scaling, i really feel this is a step above. (ive always liked the SI 504 for films tho back to my denon 2900 days). I cant imagine it gets better than this, although the gang from Lumagen says once they implement the 10bit data path, it will clean up the 'low level noise' (apparently a by-product of scaling precision in 8-bit processing) which i can barely see unless i walk up to the screen. ( i do know the pioneer on its own and most all other players suffered from this as well).

Anyway just wanted to give a quick update. Now i know what all the SDI/Iscan people were raving about!

John

Which Lumagen model do you have?

Originally posted by Bob Pariseau
...He reported that it happened on composite video as well -- although apparently on fewer discs. But as you noted, for some unexplained reason his problem doesn't show up on S-video...

He seems to be having the problem w/ component, not composite, so I doubt that it'll be worth climbing behind the armoir and getting my elbows and knuckles scraped up to try w/ composite. :D

And, docg, I see your point that the "negative proof" using S-video wouldn't help you. Good luck.

Doug

Doug,

thanks anyway :-)

Friday I'll get it back and I will report. In meanwhile my AVIA + DVE PAL should arrive.

So far Im really happy with the 59avi other then the few quirks Ive mentioned earlier.
Its funny, even know I calibrated all of my other dvd players using avia and dve ..the 59avi just appears to have a brighter picture then the others (especially the denon 3910 which seemed kinda darkish) ..anyway, whatever the reason my preference is for the 59avi's picture. The colors are spot on and overall picture has a punchiness to it that I find appealing. Also it has handled every dvd Ive thrown at it so far ..even bad transfers seem tolerable.
Side note, has anybody else noticed that when setting with Avia's brightness bars and then comparing it to the dve brightness setting...that at least on my setup (and for all the dvd players Ive had)..the avia settings for brightness are always 4 clicks lower then DVE ? ..I split the difference between the two and lower brightness by 2 clicks on dve and 2 clicks higher on avia ..I wonder though, which is the most correct..avia or dve ?

I agree psujohny, the 59avi's picture has a nice punch, and color saturation is excellent and smooth.

It is even more pronounced when doing a direct a/b comparison.

In any event, I feel I have been getting behind on editing the first post in this thread, as there has been some really good info posted that should be put there.

I will try to catch up!

Originally posted by mskreis
Which Lumagen model do you have?

Vision HDP

Wow, what a great resource this site is! I'm new here, but I think I'm hooked.

I'm trying to decide whether it's worth trying a HDMI-DVI connection to my ISF-Calibrated Toshiba 50HDX82. It's not the cost of the cable that's holding me back, so much as my reluctance to move my set (necessary to install the cable) and thereby ruin much of my painstaking geometry/convergence work!

I do realize that CRT RPTVs are less likely to benefit from HDMI. But as the Toshibas upconvert all signals to 540p, I'm wondering whether I wouldn't be better off allowing my 59AVi to do the upconverting (to 720p or 1080i) and bypassing the upconversion circuitry on my TV. (Certainly the 81 series did a pretty poor job of the upconversion. The 82 is better, but maybe the 59AVi is better still?)

I'm currently running component, and the picture is very nice. But of course I'm wondering whether it could be improved further. Has anyone tried/compared HDMI-DVI vs component on this series of Toshiba TV?

Mike

Mike,
I had a 55 inch, 2002 model, Cinema series Toshiba CRT-based RPTV last summer and had a chance to experiment with running it Component vs. DVI from a Denon 5900 and HDMI from the Pioneer 59avi. Based on that experience, I would STRONGLY recommend you give HDMI/DVI at 1080i a try. I think you'll be amazed.

By the way, I sympathize with not wanting to screw up the convergence. That's why I replaced it with a plasma.
--Bob

Bob,

A 2002 model... must have been the 82 series. The 81 didn't have DVI. Anyway, that's all I needed to hear... I'm off to buy the cable! Thanks a million. Your post are always incredibly helpful.

(New mantra: "56-Point Convergence is fun. 56-Point Convergence is fun.")

Mike

The Lumagen HDP is so tempting, but it seems that much more than the Iscan, it is mainly for the power user. I'll have to make the decision on SDI in a couple of months when my 59AVi gets sent to JVB for their code-free mod.

By the way, I'm sure others already know this, but I figured this out last night:

In order to get past forced trailers and go directly to the beginning of the movie, simply hit the "stop" button twice in a row while the trailer is playing, then hit "play". The movie will start from the beginning. From that point you can also hit the "menu" button to go to the main DVD menu if desired.

I didn't know that, so ... thanks! :)

It's nice to contribute to the thread I started once in a while....it doesn't happen all that much!

:)

Originally posted by Rob Tomlin
By the way, I'm sure others already know this >

In order to get past forced trailers and go directly to the beginning of the movie, simply hit the "stop" button twice in a row while the trailer is playing, then hit "play". The movie will start from the beginning. From that point you can also hit the "menu" button to go to the main DVD menu if desired.

http://www.handykult.de/plaudersmilies.de/happy/xyxthumbs.gif

Great tip Rob, thanks. Does it work with the FBI warnings? I'm not home to test.

Initial impressions:
I finally got to play a bit last night after the family retired to the bedrooms. I popped in North by Northwest to check out basic PQ, and it looks good. Don't forget I'm using an old CRT, so my expectations are archaic. I'll be checking out many more DVDs when I can. I'm particularly interested to see how it handles classic B&W films; also Star Trek DS9 episodes, many of which exhibited horrible artifacts on the old machine.

Next to music: I tried two favorite RBs: old Bernstein/Copland, then Kate Bush's Hounds of Love. I was really knocked out by both. When I got to Hounds, I had intended to sample 30 seconds or so of each track, but I enjoyed it so much, I stopped to listen for much longer. The difference on RB from the old Sony is dramatic. I also sampled my only DVD-A (Brain Salad Surgery), which sounded better than the DVD track I could use before, but that's no comparison. This morning I tried my hybrid Peter Gabriel Security. It, too, sounded better than before. I was particularly interested in problems the old machine developed w/ the SACD layer of this disc: it would freeze at certain points for about 30 seconds, then resume. The 59 handled the disc w/ no errors, so it either tracks better or the old machine's laser had gotten misaligned.

Cheers,
Doug

Originally posted by PaulT_BC
http://www.handykult.de/plaudersmilies.de/happy/xyxthumbs.gif

Great tip Rob, thanks. Does it work with the FBI warnings? I'm not home to test.

To be honest, I am not sure about the FBI warnings. I'll have to specifically try that as well.

doug,
Even though you've got an old TV, be sure to take the time to calibrate it for your new player (i.e., setting the basic blacks/whites/colors/sharpness levels). The correct settings for your new player are likely to be different from those that worked best with your old player.

If you have never used a "calibration" DVD before you really owe it to yourself to get one and spend some time putting it to use. The popular ones out there are Avia and Digital Video Essentials (DVE). I tend to prefer Avia, but each has a few "advanced" tests that the other does not have.

The factory default settings for your TV are almost certain to be incorrect. Most manufacturers ship TVs with defaults that are disparagingly called the "torch" modes -- overly bright/contrasty, overly red, and overly sharpness processed -- designed to attract shoppers' eyes under the garish lighting found in stores.

If you've never done calibration before, you will not be able to adjust your TV properly by eye alone since you've gotten too used to what a "wrong" picture looks like. Trust me on this, a calibrated picture, particularly one from a top end player such as the 59avi, will be much nicer even on an old TV.
--Bob

, has anybody else noticed that when setting with Avia's brightness bars and then comparing it to the dve brightness setting...that at least on my setup (and for all the dvd players Ive had)..the avia settings for brightness are always 4 clicks lower then DVE ?

Anybody ?

Originally posted by psujohny
Side note, has anybody else noticed that when setting with Avia's brightness bars and then comparing it to the dve brightness setting...that at least on my setup (and for all the dvd players Ive had)..the avia settings for brightness are always 4 clicks lower then DVE ? ..I split the difference between the two and lower brightness by 2 clicks on dve and 2 clicks higher on avia ..I wonder though, which is the most correct..avia or dve ?

It sounds like this may be a good separate thread topic. Is this only with the 59avi or did it also occur with the Sony 999ES and Denon 3910?

I have both so I'll look tonight time permitting.

It sounds like this may be a good separate thread topic. Is this only with the 59avi or did it also occur with the Sony 999ES and Denon 3910

All 3 and a couple of other players as well ..,

Your proabably right though, should go on another thread I suppose..Just wondered if anyone else has seen it ..

Thanks, Bob, I had certainly planned on getting a calibration disc when we get an HDTV, but it's a good idea to do it now, too. I actually wrote down the settings I liked in the manual when I set up the TV years ago, but of course the player affects it, as well as the age of the tube. Speaking of age, is there any disc that will correct MY vision? ;)

doug,
By all means get a calibration disc (or two) and get used to using them now. When you go hunting for HDTVs eventually, you will discover that it is almost impossible to evaluate them in stores because they are set up so badly in stores. But if you bring along your own calibration DVD and can talk them into hooking up a DVD player (or even bring your own player along), it only takes a few minutes to get a reasonable "ball park" set of settings on any TV. That will give you at least a fighting chance of seeing what your candidate TVs are truly capable of doing.

As for improving your vision, there's some pretty eye-popping stuff on HDTV these days, as well as what you'll be able to see when you get your TV properly set up with your 59avi. My eye doctor tells me my vision has actually improved recently -- no doubt due to watching HDTV and good DVDs.
:)
--Bob

Ditto on AVIA. It made a night and day difference when I replaced my Panasonic RP62 with the 59avi.

Also guys, any info on an all region mod/hack for our player?

Originally posted by moribund

Also guys, any info on an all region mod/hack for our player?

You have to perform a physical hack to the player. JVB digital did mine for me. $125 of the service, plus shipping to their offices in Michigan. There isn't a sub-menu change or firmware change to modify the player for code free play.

Ron

1) Assuming that the 59 and 868 are te same there are region free hack not HW but SW.

There is a swiss company (dvdupgrades.ch) which makes a patched firmware to make region
free, disable macrovision and UOP but (for me) is still too expensive..(they send you the IF cable
and the FW with a internet connection)


2) I remember seeing somwhere online

(edited: found at http://www.videohelp.com/dvdhacks.php?dvdplayer=Pioneer+DV-868)

that there is a programmable sequence of IR codes which can be used with programmable
remote control (e.g. Pronto) to also switch the player to region free but I do not know how true this is...

Originally posted by PaulT_BC
http://www.handykult.de/plaudersmilies.de/happy/xyxthumbs.gif

Great tip Rob, thanks. Does it work with the FBI warnings? I'm not home to test.

I tried it again last night, specifically pressing the "stop" button twice at the FBI warning, then pressing "play". Sure enough, passed right by the FBI warning and the movie started at the beginning (you don't even go to the main menu, which is something I would normally only need if I am looking for the DTS track instead of Dolby Digital).

Well guys, I finally decided to exchange the Denon 2910 for the 59AVi! It kinda pisses me off because I spent so much money buying the 6 analog cables, but being able to use 1 cable for DTS, DD, SACD and DVD-A was just too tempting. The 2910 suffered from too much green push even with all of the firmware updates. Can someone post a link to where I can download the firmware updates for the 59AVi?

Unfortunately it doesn't appear that Pioneer allows you to download the firmware updates.

What Firmware version are you running? To find out how to check, see the first post on in this thread.

Originally posted by virus
Well guys, I finally decided to exchange the Denon 2910 for the 59AVi! It kinda pisses me off because I spent so much money buying the 6 analog cables, but being able to use 1 cable for DTS, DD, SACD and DVD-A was just too tempting. The 2910 suffered from too much green push even with all of the firmware updates. Can someone post a link to where I can download the firmware updates for the 59AVi?

I have the 6 analog cables as well. Does that mean I can disconnect my coaxial cable? If so, it would just be easier for me to not have to switch the input selections each time and confuse myself even more. I'm desperately hoping my new remote (macros) will "fix" this whole headache. lol

Originally posted by cissado
I have the 6 analog cables as well. Does that mean I can disconnect my coaxial cable? If so, it would just be easier for me to not have to switch the input selections each time and confuse myself even more. I'm desperately hoping my new remote (macros) will "fix" this whole headache. lol

From everything I've read, the i-Link cable replaces everything.

Using I-link to an I-link equipped receiver is a one cable solution for ALL disc and audio formats.

Similarly, using 6 analog audio cables to a multi-channel pre-amp (which may also be a receiver) is also a complete solution.

That is, you can let your I-link equipped receiver do all the work or you can let the 59avi do all the work. If you hook them both up you can switch between them (after making the proper speaker setup settings on both sides) and see which you prefer for any given disc or audio format.

For people who don't have an I-link equipped receiver and still want to use audio processing functions such as bass management that might be fancier in your receiver than in the 59avi you have to do things differently.

You can hook up digital audio via optical or coax digital audio jacks, or even via HDMI if your receiver has HDMI inputs, but these digital audio connections will only truly work for normal CDs and video DVDs. When listening to DVD-Audio or SACD discs you will either get no audio or a reduced quality version of the audio.

Some receivers have multi-channel audio inputs and offer the option to "process" the audio coming in on those inputs over and above basic volume control. In such case you could use the 6 cable analog audio connections to your receiver and simply set the 59avi to do nothing to the signal beyond decoding and conversion from digital to analog format, and then set the receiver to do things like time alignment and bass management. Or the other way around. Try both and see which you like best.
--Bob

Do any of you 59avi owners have the 55txi or other ilinked Elite receiver?

If so, what kind of improvements could I expect for SACD and red book playback utilizing ilink? Would it come close to the SP1000? What kind of sonic characteristics does it have?

Sorry if this is somewhat out of thread topic. Please PM me if necessary.

Which has better audio, the 56TXi or the 59AVi for all formats? What SACD/DVD-A connections do you like best, i-Link or analog? I realize that this is preference, but your input is greatly appreciated.

Couple of impressions.....I have the 59 TXi connected via i-link to the 59 AVi. I con't comment about SQ with the 56 TXi as I've never heard it.

What I can say is that i-link have better SQ via i-link vs analog, toslink or coax digi connections (more detailed). Plus, via i-link, I can use the MCACC (including BM) of the 59 TXi with hi-rez audio disks.

Don't know much about the SP1000 since I'm not an Onkyo fan.

i-Link & hi-rez: Unless something's changed recently or I'm very mistaken (the latter is a distinct possibility), SACD & DVD-A signals can only be passed via analog cables. I know that Denon has been given permission to send the signal digitally via i-Link when SACD 2.0 comes out, but not now.

Doug

doug,
This is a common confusion. I-link and Denon-link are not the same thing. Denon-link is a proprietary form of connection that Denon launched to get a jump on the then up-coming I-link only to run into resistance from the folks who license and control the exotic audio formats. Denon is still trying to fight their way back from that fiasco. Mind you Denon has right on their side on this. There's really no reason Denon-link SHOULDN'T be authorized to carry those formats.

I-link (also called IEEE1394 and "firewire") has been the approved digital connection for the exotic audio formats since they were launched.

I-link output from the 59avi will carry digital audio for all formats from all disc types supported by the 59avi at full bandwidth and in multi-channel for those formats that are recorded in multi-channel. I-link also supports "chaining" of devices -- multiple devices interconnected by a daisy-chain of I-link cables -- and device control functions. The device control functions are optional in the standard and will likely only work between devices from the same manufacturer (much like remote control codes are different between different manufacturers).

I-link device control is what lets the 59txi receiver automatically switch inputs to the DVD player when you hit Play on the I-link connected 59avi player for example. This is particularly useful if you have more than one source device on the I-link chain.

I-link only carries audio, and thus can not provide a single cable solution for both audio and video switching. The expectation is that future upgrades of HDMI will be used for that even with the exotic audio formats, but of course HDMI is only point to point (not daisy chained), has no device control yet, and is not licensed up to the same level as I-link yet. HDMI 1.0 (as shipped on the 59avi) can not carry DVD-Audio or SACD at full bandwidth multi-channel. HDMI 1.1 which is just now shipping on some devices is licensed for DVD-Audio. HDMI 1.2 which is in the rumor mill right now is expected to be licensed for SACD as well.

Meanwhile SACD is going through its own changes with SACD version 2.0 expected to hit about the same time as the new high-def DVD players are launched. The current SACD version is 1.3. That's the version I-link currently carries and Denon-link is still fighting to be allowed to carry. What will be different about SACD 2.0 has not been nailed down yet but it is likely that it will include features such as enhanced copy protection that will require new hardware at both ends of the cable. I.e., current SACD 1.3 devices will not be upgradeable to 2.0. Whether that also means there will be new SACD discs that current devices can not play is also not clear yet.
--Bob

Originally posted by dougotte
i-Link & hi-rez: Unless something's changed recently or I'm very mistaken (the latter is a distinct possibility), SACD & DVD-A signals can only be passed via analog cables. I know that Denon has been given permission to send the signal digitally via i-Link when SACD 2.0 comes out, but not now.

Doug

Denon has always been allowed to send DD/DTS through i-Link. They just recently got permission to use it through their Denon Link.

Bob Pariseau - please check your PM.

Since the 59AVi doesn't ship with the i-Link cable, can I pick it up at any stereo shop? I one brand any better than another or can I pick a firewire cable in any computer shop?

Bob and virus (and others who took the time to read my post): thanks for responding. I should have done a little research before wasting your time, but I appreciate your patience anyway.

Regards,
Doug

No time wasted. I'm still trying to figure everything out as well. I'm a Network Engineer and I'm starting to feel a little overwhelmed by all the new A/V toys I have to set up.

doug,
There are undoubtedly folks out there wanting to know this stuff who are too shy to ask. It's good to get some of these details nailed down in this thread for future 59avi owners.

-------------------------------------------------

virus,
As far as the I-link cable, there are several speed ratings of IEEE1394 cable out there and the 59avi wants you to use a particularly fast type. It is spec'ed for "4-pin S400 cables less than 3.5 meters long". The S400 is the speed rating. There are "firewire" cables used in other applications that have more than 4 pins (and thus also higher S numbers), but the digital audio only application as with the 59avi uses just the 4 pin version.

***>> And by the way, one of those cables *IS* included in the box with the 59avi. <<***

See pages 21 and after in the 59avi owner's manual -- which can also be downloaded from the Pioneer web site's Support section (although apparently some people have had trouble downloading it when using a browser other than Internet Explorer).

I don't have any particular recommendation for one brand of cable over another.
--Bob

Originally posted by graphicguy
Couple of impressions.....I have the 59 TXi connected via i-link to the 59 AVi. I con't comment about SQ with the 56 TXi as I've never heard it.


Thanks fo the reply.


Anyone: How do the DAC's compare in the 56txi compared to the 59avi? Is that like hooking up a 3910 to a 3805 with a flipflop relationship in DAC quality? Perhaps though PQLS, better BM and TA can offset any DAC quality variance and still offer overall improved performance.

Originally posted by mimason
Thanks fo the reply.


Anyone: How do the DAC's compare in the 56txi compared to the 59avi? Is that like hooking up a 3910 to a 3805 with a flipflop relationship in DAC quality? Perhaps though PQLS, better BM and TA can offset any DAC quality variance and still offer overall improved performance.

I've been wondering the same thing. The 3910 is reported to have much better DAC's and sound compared to the 3805 receiver. Does the 59AVi have superior DAC's and sound as well? If I use the i-Link will it only use the 56TXi's DACS?

virus,
Yes if you connect the 59avi via I-link, it will send digital audio which bypasses the DACs in the 59avi. The receiver then does the rest of the work including Digital to Analog conversion.

So far I haven't seen any detailed comparisons of the quality of the 59avi's DACs compared to those in the Pioneer Elite receivers such as the 56txi and it's more expensive cousin the 59txi.

There might be something on these over in the Amps, Recievers, and Processors forum here. Does anyone know of a good cross-link we might want to include here?
--Bob

Originally posted by Bob Pariseau
psujohny,
OK, so the HDMI to HDMI tests are out. We need to get some more 59avi owners with HDMI displays! (grin!)

Well I'm working on it Bob......I've got the display(native resolution 1080p), now if one or more of you fine gentlemen would just PM me with a reference to some authorized dealer that is selling them at a great price.....then I should be able to oblige.:D

P.S.
At least this player isn't in one of those trucks racing towards the US with products hastily stamped, "Suitable for Sale to Americans" as you alluded to in another thread Bob.:D

Originally posted by Bob Pariseau
virus,
Yes if you connect the 59avi via I-link, it will send digital audio which bypasses the DACs in the 59avi. The receiver then does the rest of the work including Digital to Analog conversion.

So far I haven't seen any detailed comparisons of the quality of the 59avi's DACs compared to those in the Pioneer Elite receivers such as the 56txi and it's more expensive cousin the 59txi.

There might be something on these over in the Amps, Recievers, and Processors forum here. Does anyone know of a good cross-link we might want to include here?
--Bob

This was posted in Amp,Receiver forum:

The DACS used in the 56txi and 55tx can be found in this database.

http://members.cox.net/alexhardware/IC_database1.htm

"Silly" question: does the 59AVi have the "resume" function? As in, stop the player and switch off, come back the next day and "play" will start the movie at the spot you stopped?

And does the HDMI handshake screw this up?

I ask because I'm currently demo-ing a Marantz 9500, which is very nice, but it doesn't seem to do the "resume" function properly after powering off (soft off, not hard button off), and this seems to be because the HDMI handshake appears to mess things up, and the disc acts as if it's just been put in.

(Another minus against the 9500 is no auto-detect 4:3 material for pillarboxing. On the plus side my Marantz RC3200 remote that came with the Marantz receiver is already programmed to control a Marantz DVD player. And of course the audio portion is really sweet.)

armoury.....answers:

Yes, the 59 AVi does have the "resume" function you alluded to. I've got mine hooked up via HDMI/DVI cable to my Grand Wega. No problems.

I like those Marantz DVD players (and Marantz gear, in general). I'm kind of surprised they don't have 4:3 auto detect, though.

The remote that comes with the 59 AVi is nowhere nearly as nice as the RC3200. On the other hand, the Pioneer remote is much simpler to use than the RC3200 touchscreen.

I have a couple questions about this player. About I-link will this work on all receivers that have an IEEE1394 input or just pioneer receivers.

Also does anyone know if this player plays dvd+r dl discs, I have a lot of backups of dvd's, so this is very important. Thanks.

Does anyone know what causes this artifact and what it is called? In Matrix reloaded during Morpheus' speech to the throng at Zion, in some scans the crowd or the background is throbbing or breathing. It looks like its expanding and contracting but also raising and dropping as well. The sections that are "breathing" consist of clearly outlined parts of the complete image. On a DVD-R I have, with a garden surrounded on four sides by a structure, the garden is throbbing and its borders are clearly delineated from the structure.

Originally posted by nitro110
I have a couple questions about this player. About I-link will this work on all receivers that have an IEEE1394 input or just pioneer receivers.

Also does anyone know if this player plays dvd+r dl discs, I have a lot of backups of dvd's, so this is very important. Thanks.

Yes, ILink will be compatible but if it is not a Pioneer then you won't get the proprietary PQLS benefit which is supposed to eliminate jitter.

The 59avi plays all my DVD+R with no problems.

Bluesea,
This is probably a compression artifact that's actually in the DVD content. If too much compression is used in "background" areas, the motion analysis portion of the MPEG compression algorithm will give certain portions of the image the look of being detached from the rest of the image, since it guesses wrong in predicting the motion of one portion of the scene as compared to adjacent portions.

Sometimes this also happens if the scene is overly pre-filtered for noise reduction before being fed into the MPEG encoder (i.e., too much high frequency content is discarded). See the following example for instance:

http://www.michaeldvd.com.au/Articles/VideoArtefacts/VideoArtefactsNoiseReduction.html

It is also possible that you are seeing a sloppy "special effect" sequence where the matting in of the computer graphics was not done with sufficient care.

Have you tried these discs on other players to see if they show the same thing?
--Bob

I've seen several reports of people using the Pioneer players with other brands of I-link equipped receivers and it works just fine except for device control -- i.e., no automatic switching of inputs to the DVD player when you hit Play on the player.

The PQLS stuff is Pioneer's trademark name for something that I believe is pretty standard in I-link implementations these days and which is based on a feature of the standard itself, so I'm not at all sure you wouldn't get the same benefit using the 59avi with another brand of I-link receiver that implements the same thing but calls it something else.

Of course if something DOESN'T work when you mix brands, both tech support groups are likely to point to the other as the one that has the problem. So be sure you understand what your return options are just in case you find something you don't like and can't get either side to own up to having to fix it.
--Bob

Originally posted by armoury
"Silly" question: does the 59AVi have the "resume" function? As in, stop the player and switch off, come back the next day and "play" will start the movie at the spot you stopped?



I know this has already been answered, but I will confirm that the resume function works very nicely on the 59avi.

This came in handy just last week when my wife and I watched the restored version of Gone With The Wind. We split the movie over two nights. I simply hit the stop button, turned the 59avi off, came back the next night, turned it on, hit play and it picked up right where we left off. Very nice feature.

Does anyone use the 59avi with an DVDO iscan HD or HD+ ?
If so what config. do you think gives you the best picture:
Component 480i input to the iscan or 480p hdmi to dvi into the iscan? thanks!

Hi to everybody:

here my report for your amusement...:-(

1) I got the Pioneer 868 back from (non) repair shop where it says (in report) something like:

"we have seen the problem, we have asked Pioneer which confirmed this the player behaves according to specification" !!!

2) the shop confirmed that the problem happens with RGB, video AND Component (YCrCb). They tested using Sony displays.

3) Once at home I made first sure that the 868 is configured as default (e.g. IRE 0 because we are PAL) and went back to play with TV bright/contrast using THX optimiser, (until Avia or DVE come).

Results:

a) the SONY KV32 has 3 preset modes: Live (only brightness (torch-mode)), Movie (something softer), personal (the one you play with).

b) Movie and Live are useless. Personal can be adjusted to have the THX look OK. Also sample movie look OK with blacks which are really black and rich 3D picture. Note that with the 868 the setting of my Sony TV are then going to be Contrast 25% and Brightness 30-40 % of the max. value, that is considerably lower than default for preset movie I mentioned above and which I was using before. This means that toi get THX correct the image is quite dark and require viewing without room light.

c)While doing this I tested with: Star Wars Episode II PAL which is suppose to be a high quality new DVD. Problem areas were:

- Long time ago in a galaxy far away initital blue title (horizontal banding + complementary color shadow)
- yellow scrolling title (no banding but complementary color shadow)
- all subtitle esp. chapter 6 (heavy horizontal banding/decoloration of the image for for all horizontal lines where the subtitle happens to be)

connection via RGB or CVBS.

I found out :

i) there is a new image defect I did not noticed before the "complementary color shadow" as shown by RobbieTT post (in European board) which consist in a ghost image some of bright images in complementary colour (e.g. Blue images have yellow ghost/shadow like titles or like the 2 suns in the sky.). This happens in my Sony TV only when brightness/contrast are set to high (wrt THX optimiser) at this setting the image is, on my TV, way too bright anyway so this can be "easily" compensated for in the TV with a proper image. BTW .

ii) Bannding problem in blue title is in this way almost eliminated. It can be seen only shooting brightness to max, but it would be acceptable.

iii) Problem with banding when using subtitle is very well present still (like the area around the title has different brightness setting applied). It cannot be fully eliminated playing with TV control unless killing the PQ (i.e. making it so dark that the decoloration/brightening disappear).

iv) the image in S-Video is instead of very high quality a little softer but more "regular" that the RGB on my TV. My solution will then be to use S-Video. It really (for now) looks very good.

I will report then playing with the player controls in another e-mail.

How about some pics?

Thanks for the responses!

Also, does it have lip-sync adjustment? The Pio display seems rather "slow" in processing video, so this is likely to be necessary.

armoury,
I've not found any lip-sync timing adjustment in the 59avi. Of course for digital audio output the assumption would be that your receiver or other audio processor would do this as necessary, but there's no control for the analog audio outputs either.

Personally, I've not found any lip-sync problems with the 59avi nor heard of reports from others except in cases where people already knew their external hardware was the source of the problem.
--Bob

I have yet to see a report of lip sync problems with the 59avi either.

Originally posted by Bob Pariseau
Bluesea,
This is probably a compression artifact that's actually in the DVD content. If too much compression is used in "background" areas, the motion analysis portion of the MPEG compression algorithm will give certain portions of the image the look of being detached from the rest of the image, since it guesses wrong in predicting the motion of one portion of the scene as compared to adjacent portions.

Sometimes this also happens if the scene is overly pre-filtered for noise reduction before being fed into the MPEG encoder (i.e., too much high frequency content is discarded). See the following example for instance:

http://www.michaeldvd.com.au/Articles/VideoArtefacts/VideoArtefactsNoiseReduction.html

It is also possible that you are seeing a sloppy "special effect" sequence where the matting in of the computer graphics was not done with sufficient care.

Have you tried these discs on other players to see if they show the same thing?
--Bob

Thanks Bob,
I'll try to report back after I get the chance to try another player.

I've been searching for a good solution for PAL-NTSC Conversion, but have not turned up much concrete info yet. Does anyone view PAL discs with their 59AVi?

- If you use a converter, what converter do you use?
- What connection type do you use with the converter (HDMI, component)?

Ideally I do not want to go to interlaced mode for PAL. It looks like the iScan HD+ does PAL-NTSC, and possible the Vision HDP as well.

Ive been spending quite a bit of time with my 59avi lately and evaluating mainly the audio..Because the picture seems about as good as you can get to me (untill hd or blue ray)..Absolutely no problems at all, well there have been a couple of times that I had to turn off the 59avi and pany projector to establish a hdmi to dvi connection for some reason ( Im using a 40 ft ram electronics cable)..A couple of times it has taken a couple of try's to get them to link up.
Whats surprisng to me is the sacd/dvd-audio playback ..it is better then I had imagined, I would say its right there with the sony 999es on sacd playback ( but no true a/b was done by me) ..Really happy about this, the 59avi seems to have a clearity to it that is biting at times, guitar's have that extra edge to them but yet womens vocals are buttery smooth. Bass is very fast to. There is a toe-tapping quality about the 59avi's sacd/dvd-audio playback that does it for me.
Now for regular redbook playback I gotta say that Im not crazy about it..That same edge that gives the sacd playback that biting edge and extra clearity..is present on redbook playback but for me, goes over the line and my ears percieve it as being a bit to bright and a little harsh ..I have alot of older rocknroll cd's that arent the best recordings and can sound bright anyway..The 59avi doesnt smooth out the rawness like the sony 999es could ..I prefer the redbook playback of the 999es in this area ( the 999es had filter settings, slow or sharp and on rocknroll the slow settings seemed to take the harshness out) ..
Anyway, not what I thought going in that the 59avi would be just as good if not a tad better then the 999es on sacd and that the sony would be preferable on redbook ( I would have thought just the opposite going in based on reviews of both) ..
The solution for me is an easy one. Im gonna play around with a couple of cheap used tube dacs for redbook playback only ( scott nixon/cal alpha) or maybe even an ack dac or old EAD 7000 . ( all 300~400 dollars) ..As the 59avi will make a great transport for a dac, this combined with top notch sacd/dvd-audio playback and its excellant video makes it a complete package that would be almost impossible to beat for the price.

Originally posted by armoury
Thanks for the responses!

Also, does it have lip-sync adjustment? The Pio display seems rather "slow" in processing video, so this is likely to be necessary.

Having had TERRIBLE lip sync problems with my previous (a very expensive Rotel) player - particularly on a number of concert dvds (for a while I thought that Diana Krall was a ventriloquist!) - I'm pleased to confirm that I have had absolutely no lip sync problems with my 59. Definitely a great player in all respects. And Bob's contributions to this thread have made it even better.

htomei

psujohny,
With a DVI device at either end of the cable, cable-length problems *MIGHT* start showing up above about 10 feet of cable -- although there are plenty of folks using 30 and 40 foot lengths without problems. Sometimes a new cable helps. Also make sure your connections are solid -- particularly that the HDMI plug really is properly inserted into the 59avi. I find I need a support under my HDMI plug to keep it from working loose over time due to cable weight and what not.

I have found that my Fujitsu P50 sometimes has problems getting a good digital video connection if I switch to the 59avi from some other digital video source using my Dtronics DVI switch. It's not so obvious as "no image". Rather it is a slightly damaged image as if the black bias or bit depth was not correct. It happens about 50% of the time when I switch from my HDDirecTivo box to the 59avi -- presumably because the handshake is not re-performed correctly when switching from one active digital connection to another. It got me into a real panic early on when my digital video calibrations seemed to be going bad for no obvious reason.

The work-around for me is to switch connection to the 59avi, power it up if it wasn't already powered on, and wait for the blue light to come on indicating a digital connection. Then put the Fujitsu plasma in Standby for the 5 seconds or so it takes the blue light to go out again, and then bring up the Fujitsu again. This one simple extra step results in a perfect connection for me 100% of the time, and I've gotten in the habit of doing it every time I select the 59avi via the Dtronics switch so I don't have to wonder whether the handshake worked right this time or not. There's never a need to power-cycle the 59avi to get this trick to work.

I don't know if the problem is the plasma, the player, or the switch.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

As for CD sound, have you done any experimentation with turning High-Bit OFF and/or Legato ON to see what you get?

Also, have you found a need for different audio calibration levels for DVD vs. CD vs SACD?
--Bob

Thanks Bob,
Ill keep that in mind about the connections and switching sources..I think it may have been just the connection as it really was only a problem on one occasion and I tried several time messing with the connections and turning things on and off..I was getting concerned because I couldnt get it to work at all..but finally I got a connection..Every other time its never been a problem...maybe its the new buttkicker I got the other day shaking things up :)

Ive been listening to two channel sacd/dvd-audio and redbook cd through the analog outs of the Pioneer ..So I just leave the volume settings at zero..so far I havent had a need to calibrate to different levels when switching from dvd to any other source..since Im using the digital coxial out of the Pioneer for dvd's anyway.
Ive been messing around with the hi-bit and legato pro some ..havent came to a conclusion yet..but I think I slightly prefer the legato off and high bit on, but again no concrete conclusions yet..What are you using and what do you find the effect to be ? (of legato and high bit)

Glad to see your positive comments re sacd and dvd-a on the 59avi Johny. Helps confirm what my "untrained" ears hear as well. :)

psujohny,
I've just left it in the factory default settings (Legato OFF and High Bit ON). I'm not currently using this 59avi for critical music listening, so I haven't done any serious experimentation. Off hand it sounds fine to my ear, but that's not a well studied opinion. I'm hoping some of the audio fanatics here will post some good reading for me.

For it's primary role as a movie DVD player I use the 59avi's optical digital audio output to a Lexicon MC-2 processor, so the MC-2 is doing the decoding, time alignment, base management, et. al.
--Bob

Originally posted by psujohny
Side note, has anybody else noticed that when setting with Avia's brightness bars and then comparing it to the dve brightness setting...that at least on my setup (and for all the dvd players Ive had)..the avia settings for brightness are always 4 clicks lower then DVE ? ..I split the difference between the two and lower brightness by 2 clicks on dve and 2 clicks higher on avia ..I wonder though, which is the most correct..avia or dve ?

PSU,

Sorry it took so long to get back to you on the Avia vs DVE brightness settings.

Well, I just compared the two and agree that there is a difference between to two. It's not that much on my display but I think that DVE is much better at determining the proper black levels. DVE has much more detailed information and a broader range of test patterns for BTB.

FWIW, I usually use AVIA first as it is easier and faster and follow up with DVE when I have more time to make adjustments.

Originally posted by mimason
PSU,

Sorry it took so long to get back to you on the Avia vs DVE brightness settings.

Well, I just compared the two and agree that there is a difference between to two. It's not that much on my display but I think that DVE is much better at determining the proper black levels. DVE has much more detailed information and a broader range of test patterns for BTB.

FWIW, I usually use AVIA first as it is easier and faster and follow up with DVE when I have more time to make adjustments.

Agreed avia is too low. I actually use THX optimizer for white/black level since i dont own a copy of DVE. Based on what im reading, the THX is close or identical DVE. Avia leaves my picture way too dark.

John

Originally posted by psujohny
Ive been spending quite a bit of time with my 59avi lately and evaluating mainly the audio..Because the picture seems about as good as you can get to me (untill hd or blue ray)..Absolutely no problems at all, well there have been a couple of times that I had to turn off the 59avi and pany projector to establish a hdmi to dvi connection for some reason ( Im using a 40 ft ram electronics cable)..A couple of times it has taken a couple of try's to get them to link up.
Whats surprisng to me is the sacd/dvd-audio playback ..it is better then I had imagined, I would say its right there with the sony 999es on sacd playback ( but no true a/b was done by me) ..Really happy about this, the 59avi seems to have a clearity to it that is biting at times, guitar's have that extra edge to them but yet womens vocals are buttery smooth. Bass is very fast to. There is a toe-tapping quality about the 59avi's sacd/dvd-audio playback that does it for me.
Now for regular redbook playback I gotta say that Im not crazy about it..That same edge that gives the sacd playback that biting edge and extra clearity..is present on redbook playback but for me, goes over the line and my ears percieve it as being a bit to bright and a little harsh ..I have alot of older rocknroll cd's that arent the best recordings and can sound bright anyway..The 59avi doesnt smooth out the rawness like the sony 999es could ..I prefer the redbook playback of the 999es in this area ( the 999es had filter settings, slow or sharp and on rocknroll the slow settings seemed to take the harshness out) ..
Anyway, not what I thought going in that the 59avi would be just as good if not a tad better then the 999es on sacd and that the sony would be preferable on redbook ( I would have thought just the opposite going in based on reviews of both) ..
The solution for me is an easy one. Im gonna play around with a couple of cheap used tube dacs for redbook playback only ( scott nixon/cal alpha) or maybe even an ack dac or old EAD 7000 . ( all 300~400 dollars) ..As the 59avi will make a great transport for a dac, this combined with top notch sacd/dvd-audio playback and its excellant video makes it a complete package that would be almost impossible to beat for the price.

I agree with you almost 100% regarding the audio performance. Hi Res on this player is very good. I feel DVD-A is excellent. To me it's the stronger format of the two. SACD is still very good but veiled somewhat and does not seem to be as black and detailed to me. I think I feel that way about SACD because I was coming off a stint with the SP1000 which was stunning.

Red book on my system is very detailed almost thin in the midrange but I really think it's just that the treble is too much with my speakers. The 3910 was the same too. I even bought a Musical Fidelity x10v3 tube buffer which I thought would tame the treble down but it really has not rectified the problem. I think the buffer has opened up the sound stage but really did not smooth out the top end as much as I had hoped.

I like your ideas about a tube DAC I just don't now anything about them. I'll have to look into that too. Of course I don't want to compete with you on Audiogon for prices but please let me know what you decided and perhaps point me in the right direction.

Glad to see your positive comments re sacd and dvd-a on the 59avi Johny. Helps confirm what my "untrained" ears hear as well


Rob,
Your ears are just as good as mine and my eyes are just as good as yours..its just all about what we're more anal with :) ..Im more forgiving on the picture and sometimes actually too critical with the audio ..sometimes to the point that it disrupts my pleasure with just "enjoying" the music instead of pscho analizing it ..This was my exact fear when coming over to the dvd video board, I didnt want to start becoming to critical of the video ..macrobloking,chroma bug,y/c delay etc etc. ..Heck, I didnt even know what too look for :) ..sometimes ignorance truely is bliss

Well, I just compared the two and agree that there is a difference between to two.

Im glad to hear that you are seeing a difference between the two and I agree with Expletive that Avia's brightness settings are a little too dark.


Dont worry about the tube dacs audiogon thing...Thats the great thing about older dacs ..theres plenty to choose from and always available for great prices ..The two that are in my price range that seem to get alot of good reviews are the Scott Nixon Tube dac, which he currently still makes..I believe (somebody correct me if Im wrong) that Scott was one of the chief engineers for a well known and respected company that produces some very expensive tube dacs ..and he started making tube dacs on his own for a fraction of the costs.
The second is from California Labs, now out of buisness..but they made great tube dacs (the sigma and alpha) ..some are only 20 bit dacs but they also had 24 bit upgraded versions ..These can be had for a steal ..
There are other tube dacs as well, but prices start going up from the two I mentioned..
Sorry to get off topic :)

Originally posted by Bluesea
... Does anyone view PAL discs with their 59AVi?

Yes

- If you use a converter, what converter do you use?...

I don't use a converter. My Samsung HLN-507W1 surprised me by its ability to display PAL from component inputs. DVI does not sync up with PAL.

Originally posted by doctorG4
...
2) I remember seeing somwhere online

(edited: found at http://www.videohelp.com/dvdhacks.php?dvdplayer=Pioneer+DV-868)

that there is a programmable sequence of IR codes which can be used with programmable
remote control (e.g. Pronto) to also switch the player to region free but I do not know how true this is...
Has anybody tried it on 59AVI?

The videohelp site indicates no hacks for the 59.

htomei

As far as Black calibration, there really shouldn't be any difference as long as you interprete Avia and DVE properly. The two moving black bars on the Avia chart for setting black levels are both encoded closer to "Black" than the two bars that are supposed to be left visible on the DVE chart -- actually the brighter moving black bar on Avia is at the level of the dimmer above-black bar on DVE.

On Avia, you adjust Brightness until the dimmer of the two moving bars is just barely detectable above the Black background.

On DVE, you adjust Brightness so that BOTH black bars are clearly visible (but the third bar, which is "Blacker than Black" is completely invisible). The dimmer of the two bars should be roughly half as distinct as the other black bar, but much more visible than the dimmer Avia bar would be.

Avia, used properly, actually provides a more precise test for setting black levels. Now the narration on Avia says to make the dimmer black bar completely invisible. That's too low a setting for digital displays. It is in fact a compromise setting for CRT-based displays where you intentionally set blacks a little too low because you know that black levels will "float" upwards in more brightly lit scenes. The Avia narration is a bit too focused on the CRT-based systems that dominated home theater when Avia was written.
--Bob

Excellant explanation once again Bob, Just what I was looking for..I guess I havent been setting the brightness low enough using DVE is the reason Avia is darker. The way Ive been doing it on dve is, adjusting the 3 bar pattern untill the 3rd blackest bar becomes invisible and stopping there..but if Im reading your response corrrectly I should continue down even further untill the inner bar is aprox. half the brightness of the middle bar..
So I guess the darker settings of Avia I was getting ( its 4 clicks darker then dve) is actually the correct setting.
As a side note ..Avia settings have been closer to the thx optimzer setting then dve, because after adjusting with dve I still had 3~4 clicks that I could lower the brightness and still see the thx shadowbox.. So your explanation would explain all this.
Am I wrong, but doesnt the dve explanation say to stop exactly when the 3rd blackest bar dissappears ? ..and says nothing about continuing past that point at all..Ill have to recheck the naration on dve to hear exactly what they say

Well, I spent 3 hours last night listening to hi rez albums: Lawrence Juber's Guitar Noir, Pink Floyd's DSOTM, and The Blue Man Group's Audio.

Let's just say that I can't imagine that the Elite is leaving much on the table in terms of audio performance! The Blue Man Group and Lawrence Juber were particularly astonishing in their audio quality. DSOTM was slightly less impressive, but I don't know how much of that is due to it being a 32 year old recording compared to the others that were new recordings, or if the 59avi isn't as strong with SA-CD as stated by mimason.

Rob,

With both you and mimason suggesting that SACD is not as strong, out of curiosity what are you using for your BM - the 59? I am using the analog outs of the 59 and have an ICBM between my pre and amps, so get the same BM for SACD and DVD-A (no time alignment though). I find that I am enjoying the SACD sound a bit more, perhaps it is the material I am using. DSOTM and Roxy Music Avalon for SACD ref - Steely Dan Gaucho and Porcupine Tree In Absentia for DVD-A ref.

BTW - Guitar Noir is sitting waiting for me - I'll be home in a week :)

Yes, Paul, I am only using the 59 for all BM, I don't have a ICBM, though I may consider one.

Let us know what you think of Guitar Noir after you get the chance to listen to it!

I have an anthem D1 which can convert incoming 5.1 analog to digital and perform all the digital processing on it (BM, TA, DPL IIx). If i wanted to use this feature waht would be the proper way to configure the 59avi?

John

Originally posted by Expletive
I have an anthem D1 which can convert incoming 5.1 analog to digital and perform all the digital processing on it (BM, TA, DPL IIx). If i wanted to use this feature waht would be the proper way to configure the 59avi?

John If there is no "direct mode", turn off BM (no x-over freq, or set all speakers large) and set speaker distances equal. Or, upgrade the D1 to use i.Link. :)

larry

psujohnny,
Setting blacks (and whites) properly can be a little complicated. But the first rule of thumb is that whatever looks better TO YOU is likely the proper setting (once your eye is used to just how good a calibrated image can look). You can use Avia or DVE to test how far your preferred setting is from a given "reference" setting and to return to your preferred setting in a precise manner.

"Black" is encoded on the DVD as digital 16. The "Blacker than Black" bar is encoded on DVE as digital 7. The other two bars on DVE are digital 21 (the inner bar) and 25 (the middle bar).

On Avia the dimmer moving bar is digital 19 and the brighter bar is digital 21.

Blacker than Black detail represents light levels that were recorded below what the cinematographer and DVD editor chose to arbitrarily identify as "Black" for reference and quality control purposes.

Technically, Black and Above detail should always be visible and Blacker than Black detail should *NOT* be visible -- although it needs to be present so that the signal processing that happens before the pixels light up can take advantage of it. So technically you should adjust things so that digital 17 and above (only) are visible against a black, digital 16, background. If you raise Brightness beyond that point, Blacker than Black details (below 16) become visible as kind of darker "holes" in a now slightly grayish "Black" background.

If you adjust with DVE so that the Blacker than Black bar JUST becomes invisible, then you probably are still showing some levels of Blacker than Black data between 8 and 16 since you have made 7 your point of invisibility. If you adjust with Avia so that the dimmer moving bar is JUST invisible (i.e., as the Avia narration suggests) then you are possibly concealing data in the range of 17 to 19 since you have made 19 your point of invisibility. Meanwhile Guy Kuo of Ovation recommends raising Brightness a bit further for digital displays so that the dimmer moving black bar in Avia is JUST BARELY visible -- and so do I. Which is better?

THAT is a question of what the guys who produced the DVD INTENDED you to see!

You see the guys who are setting the balances when the DVD transfer is made are not so much trying to hit some mathematically perfect setting as they are trying to predict what the result will look like on your TV. That's because they are trying to hit a compromise that will work across the entire dynamic range of the film.

Now it is most typically the case that quality control for DVD transfers is done by watching the results on CRT based monitors, partly because that's what they have to work with and partly because they assume that's what most of the buying audience will be using. CRT based monitors have "floating" blacks -- black levels that rise and fall according the average brightness of what's on screen at the moment. So they assume that when the resulting DVD is played at home certain "Blacker than Black" details will float into view in scenes with medium to high brightness and will be concealed in darker scenes, and so they keep tweaking the black level on the transfer to try to get the visible level of detail "just right" -- based on the "float" that's happening in THEIR monitors.

Which means that no matter what level you set on your TV at home, you won't see precisely what they intended you to see unless your TV happens to have exactly the same degree of "float" as their studio monitors!

Digital displays such as LCDs and Plasmas typically have no "float" -- although there are some very few digital displays out there which are designed to emulate the "float" of a CRT. Now "float" is not really a good thing. Ideally a display would have no "float". But since the DVDs are made assuming your display has this flaw, you may need a compromise setting in your "better engineered" display in order to see what the DVD producers intended you to see.

The Avia moving bar chart is made with a half screen of gray to trigger a certain amount of "float" in TVs that do that. By making the leftmost moving bar JUST invisible, you have achieved a compromise setting that works across a fair range of CRT based systems that have a common degree of float. That is, you have set a black level that's deliberately a little too low knowing that it will float up. Avia includes variations of the moving bar pattern that have different amounts of stuff on the other half of the screen so that you can check just how much "float" seems to be affecting your black settings. One such pattern is totally black except for the moving bars. Another has a bright white half screen and a third has gray steps on the right side. Check all 4 patterns to see how the two moving black bars increase or decrease in visibility at any given set of level settings. You will need to get up close to your screen so that the sensitivity of YOUR EYE is not altered too much by the brightness on the other half of the screen.

For a digital display without "float" that Avia setting -- as described in the narration -- is too low. You will lose some black details you were supposed to see. So instead target a bit higher Brightness where the leftmost moving bar is JUST BARELY visible above the black background. Again you can use the other charts to double check whether your TV has "float" or not.

So is the DVE narration just wrong? No.

You see there's another school of thought which says that for digital displays without "float" what you really want to do is to make a compromise setting that's deliberately set a bit TOO HIGH so as to force some Blacker than Black detail to become visible! If you make the Blacker than Black bar in DVE JUST invisible, then you have made the top half of the Blacker than Black range -- from digital 8 to 15 -- just barely visible. The idea is supposed to be that bringing some of this Blacker than Black detail up into visibility will better match what the DVD producers intended you to see IN BRIGHTER SCENES where that stuff WOULD have floated into view if your TV only had some "float". But on the other hand, setting it that way means you will see TOO MUCH Blacker than Black detail in darker scenes -- which could yield noisier dark scenes since the quality control on Blacker than Black data is lower all along the reproduction chain.

Others say these folks are simply "thinking too much" and should just relax and set the display to the "proper" level where 17 is visible over 16 and 15 is not visible under 16 -- and then go buy good DVDs where the editors weren't trying to second guess how your TV works so much.

So how do you choose which is really best for YOUR TV?

Well of course the big test is what looks best to you while watching movies. But there are some other tests. First, digital displays (and to some degree CRT systems) aren't equally good at divvying up the gray scale range for all pairs of black and white end points. If you have several candidate setting pairs of Brightness and Contrast, one way to choose between them is to look at the Black to White gray scale ramps (or the higher detail, partial range, "reverse" gray ramps on DVE) to see which candidate setting produces what looks like the smoothest gray ramp.

A professional would do the same thing when measuring gray steps with a light sensor to try to achieve the best linearity across the range of the gray ramp.

Also, some TV's will have inherent limitations on just how far you can raise Brightness. You know of course that if you raise white levels with Contrast too high you may run into limits of your display -- points you don't want to cross -- points which you need to remember as upper limits for how far you might choose to raise Contrast. For example, you might see blooming on a CRT system or your might see thresholding (loss of white detail) on a digital system. Well some displays have limits on how high you can set Brightness. On those displays if you try to raise the base black level too far the display gets into a kind of rounding error as it tries to raise the over-all light output of "Black" a tiny bit. Digital displays have only a fixed number of steps of light output for each pixel, and so if the display wants to raise the light output just a little bit it has to barely turn on only a scattering of pixels. So if you get up close to your display and see widely scattered pixels just barely turned on in a nearly regular pattern (usually green or purple) in what should be "Black" then you know you have Brightness set too high. And thus that will become an upper limit on how high you can raise Brightness for your setup. Keep in mind that Brightness and Contrast interact so you need to check this for each pair of settings.

Finally there's the problem that not all source content is created equal. This is particularly so when watching broadcast TV. For broadcast TV, and for some cases of poorly produced DVDs, you will need to decide whether you want to (1) calibrate for perfect content and let the imperfect stuff look not quite as good as it might, or (2) pick a compromise set of settings that is not as good as it could be for perfect content but is less likely to annoy you when watching less than perfect content, or (3) save a few different sets of settings so that you have a "perfect" set and also settings that seem to work better with crappy source content.

Personally, I recommend calibrating for high quality, "perfect", source content and letting the crappy stuff look as bad as it wants to.
--Bob

Expletive,
If you want your Anthem to digitize the incoming analog audio and do all the work, set the analog outputs on the 59avi so that all speakers are "large" -- and thus the 59avi will do no base steering -- and all the distances are equal (i.e., zero difference) -- so that the 59avi will do no time alignment. It's probably best to center (0 dB) the volume for all speakers on the 59avi as well although if you use a calibration DVD you can measure the resulting volume from each speaker regardless of what the 59avi does to it and then the Anthem does on top of that.
--Bob

Bob,
That was a great writeup and I apreciate the way you put it in terms that I can understand. I wont say that I grasped all of it but it does give me a more informed base from which to work from..I will keep these in mind and go back and do some more calibrating..You should give a course on this and charge admission !

Yes, that was a great write up by Bob re setting of black levels. I am tempted to place that in the first post, but it is a bit long, so I think I will simply make reference to the post number.

Originally posted by Expletive
I have an anthem D1 which can convert incoming 5.1 analog to digital and perform all the digital processing on it (BM, TA, DPL IIx). If i wanted to use this feature waht would be the proper way to configure the 59avi?

John

In the 59avi: set all speakers to large, all delays (distances) at 0 (or all at the same number...), and put all those thing like Legato and Hi-Bit at "off". That way, you are bypassing everything in the 59avi and letting the D1 do all the job.

With the Anthem D1. Use the Analog-DSP in the 6ch settings. Set speakers the way you want (large or small), speaker levels, delays, crossover. Then enjoy. That way, both formats, DVD-As and SACDs, are equally good.

All this until we have a firewire connection on our D1... ;)

I don't know how much of that is due to it being a 32 year old recording compared to the others that were new recordings, or if the 59avi isn't as strong with SA-CD as stated by mimason.

Rob, are you using I-link for sacd and dvd-audio, and if so what is your pre-pro/reciever ? ..
One thing about using i-link .. Its great for TA and BM and the fact that you dont have to buy as many cables ..but on the other hand, your not using the dacs and analog section of the player and if its an expensive player, it may/maynot be better then the pre-pro/reciever ..So if your using i-link, then most of the sound your hearing will be attributed to your pre-pro and not the player itself.
Also since Im using the analog outs of the 59avi ( Im using the seperate two channel outs of the 59avi hooked up to a dedicated stereo analog pre-amp for two channel only)..Ive found that turning all BM off in the 59avi produces better sound for me in critical two channel listening. Also note that the 59avi's seperate two-channel outs are supposed to have a better/cleaner analog section and higher quality then the l/r of the 5.1 outs..
One other thing ..I have noticed an improvement in sound when turning on the pure audio mode of the 59avi ( it turns off all video displays,led,optical and digital outs)..But one, of course couldnt use this mode if using i-link I would presume ..since pure audio mode shuts down everything,I assume it would shut off i-link as well.

Nope, not using i-link as my pre/pro doesn't have it.

I am using a Parasound Halo C 2 pre/pro. It has true pass through for analog signals, so it shouldn't be adding or subtracting anything from the 59avi.

I definitely prefer Redbook CD playback via digital connection though. This is where your analysis regarding the quality of the pre/pro comes into play. Earlier you made reference to Redbook CD sounding a bit harsh. Were you using the 59avi's analog dac's, or digital connection to your receiver-pre/pro? If so, what brand/model are you using?

My reference for redbook being a bit harsh is using the analog outs of the 59avi ..My analog pre-amp for music is a citation 7.0, For ht Im just using a Pioneer 54tx (same as 56 tx minus the i-link)..For multi-channel listening I use the 5.1 outs of the 59avi to the analog bypass of the 54tx..
I can see why youd prefer the digital connection for redbook since the halo's dacs/analog section is probably of higher quality then the 59avi..In my case, imo the 54tx's dacs/analog section would be of lower quality then the 59avi dacs/analog section ..This may go to Mimasons questions of few pages back about using i-link with the 56txi versues using the analog outs of the 59avi ..IMO since the 54tx is the same as the 56tx I would prefer to use the 59avi analog outs..but the downside is, you cant take advantage of the excellant eq in the 54 tx and adjustable crossovers either..
My main priority is two channel ..and Ive found that the analog section of the citation 7.0 is almost impossible to beat from a ht processor (had a Lexicon mc-8 and Integra dtc-9.4 and a couple of others for awhile) But I decided to split the duties up and get seperate units for two channel and ht processing) anyway that leaves me needing a good source(dac)..again I feel sacd and dvd-audio coming from the 59avi is top notch..but redbook isnt quite where I want it to be..Thats where a good external tube dac will come into play (hopefully very soon) :)

Originally posted by mimason
How about some pics?

I posted some previously, but my camera is not very good in low light. When I get a new one from work I will make some example...

Sorry, I just cleared it out ..but didnt get your pm yet.

Does anyone have their 59avi hooked up to a Mitsubishi DLP? I am seriously looking into buying one of these now... I may be able to get a good deal on one since I may have a hookup at a local Tweeter.

Thanks!

I don't know about a Mistubishi DLP in particular, but several of us are using our 59avi's with DLP displays with excellent results. I am using mine with a Dwin TV3 DLP projector shooting onto a 123" Silverstar screen and I couldn't be happier with the results.

I have my 59avi hooked up to a Yamaha RXZ9 in this manner:

- digital coaxial cable used only for movies
- 5.1 channel analog outputs used for sacd and dvd audio AS WELL AS cds.

I always listen to sacd and dvd-audio in multichannel so I always have it set up in the 59avi's menu as Multi-ch Area. When I listen to normal cd's I just select "MULTICHANNEL IN" on my Yamaha ( as I would to listen to sacd & dvd-audio ) and it automatically uses the 5.1 analog section. The 59avi is still set to Multi-ch Area but since the cd is only stereo I only get sound out of the Front L/R speakers from the FRONT L/R outs of the 5.1 analog outs of the 59avi. Are you saying that to get better sound from my cd's that I should be hooking up another set of analog cables specifically for the cd playback using the separate dedicated L/R outs of the 59avi and plugging them into the CD analog inputs of my Yamaha receiver? If so, why is this? I've looked over the manual for the 59avi and did not find anything dealing with this issue. I guess I just figured that if the Front L/R outs of the 5.1 was good enough for high rez music it must be good enough for cds.

Also how do I go about turning off the bass management in the 59avi? Do I just select all speakers as LARGE?

I have a quickie..

will my 59avi pass 480i through HDMI into an ISCAN HD and upconvert to 1080i component?

thanks

Originally posted by moribund
I have a quickie..

will my 59avi pass 480i through HDMI into an ISCAN HD and upconvert to 1080i component?

thanks

The iScan cannot accept 480i through HDMI at the moment. With so much on the table, it is questionable whether or not this feature will ever see the light of day. I urge anyone who is interested in this feature to cast your vote by personally giving DVDO a call. The added cost of SDI is a big damper in my book.

I think I'll do that...because basically no 480i through HDMI no sale, I'm not going to spend 1000 bucks on something that would require me to spend another 800.00 or so equipping the scaler and 59avi with SDI.

moribund,
I presume you've seen the posts earlier in this thread from Expletive who is sending HDMI 480i from the 59avi to a Lumagen external scaler. So unless you have your heart set on the IScan, there is an immediately available alternative that can take advantage of HDMI 480i from the 59avi.
--Bob

Lee,
Yes, if you set all speakers to Large then the 59avi will not do any bass steering (bass management). Of course the sound on the ".1" channel should already be low frequencies only.

As far as I can tell the pair of Stero L/R analog outputs are identical to the Front L and Front R analog outputs of the multi-channel analog set, regardless of what you are playing.

That means, for example, that if you are playing multi-channel stuff, the Stereo L/R outputs will not include any of the signal that is intended for the center channel -- i..e., there's no steering of center channel content to those outputs, and thus the Stereo L/R pair won't sound very good if that's all you've got hooked up. I.e., it would be just the same as if you only hooked up the Front L and Front R outputs. You need to switch to 2-channel output to get the signal mixed to 2-channel.

Now there's been one report that the Stereo L/R pair is in some sense higher quality than the Front L and Front R pair when playing 2-channel content. I don't believe that really should be the case.
--Bob

The clincher for me with the iScan is its PAL-NTSC capability. I'm not sure the Lumagen can do that. Also, my relatively uninformed impression at this point is that the iScan is more user friendly that the Lumagen. I am not a power user, so ease of setup is important.

I am also wondering if I won't be satisfied with component through the iScan.

Thanks Bob.

I believe I read earlier in this thread from 'psujohny' that the separate two channel analog L/R were in fact of a higher quality than the Front L/R of the 5.1 analogs when listening to CDs. I was just wondering if this were true.

psujohny - could you please let me know why this is? Does it say it in the manual somewhere?

As far as I can tell the pair of Stero L/R analog outputs are identical to the Front L and Front R analog outputs of the multi-channel analog set, regardless of what you are playing.

Bob,
I called Pioneer and spoke with an engineer a couple of weeks ago and he stated to me that the stereo analog l/r was of a bit higher quality in the analog stage then the multi channel l/r..somthing about it doesnt go through as much electronics as the multi-channel l/r does (he wasnt sure so I guess he could have been wrong?)..Im not really sure what the exact differences are but I dont think they would have put them there for no reason..I know on some other units that the seperate stereo l/r that the manufacturer actually uses higher quality parts ..not sure about the 59avi ..

Also I know that if your listening from the stereo l/r outs or just the l/r outs of the multi-channel out (and dont have the rest of the channels hooked up)..that if you have the 59avi set to multi-channel and are listening to a sacd disc that has both a stereo and a mutli-channel mix ..that its gonna sound like crap ..You will only get the l/r from the multi channel mix ..You have to go back in to the 59avi's setup a change it to "two-channel"

I was listening to Norah Jones sacd and had the 59avi set to mutli-channel...and listened through the stereo outs and it sounded terrible...that is untill I switched the 59avi setup back to "two-channel"..

One other thing, call me crazy but I swear I hear a significant difference for the better when switching the 59avi into "pure audio mode"..however I assume that this mode cant be used when using the i-link connection ? because it turns off all the digital connections, led/display etc ..So I assume it turns off the i-link as well ? ..If this is the case it may be another reason why somebody may not want to run through the i-link

One other thing, call me crazy but I swear I hear a significant difference for the better when switching the 59avi into "pure audio mode"..however I assume that this mode cant be used when using the i-link connection ? because it turns off all the digital connections, led/display etc ..So I assume it turns off the i-link as well ? ..If this is the case it may be another reason why somebody may not want to run through the i-link
I have a 47ai that I use with i.link and turning off the video section (button on front) does not affect i.link.

larry

I believe I read earlier in this thread from 'psujohny' that the separate two channel analog L/R were in fact of a higher quality than the Front L/R of the 5.1 analogs when listening to CDs. I was just wondering if this were true.

Im gonna call Pioneer on monday and try and speak with somebody that can give me a definitive answer to this question..Is it that it doesnt go through as much crap as the multi-channel l/r ..and does it indeed use any higher quality parts in the analog out section of the stereo outs ..Ill let ya know what I can find out ..
But again, Im not really sure why they would even bother putting a seperate stereo out if using the l/r out of the multi-channel outs was the exact same ..

I have a 47ai that I use with i.link and turning off the video section (button on front) does not affect i.link.

Larry,
Im not sure if this is the same as "pure audio mode" on the 59avi or if its something different on the 47ai ...
Because I just checked my 59avi manual and it does indeed turn off the i-link connection ( and all digital connections etc.)..so, you can not use "pure audio mode" when using i-link on the 59avi.

Do the High-Bit and Legato Pro functions still work when you are in 'pure audio mode' or are these features bypassed as well? I'm guessing that they wouldn't work hence the word PURE. All it says in the manual is that it disables the video and digital outputs and turns the front panel display off.

Originally posted by psujohny
Larry,
Im not sure if this is the same as "pure audio mode" on the 59avi or if its something different on the 47ai ...
Because I just checked my 59avi manual and it does indeed turn off the i-link connection ( and all digital connections etc.)..so, you can not use "pure audio mode" when using i-link on the 59avi. I can believe that because I thought you would have said "video off" mode when you said "pure audio mode" , but I wasn't sure. Does the 59avi have a "video off" button on the front? It's also possible that the 47ai works a little differently because it was just a 47a with i.Link added on.

larry

I have several questions about cd and sacd playback. I have both the i.Link and 6 multichannel analogs hooked up. I have tried listening sacd's from the analogs and the i.Link and prefer the i.Link for listening to sacd's. When listening to regular cd's however, I find myself liking both for different reasons. Listening through i.Link seems to add something extra that I can't quite put into words. Listening through the analogs provides a smoother more natural sound. I set Audio output mode under the Speakers tab to 2 channel. Under the Options tab, I set the SACD Playback to CD Area. Are these settings correct? Do I need to change speakers back to 5.1 Output Mode for DVD's? For those of you who have a 56TXi, which setup do you prefer for listening to CD's and SACD/DVD-A's? I'm sorry for having so many questions, but I find the owners manual a tad confusing.

Does anyone have a working pronto .ccf for the 59avi, i cant seem to find one online or learn good commands.

John

John,

The 59 uses Pioneers strange double coding. I have been able to learn the remotes commands to my MX500.

I have the Hex codes for discrete On/Off (I think from remotecentral.com, you may want to check the file repository over there for complete ccf's) if you want them (I can post here). I just got home so will be trying to convert the discretes to something my MX500 can use so my old macros will work.

Rob - Guitar Noir is fantastic, thanks for the tip. Listened to some of it yesterday and will give the rest of the disc a tour over the next few days.

On another note about DVD-R's and the 59. I tried different burning software at a slower speed with a different brand and still no go, sigh. Audio is there, video is messed up with 1/2 screen and fluttering display. More experimentation to come.

I'll be sending the unit back to Pioneer in 4 weeks for the firmware upgrade to .506.

Originally posted by Bob Pariseau
...That means, for example, that if you are playing multi-channel stuff, the Stereo L/R outputs will not include any of the signal that is intended for the center channel -- i..e., there's no steering of center channel content to those outputs, and thus the Stereo L/R pair won't sound very good if that's all you've got hooked up. I.e., it would be just the same as if you only hooked up the Front L and Front R outputs. You need to switch to 2-channel output to get the signal mixed to 2-channel...

Regarding 2-channel SACDs, the manual is a bit vague to me on this issue. If you switch the player to 2-channel mode, does it then read the 2-channel hi-rez layer of the SACD, or does it re-mix the M-channel into two? Of course, the latter would not be good.

This is one more little feature that I actually liked better in my old Sony DVP-NS755V (the first one I mentioned a while back was the disc memory function). On the Sony, you could switch between the 2-ch and M-ch programs of an SACD from the front panel or even from the remote. Of course, the player would have to return to the beginning of the disc to begin reading the new program, but with the 59AVI you have to switch on your TV and go into the settings menu to change.


Cheers,
Doug

Originally posted by PaulT_BC

...
Rob - Guitar Noir is fantastic, thanks for the tip. Listened to some of it yesterday and will give the rest of the disc a tour over the next few days.



Glad you enjoyed it! It really takes full advantage of the DVD-A technology.

Under the Options tab, I set the SACD Playback to CD Area

Doesn't that mean with Hybrid SACDs you'll never play the hi-rez 2ch tracks?

larry

Originally posted by Expletive
Does anyone have a working pronto .ccf for the 59avi, i cant seem to find one online or learn good commands.

John I'd be surprised if it's not the "standard" Pioneer DVD player remote commands. Try the 45a or 47a .ccf.

larry

Hello, going to buy the DV-59avi most likely on Monday (02/14/05) could anyone tell me if the Firmware and the C/Y delay have been fixed on these units. Is there a build date to know if the unit has the most up-to-date Firmware installed.

Thank you for your reply and help.

According to posters here that have the newest 506 firmware, there is no longer any C/Y delay. Check page 1 of this thread to see how to read the firmware version. Build dates seem to vary but from the posts I have read here July 2004 build or later should have 506 firmware.

Also -

I now have working discrete on/off codes learned into my MX-500. If anyone wants them in .m5 format PM me, I've uploaded them to the remotecentral files section as well.

My 59avi, purchased in July 2004, has a June 2004 build date and includes the 506 firmware.

The build date is found on the Serial Number label on the back of the machine. The firmware level can only be seen if you hook the player up to a TV. The method for bringing up the firmware number on the TV is detailed in the first post of this thread (Initial Settings / Options and then Display button on Remote Control).

A new 59avi in a factory sealed box purchased from an authorized vendor really shouldn't have any issues with this, but if you are worried, tell your vendor that he has to plug in the unit and show you the firmware number before you'll pay for it.
--Bob

Originally posted by Bob Pariseau
A new 59avi in a factory sealed box purchased from an authorized vendor really shouldn't have any issues with this, but if you are worried, tell your vendor that he has to plug in the unit and show you the firmware number before you'll pay for it.
--Bob

The manufacture date is printed on the outside of the box on my 59avi.

That's where mine is at, says nov. '04.

Originally posted by mimason
The manufacture date is printed on the outside of the box on my 59avi.

Exactly. A nice little feature that allows you to see the manufacture date before you buy it (if you don't purchase via mail order anyway).

I did it, I went out and bought the DV-59AVi I will install it this weekend when I have more time in my schedule. Thank you to you all; that have helped on making up my mind.
Now, I don't have my new television (Soon), I am using my older Sony 32" that does not have HDMI. I think I asked this before here or in another forum; I have the Pioneer Elite 49TXi (same unit as the 59TXi) I am going to use the DVD's i.Link to the receiver for (Audio out) and use a component video out to the receiver also. (all connections into the 49TXi receiver)
Question I enjoy using my seven speaker home theater system (7.2) all the time. Is this best to use the receiver internal system to run all equipment, rather then the DVD internal components.

Thanks again.

Micro

I talked to DVDO concerning a few issues/questions about my setup, and asked about the status of the implementation of 480i output through HDMI. I forgot to ask if that info was postable in a public forum, but I will be glad to pass it on through PM. It may very well be old news to some, but it is from the horse's mouth.

I still feel the iScan HD+ is the preferred upgrade, but the added cost of SDI compells one (myself) to consider the other options a little more closely. These include the Lumagen HDP, the Denon 5910, and the iScan HD+ through component/480i.

Please post dvdo response. No harm in posting it.

Bluesea.

Yes. I would really like to hear that answer from DVDO also.

Everyone interested to use 480i over HDMI from the 59avi to the IScan HD+ should send an e-mail to DVDO and ask for it.

Bluesea is holding out on us!

;)

Yes, please post. I emailed them maybe a month ago, and they said that 480i support would be coming later this year. (Aug sticks in my brain.)

I would be very surprised if we ever see the firmware upgrade as DVDo will probably use this as an incentive for everyone to trade in their HD+ and pay another $799 to upgrade to the new HD+++.

Steviec.

I'm not so sure... Now that Lumagen, a direct competitor, just made it possible to accept 480i over HDMI with a firmware upgrade, I really think it should be DVDO next priority...

Or else people interested in that specific function will buy a scaler from Lumagen instead... If DVDO don't move soon, they will loose sales to Lumagen...

I'm not completely comfortable with posting, but its the same basic info available to everyone so it would most likely be okay. Taking everything into consideration, if this could mobilize a bunch of interested parties to express their desires to DVDo, then that would be great result.

First, the software does exists for 480i/HDMI, but it is currently untested. At no time was it stated that it would or would not happen, but on the other hand, I was not given any info that might be perceived as positive. In so many words I would have to say that it might be reasonable to expect not to see this feature in the iScan+. This is just my impression based on the tone of the convesation, and is more of a guess than anything else. I'm sure the person I spoke to was being careful not to give any misleading information that might bear on a purchase decision. I'd also say that there *is* hope. This might sound contradictory, but that's what I came away with.

One question that has been rasied in my mind is how many players out there can output 480i through HDMI? Is this really a viable feature that would be worth the expending of funds for R&D?

Well, if the software already exists, it would appear that they have already expended funds for R&D, so why stop now?

Bluesea - I am not sure who you spoke to, it may have even been me. The software to support 480i over DVI for the HD+ has not been implemented or tested. Yes, we would like to offer this feature as we realize that there are many users that really want this feature. What I might have said, or Adam, might have said is that I would not purchase an iScan HD+ based on a feature that is not announced, implemented, or tested.

This does not mean that we are not going to try, it means don't buy something based on a feature that is not officially announced because if it can not be implemented you are going to be unhappy (simple as that)

Originally posted by Josh@dvdo
What I might have said, or Adam, might have said is that I would not purchase an iScan HD+ based on a feature that is not announced, implemented, or tested.

This does not mean that we are not going to try, it means don't buy something based on a feature that is not officially announced because if it can not be implemented you are going to be unhappy (simple as that)

That is why many of us are considering your competition's products. I can't speak for others, but I don't know how much longer I want to wait min. for an annoucement either way. As we get closer to HD resolution players, the value of a scaler (for me) becomes less, so I don't want to wait 6 months for a decision....then I've lost 6 months of use and value in a scaler purchase.

Ron

Ron, why wait? There are tradeoff with both products. The Lumagen transcodes and the DVDO does not. The Lumagen is more $ and the DVDO has AV Sync correction. The list goes on but both offer great scaling and deinterlacing.

I already had the dvdo HD when I got the 59avi. In fact, it was a reason why I bought the 59(for future 480i HDMI after display upgrade) but after all this waiting and unknown I decided not to wait any longer so I sold my 59 in favor of upgrading audio with a SP1000.

BTW, As of right now I actually perfer the dvd-a of the 59 to the SP1000 a little. It has a nice forwardness yet still warm sounding. The SP1000 is much more laid back and warmer but still very good. The other formats OTOH are why I made the switch....stellar for the $.

I think I am going the Lumagen route. Thanks for your feedback.

Ron

Well based upon all the great info in this thread, I took back my DV-47Ai and upgraded to a DV-59AVi. Got it for $971.

I picked up a DVI cable and a HDMI-DVI adapter and I'm going to hook it up tonight to my Mitsubishi WS-55413. See how the pic looks over the monitorlink. :D

Originally posted by Fred Krampits
Well based upon all the great info in this thread, I took back my DV-47Ai and upgraded to a DV-59AVi. Got it for $971.

I picked up a DVI cable and a HDMI-DVI adapter and I'm going to hook it up tonight to my Mitsubishi WS-55413. See how the pic looks over the monitorlink. :D

Let me know how it looks on your Mits. I have the same setup, but have mine going over component because my components in's are ISF calibrated.

Does "Pure Audio" only work when running the left and right outputs on the 59AVi? I've tried using it while playing regular cd's that are playing through multichannel and this function doesn't work.

virus,

according to the Manual (p26) it works with the analog outputs, then states "(when listening to a DVD-Audio disc, for example)". This would lead me to believe it works for the multi-channel outputs. You must have the CD/DVDA/SACD stopped before you press the Pure Audio button on the front panel.

I just went to try it. Seems to work with a regular CD here. When I press Pure Audio and then play the CD, there is no front panel display on the 59, nor anything on the TV (I use S-Video connection), until I press Menu or Display twice. The digital outputs are disabled (I have a coax connection as well as multi-channel). Have not tried it with 2 channel audio out.

After reading through most of this thread, I haven't seen any Sammy DLP owners with the 59avi. Anyone out there have this TV mated with the Pioneer? I was considering the 3910 until the price went up $200, and it looks like the new Yamaha 2500 is delayed again.

Originally posted by virus
Let me know how it looks on your Mits. I have the same setup, but have mine going over component because my components in's are ISF calibrated.

Hooked it up last night and watched a few episodes of "Deadwood" at 1080i and to tell you the truth, I think it was just as good as when I originally saw them on HBO-HD.

My HDTV is not isf calibrated but I am pretty satisfied with the picture I have on it overall with the exception of SD on the analog channels.

So far I think it was worth it to upgrade from the DV-47Ai and spend the extra $100 on the DVI cable and DVI-HDMI adapter. I'll reply later after I get a chance to do some comparative viewing between the component and monitorlink pics.

virus & Paul, the Pure Audio button works w/ both the LR analog outputs as well as the analog 7.1 outputs. It works for any audio format - CD, DVDA, SACD. Paul's right - you have to switch it on while the disc is stopped. It's a bit inconvenient to stick a disc in, then have to stop it, walk up to the machine, press the button, then start the disc again. You have to do the same thing in reverse when going back to a DVD video. If you forget you have Pure Audio on, when you expect the DVD to display the menu, it's blank and you have to walk back to the machine...etc. It would be nice if there were a button for this function on the remote. Anyway, it's a nice function to have.

Also, back to the subject of the LR outputs being better than the LR of the 7.1 outputs, the 7.1 sounds a bit cleaner to me. The LR outputs sound a bit grainy. I need to do some more careful testing.

Doug

I'm doing a recalibration pass with Avia Pro now. Primarily I've been focusing on getting a better handle on Peak Whites above Reference White, which is pretty easy with the Deep Double Crossing Ramps, as well as investigating what else these new tools have to offer. But at the same time I'm revisiting scaling in the 59avi vs in my Fujitsu P50 (30 Series) plasma.

It's still early days yet, but the surprise this time around is that it looks like I'm going to end up happier sending HDMI 480p to the DVI input on the P50 and letting the P50 do the scaling. One early result, however is that, as I suspected, it's not a good idea to use HDMI 16:9 Compressed mode for 4:3 content at 480p. Horizontal resolution suffers too much. Use 16:9 Wide mode and let the DISPLAY format it back to 4:3 by adding the pillar boxes (which most displays are able to do at 480p).

For those of you who have assumed that 720p or 1080i out of the 59avi must be the right way to go, you may want to experiment with 480p (or 480i if you have HDMI on your display) to see for yourself what happens with your display. Now the P50 is widely praised as having a superior internal scaler, so my results may not translate to other displays.
--Bob

Originally posted by BWOJO
After reading through most of this thread, I haven't seen any Sammy DLP owners with the 59avi. Anyone out there have this TV mated with the Pioneer? I was considering the 3910 until the price went up $200, and it looks like the new Yamaha 2500 is delayed again.
I've got mine connected to Samsung HLN-507W1 via HDMI->DVI cable and Zektor DVS5.1 DVI switch.

I haven't seen any Sammy DLP owners with the 59avi. Anyone out there have this TV mated with the Pioneer?
I have the Samsung HLP-5685 and the DV59-AVi. The video is awesome even on older DVDs. I haven't regreted it at all.:D The wife would have liked it if I spent a little less, but has been overwhelmed with the picture quality. The Ilink multichannel audio for SACD and DVDA is just an added bonus. I haven't been able to see a difference on the TV whether I used the DVI or HDMI inputs on the TV.

Hugh

KingMouth and Kir,
thanks for the replies. I'm about ready to pull the trigger on this player and just wanted some feedback from fellow Samsung DLP owners.

Bob

More news on the saga of the bad image quality in my Pioneer 868...

Pioneer Germany wrote me back a kind e-mail , where they speculate the problem could be caused by copy protection (Macrovision I guess) as well as a non better identified bad coupling between TV and 868.

For this reason they claim a substitution with another unit would not help, they also mentioned that the 525 could be working correctly due to a Codefree modification which removed Macrovision. which is indeed the case (my 525 is code free and MV free).

Pioneer is also offering to modify my 868 increasing the size of the output capacitors to see if the problem goes away but without any guarantee of success. I think I'm giving it a try..


Does any of you know what they mean exactly meaning increase capacitor values ? If MV is sending spikes of brightness with the signall there is then little to do or ?

I will keep you posted.

PS (at http://www.video-magazin.de/d/2379) there is a German post (can be translated with babelefish) that also claim Macrovision is the responsible....

Oh dear. My player seems to be exhibiting over HDMI 720p what looks like chorma delay: when the picture is more-or-less still, it looks great, but when there's fast motion, there seems to be some "blurring", with a greenish tint lagging behind the rest of the image. Testing with Avia, though, seems to suggest that Y/C delay is more or less spot-on -- it's hard to tell, since the "ends" of the coloured bars on the test pattern aren't as sharp as the ends of the grey bars, but in any case it is at most one step off, and no more.

I don't remember seeing any problems over component, but I hadn't looked at very much material via that route.

FWIW the display is a Pioneer 434. Any other 434 (or 435) owners out there using the 59AVi? Your experiences?

(Another small annoyance, though this is 434-related and not due to the 59AVi: if the source is over HDMI, the analog audio outputs of the 434, to which my headphones are connected, go silent. As a workaround, I can connect the headphones to the AV amp instead, but it seems silly to have to turn on the AV amp just so that I can use headphones.)

Oh dear. My player seems to be exhibiting over HDMI 720p what looks like chorma delay: when the picture is more-or-less still, it looks great, but when there's fast motion, there seems to be some "blurring", with a greenish tint lagging behind the rest of the image.

That's not "chroma delay". It's most likely a feature or artifact of your plasma. How close are you when see this? e.g. 12 inches or normal viewing distance. It could be a an issue with the DVD you watched. Does it happen will all DVDs? If not, post the DVD title and a timestamp.

larry

Originally posted by doctorG4
I have a problem with my new Pioneer 868AVi which is the European version of the 59

In RGB and Video on some kind of material where there are titles/writing on dark background there are VERY visible horizontal smearing/strips.

An example are the red titles of Blade or the subtitle in chapter 14 of Casablanca.

The Blade defects appear with RGB and Composite but not S-Video, while the Casablanca one appears with RGB and not with S-Video or Composite.

the connection is a high quality SCART to a Sony 32 Flat (CRT) TV.

The same DVD work flawlessy with my old Pioneer 525 in all RGB/SVideo and Composite mode....

After investigation (there is a complete thread on european www_avforums_com/forums/showthread.php?t=177516)
it looks like it is a general problem with the whole model.

Outcome from Pioneer NL (via the repair shop I sent the player to) is as follows:


I just received a phone call from the dutch repair shop where my Pioneer 868 has been sent for repair due to white banding problem with RGB output.

They were able to reproduce the problem with my (Blade, Casablanca) but also with many other DVD.

Pioneer NL sent in another new Pioneer 868 unit for comparison.

Result of the test is that both 868 units exibits the same problem with RGB out.

The shop then tested with Pioneer 656, 565 and 525.

Outcome is that the RGB output of the 868 and 656 is compromised while the one of the 565 and 525 is not.

I was told there is nothing to do a part from bringing it back to dealer for substitution with a different model since it affects all 868 and is not a batch problem.

I know that the US version does not have SCART video connector (and therefore no RGB out) but I am very interested to see if any of you has a technical assessment of this. Note it also happesn with Composite Video but not with S-Video.

You can see a sample here below and a lot more of talking between people having the problem in Europe on the thread mentioned above.

Furthermore I'm surprised that NO review in any magazine or web site (and I've checked many before spending 1000 EUR (1300$) on this) noticed the problem...

doctorG4, I too had a similar problem with my Pio 868 which is connected to a Sony FQ80 TV (CRT) via an Ixos 811 Scartcable (RGB).

On some DVDs, eg The Manchurian Candidate (1962) and Monsters Inc, the subtitles had a somewhat blurred, whiteish background which also was stretched over the lower part of the picture. On Manchurian, dark scenes also got somewhat green.

Luckily, I found a (very) easy way of getting rid of this problem and it has not appeared since:

On your 868, select the following: Home Menu (on the remote) - Initial settings - Video output - Component out - Progressive (NOT Interlaced!)

Don't ask me why it worked but it does. Give it a try (if you haven't)!

Well, I just went ahead and ordered the 59avi today... should have it later this week. It will be hooked up to my Mitsubishi 52725 DLP over HDMI. I need to go and get an HDMI cable now... can't wait :D

Paul-

Your observations on the DV-59AVi and 480p over HDMI and the Pioneer's scaler are most interesting, and are consistent with the findings of Shane Buettner in TPV Issue 56 review of the DV-59AVi (and Denon DVD-5900).

He found the 480p output of those two players at 480p over HDMI to be excellent, bested only by the Ayre DX-7. (Ironically, he did find significant chroma delay in the Denon.)

But he found the Faroudja scalers in the Marantz VP-12S3 and SIM2 HT300 LINK for 720p and 1080i to be superior to the scalers in both players.

He found noticable banding and moire on frequency bursts and wedges, and ringing on the sharpness patterns from both players at 720p (though from the text the Denon seemed worse). At 1080i he found the Denon unwatchable, and the Pioneer to be about the same as it was at 720p.

He even found the scaler in the Bravo player to be superior to the Denon or the Pioneer, though the Bravo deinterlacer was far worse than either.

When I get my DV-59AVi back from repair (defective HDMI board), and my InFocus 7210 which uses the Faroudja FL2310 (which will not take a 480i digital signal), I intend to use the Pioneer at 480p HDMI and let the IF 7210 do the scaling...or bite the bullet and get a Lumagen and go 480i HDMI into it. Any thoughts?

Bob

Update on my "problem": I got around to re-calibrating with Avia last night. The strange thing is, from the same setting I used with my old 655, I wound up cranking Contrast up from 24 to 40! Brightness didn't change that much (can't remember exactly now, but around -11 to -8 I think). It actually looks (to me) like torch mode right now. Colour and Tint also changed radically. Having said that, the problem I seemed to see earlier has now gone.

Notwithstanding Avia's "verdict", the picture seems just a bit too saturated now, even though the colour bars pattern and blue filter verify the result as "correct". This was while viewing Fast And The Furious, although with Matrix Reloaded it didn't seem too saturated at all -- but that was to be expected with the green tint of "in-Matrix" scenes. Pirates of the Carribean (ending scene at the public square) seemed all right, although skin sometimes looked a little "plasticky", to use Rich's terminology in his excellent "steaming rat" post.

I will continue with this until I get it all right. But at least there doesn't seem to be a major problem, now it's just one of tweaking until I'm happy.

<< We also believe that to use HDMI to HDMI at 480i (and ONLY for that resolution) you need to alter the HDMI Direct set of settings to Blacks of 7.5 IRE and to HDMI Color Adjust of Enhanced to get BOTH BTB and WTW data to pass correctly. We've had two reports that this is necessary for BTB, but only one of those posters was able to check WTW.
--Bob >>

Just to confirm. I am using an HDMI to HDMI connection via 480P to my Sony XS TV. I am using the "Direct" setting to bypass all settings. Since I am using 480P I do NOT need to use Color Adjust or set the IRE, correct?

Thanks!

-Brian

Bighead8che,
Right. Those changes from the factory default settings in "HDMI Direct" mode are apparently needed *ONLY* for HDMI at 480i. Why they should be needed at 480i is not yet clear, but so far everyone who's used HDMI to HDMI (or HDMI to DVI) at 480p seems happiest with leaving the HDMI Direct default settings unchanged -- except for adjusting Pure Cinema mode as discussed earlier in this thread..
--Bob

Just out of curiosity does anyone alter the sharpness/detail settings on the player or just leave it as default? I'm using HDMI.

John

The player is here :D

Got it hooked up through component so far until I get my HDMI cable (tomorrow hopefully) ... Only thing I have done is set it to progressive scan and 0 IRE... looks great so far :D

Congrats! :)

Expletive- I am pretty most users leave the sharpness/detail settings at their default level. I know I do!

I left my (HDMI) sharpness level at the default setting. I had to turn my display's sharpness level waaaayyy down, but it worked great. I think I'd only mess with the 59AVi's HDMI sharpness settings if my display wouldn't let me turn sharpness down low enough to eliminate ringing/graininess.

Originally posted by FrankenMouse
I left my (HDMI) sharpness level at the default setting. I had to turn my display's sharpness level waaaayyy down

Same here. Sharpness at default in the 59avi, but way down on the projector.

What is the default setting? off or 50% ?

After playing a bit with the settings and such, the picture from this player is great... very vibrant colors and smooth picture. I had initially set the black setup to 0 IRE, but I think setting it at 7.5 IRE and adjusting the brightness down on the display looks better in my case. I tried a video DVD that I had with the different Cinema Processing modes and I can see where the "On" setting fails.. Auto1 and Auto2 seem to work just fine for it. Film material works at all settings. So far, I am very impressed. I have it connected to my Mitsubishi DLP over component for now until I get an HDMI cable. The Mitsubishi deinterlacer does a pretty good job, but the player's deinterlacer seems much smoother.

How did you set the IRE to 7.5?

Home Menu -> Video Adjust -> Memory1 (2 or 3) -> Detailed settings -> Black Setup (scroll down)

I don't have a calibration disk yet, so my settings and such are all just what looks good... there should be no real difference at all between 0IRE and 7.5IRE if the display is calibrated properly and can accept both levels in the same fashion.

Thanks to everyone on this thread (and other Pio threads) for convincing me to stop waiting for the forever delayed Yamaha 2500 and spring for a 59avi. Got it Tuesday and did some basic setup and configuration based on this thread and it looks great on my Sammy DLP via HDMI. I'll have to wait for the weekend to calibrate with Avia. I found the Pioneer menus very user-friendly (not sure if that is bad or good!).

Anything that is user-friendly is a good thing. Enjoy your 59avi. I will be glad when I can finally use mine. (new house being built).

Got my HDMI cable today and hooked it up to my Mitsubishi DLP. The picture seems a bit cleaner than the component input. Also black detail and dark scenes look better over HDMI than over component. I need to do a lot more watching and get a calibration disk as well to fine tune everything.

I must say though that the Mitsubishi scalar is very good... I tried 480p and 480i over HDMI and both looked great. I think I prefer 720p, but the differences are slight so far as I can tell. More investigation is needed :)

One question about the ALT 3:2 flag issue. I noticed the flashing '#' on one DVD... I set the player to force Cinema Mode On and it seems like it did the right thing to the picture. Once you do that, does the '#' symbol remain flashing even after forcing film mode processing?

UMD_Terp.

Good question. The '#' symbol was flashing non-stop on Ghost in The Shell 2 for me, even when forcing Cinema On, and I was wondering why also.

Maybe Bob "the 59avi master" :D will be able to give us some answers... ;)

I only noticed the flashing # on one DVD, Home Vision's "Blackmail is my Life".

Didn't really think there was anything wrong with the picture from it though.

Originally posted by Fred Krampits
I only noticed the flashing # on one DVD, Home Vision's "Blackmail is my Life".

Didn't really think there was anything wrong with the picture from it though.

What processing mode are you using?

As best I've been able to figure out, the "#" symbol indicates the 59avi believes it SHOULD be using film mode. As such, it will be displayed even if you force the 59avi to use video mode (Pure Cinema = OFF), and also will NOT be displayed if the 59avi thinks it SHOULD be using video mode -- even if you force it to use film mode (Pure Cinema = ON). That is, the "#" indicates how the 59avi has analyzed what's coming off the DVD and not what you've told it to do with that data.

[NOTE: I haven't been able to really confirm the above. It is also possible that the "#" merely indicates the detection of film mode "flags". In which case the 59avi might be using film mode based on image cadence even though the "#" is not being displayed since this particular DVD doesn't include the "flags". Viewing the movie Charade for example -- which of course originated as "film" -- the "#" is not displayed. But if I force video mode with Pure Cinema = OFF, the result is obviously wrong, and if I force film mode with Pure Cinema = ON, the result is obviously right. This would indicate the 59avi is correctly using film mode in AUTO1 or AUTO2 (both of which produce a "right" image for this movie) even though it is not displaying the "#" during play of this movie -- possbily because this particular DVD has no "flags".]

Pure Cinema = ON forces the use of film mode regardless of what's coming off the DVD. Pure Cinema = OFF forces the use of video mode.

Pure Cinema = AUTO1 and AUTO2 implement two different techniques for automatically deciding whether the data coming off the DVD should be handled in film mode or video mode. AUTO1 apparently puts most emphasis on the "flags" in the DVD data -- which could be wrong -- and uses the actual cadence of images coming off the DVD as a secondary test to recover in cases where the flags ARE wrong (or missing). AUTO2 apparently puts most emphasis on the image cadence. AUTO2 is closer to what TVs do with 480i data since TVs don't ever see the "flags" coming off the DVD and only have the image cadence to work with.

The problem with analyzing the image cadence is that it takes several frames to be sure whether you are seeing film or video mode -- which means there could be momentary glitches if the DVD switches between how the data was recorded in the midst of real image content (as opposed to during a black screen for example). The whole point of the DVD flags was to enable DVD players to do a better job of de-interlacing than a TV could do by giving the DVD player precise instructions as to exactly when to switch modes. Unfortunately the flags are (1) optional, and (2) sometimes flat out wrong on some DVDs. This doesn't confuse TVs since they don't see the flags, but any "progressive" or "up-scaling" DVD player that attempts to use the flags has to be prepared to discover (from the image cadence) that the flags are wrong and that it should actually use the mode opposite to what the flags are telling it to use.

Flag and cadence detection problems in "progressive" and "up-scaling" players most often occur at points where the digital content destined for the DVD was edited -- or when the player is told to start playing anew as when you change chapters. But there are some DVDs out there that just have bad flags.

The 59avi's "#" symbol flashes when playing DVDs that were produced with the "Alternating 3:2 flags" problem because the 59avi is getting confused by the flaky film mode flags coming off the DVD and is inappropriately dropping into video mode and not recovering fast enough. [The flags appear and disappear in the data stream and the 59avi is giving them a bit too much credence when they vanish.] By setting Pure Cinema = ON for such DVDs you force film mode and eliminate this particular problem, although conceivably you would see other glitches if some portion of the movie really was recorded on the DVD using video frame rate.

Generally this work around works just fine while watching the movie itself. Often however, "extras" content on the DVD will be recorded entirely in video or will switch between video and film style content. When viewing the extras, even if you see the "#" is flashing at some point, you may want to use AUTO2 (my recommendation) or AUTO1 anyway since the alternating flags glitches will be less annoying than watching any significant amount of video style content which has been processed using forced film mode.

For all other cases when watching movies -- i.e., "#" solidly on or solidly off -- my recommendation is that you use AUTO2. I've yet to see a case where the "#" was on and yet I had to force video mode by setting Pure Cinema to OFF for example.
--Bob

On a question that's been left hanging for a while: The factory default settings associated with HDMI Direct mode -- i.e., what you get if you select that mode by name or if you do the recommended step of loading the settings for that mode into a "Memory" so you can see/change them within the Memory -- are as follows:

YNR and CNR noise reduction default to OFF

High and Mid frequency Sharpness default to middle of the range.

Detail defaults to OFF

HDMI Detail defaults to middle of the range.

My recommendation would be to LEAVE all these settings at those defaults. So far I don't believe we've had any reports from anyone indicating they got better results for HDMI by changing any of these.

Remember that you can always restore the settings in any Memory to the "HDMI Direct" factory defaults simply by loading those values into the Memory -- i.e., use the item at the top of the list of current Memory settings and simply specify "Direct" as the source. Changes you might make to any setting in the Memory -- even after pre-loading it with the "Direct" defaults -- only affect that Memory and not the HDMI Direct default settings themselves.

The default settings described above are for the HDMI output mode "HDMI Direct". Other HDMI modes and the analog video output modes will likely have different default settings.
--Bob

Thanks for the detailed response... it is appreciated :)

I've found no difference between AUTO1 and AUTO2 other than the fact that AUTO2 actually may give incorrect processing at the very beginning of a scene before it self adjusts.... but that is no big deal. I usually just stick to AUTO2 as you stated since it probably does the best for whatever corner cases that may be present on incorrectly mastered/flagged DVDs.

Terp,
The Secrets review of the 59avi points out the two specific film/video processing detection errors that Kris found in AUTO1 vs AUTO2 if you want to know more. There's a detailed description of the errors in the over all benchmark notes on what's being tested and how the various tests are weighted. One error is rarely triggered in real DVDs, but the other glitch apparently is present in a fairly high percentage of DVDs and occurs primarily at chapter changes.

I give full credence to Kris's tests on this, but for the life of me I was never able to see this particular error in real movies when I had the 59avi set to its factory default AUTO1 setting and watched closely at chapter changes. On the other hand, I've seen no problems with AUTO2 either except that, as you noted, if you manually switch to a new chapter or restart the current chapter, there may be a brief startup glitch as the 59avi reads enough frames to establish the film cadence. This problem with AUTO2 *DOES NOT* occur in normal chapter transitions when just playing the movie across a chapter change.

As is usual with these glitches, the inability to see problems is often a blessing which some folks, like Kris I suspect, wish they could turn on and off at will. But unfortunately once you see a problem for the first time you are likely to KEEP seeing it.

In any event, since there's no problem with AUTO2 (the manual chapter change issue being insignificant in my opinion) and since Kris is most likely right on what he found as regards AUTO1, I continue to use and recommend AUTO2 as the basic setting. And the only reason I've found so far for wanting to switch from AUTO2 for certain DVDs is the flashing "#" indicating the "Alternating 3:2 Flags" problem is in that DVD's content.
--Bob

Thanks for the info... I hear you on the ability to point out problems... people think I am nuts sometimes when I point out stuff that they just can't see. Oh well :)

The AUTO2 taking a few frames is of no consequence, and that is what I will stick with for pretty much everything. My local Borders has DVE in stock so I'll be picking that up tonight so I can do some fine tuning. I used a THX optimizer and I was able to set black/white levels, but still need to fine tune all the colors... the Mitsubishi DLP allows you to adjust Magenta/Red/Yellow/Green/Cyan/Blue color filters separately so hopefully I can get those set right using DVE.

Quick question: does anyone know if there is any difference between 59's that have been produced recently and 59's that have been produced 6 months ago (except for firmware)? Have there been any hardware improvements or could I reliably purchase a second-hander from back when?

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Fred Krampits
I only noticed the flashing # on one DVD, Home Vision's "Blackmail is my Life".

Didn't really think there was anything wrong with the picture from it though.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Originally posted by UMD_Terp
What processing mode are you using?

I have it on the default auto1, resolution 1920x1080, direct

CoreSmack,
That's the $1000 question all right. Pioneer has been VERY tight-lipped about any running changes they might have made in the player.

The Secrets test of an early player showed significant Y/C Delay problems (timing errors between the gray scale and color signals). These appear to be gone in current units. What we don't know is whether this fix came from one of the firmware upgrades or whether it was a hardware change or even just improved manufacturing quality control.

We also don't know for certain what was fixed/changed in each of the known firmware levels (306, 406, and what appears to be the current 506).

Except for the Y/C Delay issue, there are no known reports of hardware problems on the 59avi that have been fixed (e.g., such as the Denon 5900 return to factory fix for their original I-link implementation). And new units otherwise seem to perform just like the early unit that Secrets reviewed.

One possibility would be to get the serial #, manufacturing date (printed on the serial # label on the back of the machine), and firmware number string (Initial Settings / Options and then hit Display on the remote and copy down the number shown on your TV screen), and then email that to Pioneer technical support explaining that you are considering buying a used unit, and would like to know if there are any upgrades available over what's in the unit now and what it would cost to upgrade. It would be interesting to hear what, if anything, Pioneer tells you in response.
--Bob

Bob,

Thanks for the comprehensive answer! The player is being offered for an attractive price and I don't expect it to be around for long enough to await a reply from Pioneer; but if I get the chance I'll make sure to post any reply I receive.

CoreSmack

Regarding HDMI 480i out of the 59avi, I've received a private communication from someone who asked me to pass along that the HD Leeza external scaler also now has a change that allows it to accept HDMI 480i into it's DVI input.

This person reports that the image quality achieved with HDMI 480i from the 59avi seems to match what was previously achieved using SDI from an RP-91.

The setup includes changing HDMI Color Adjust to "Enhanced", as was reported by other 480i posters here, but in this case the setup that seems to work best is leaving "Black Setup" at the default "0" setting instead of changing it to "7.5". It is possible that this is due to either the display or the HD Leeza expecting PC-style digital video encoding (where "Black" is sent as digital 0 instead of digital 16). The symptom was that with the 7.5 setting there was not enough calibration range in the display to bring blacks down from gray to a proper black.

There may be more info on this in a while, but I thought I'd pass on this quick note to see if we can get some more external scaler reports going.
--Bob

My Nov 2003 F/W 306 unit left for Pioneer today to be upgraded to the latest and greatest firmware (like Bob said, supposedly 506). I specifically asked them to include any information as to what the firmware upgrade fixes, but am not holding my breath for any answers. It took them a month to respond to my initial email about the upgrade in the first place.

From a quick test with Avia, the 306 F/W has the Y/C delay. Since newer units with 506 have been reported here as being clear of that problem I will follow up once the unit is back in my hands.

I do believe that not too long ago, someone did report that 406 also didn't have the Y/C delay problem. Paul- Let us know if they do tell you anything.

Does anyone know how to check for Y/C delay on DVE? I have the 506 FW on my 59avi, but would like to check anyways :)

Just found this thread today, it's great! Anyway I figured I'd let you guys know of a tweak I had to do in order to see blacker-than-black in my system.

Display: Samsung HLP6163
DVD Firmware: 1.506
HDMI to HDMI (720p)
HDMI Direct loaded into Memory1 (Auto2)

I had to increase the 'black level' setting to see blacker-than-black. The default setting in Direct hid it when setting the display brightness to 100.

Ross

Originally posted by Expletive
Does anyone have a working pronto .ccf for the 59avi, i cant seem to find one online or learn good commands.

John

John,

I have a pcf file for the Pronto 7000 uploaded at remotecentral.com. It has all the codes except for the jog dial functions.

http://www.remotecentral.com/cgi-bin/files/rcfiles.cgi?area=prontong&db=devices&br=pioneer&dv=dvdplayer&md=elitedv59avi&fc=&kw=&st=&dt=&so=&pg=1&file=prontong/devices/dvd/pio-dvd-dv59avi.zip

Hope this helps.

Ross

After a few weeks of use, I have the following thoughts:
Audio - SACDs sound about the same as on my previous Sony so far, but RB CDs sound loads better. It's really a joy to listen to CDs again. The soundstage is wider and more alive. And, to use "ottephile" terminology, while the imaging is very accurate and 3-dimensional, the whole falls together. In other words, on cheaper CD players, a certain instrument or range of frequencies might jump out and be distracting. With the 59, I can focus on individual instruments, but I can easily "step back" and enjoy the mix.

Video: I was hoping layer changes would be unnoticable on this machine. They are faster than the Sony, but are definitely noticable. Was the Denon 2900 the only machine that had a big enough buffer to eliminate the pause? Why can't other players do the same thing? Anyway, that's a slight annoyance.

Doug

No Australian poster yet..... I guess I'd better make a start......

969AVI

The Australian model is 969AVI (US is 59AVI and UK is 868AVI, just for completeness).

As I understand the US model is available in "black", UK is "silver" only and Australian is "Gold" only !

The Australian model is shipped with a HDMI and an iLink cable, which is not the case with the US model at least (correct me if I'm wrong).
edit: US model does include the iLink cable, but not the HDMI cable. Further I think it is the Australian distributer that is throwing away a HDMI cable.

The other specifications are exactly the same as the US model, (thus unlike the UK model there is no SCART port).

edit: Even the manual is the same, as the 969avi manual has references to 59avi etc.

edit2: It seems that the 59avi has a different remote (being able to control the TV) than the 969avi. As the manual makes appropriate references...

Like everything else in Australia, it is multiregion out of the box (due to legal requirements here), is PAL and NTSC compatible.

Apart from these minor cosmetic and packagingdifferences it appears to be the same as the US model (down to the setup menu).

UK saga
I am happy to report that the problems being described in this thread regarding the UK model (868AVI) are non-existent on the Australian model (most probably because it has not been modified to include a SCART output).

MISC.
Having just read this thread, I think a few key features have not yet been mentioned regarding this player.

- It's excellent multi-disk memory (edit: ok, it only remembers the disk that is in, ones the disk is out it doesn't remember it... )
- It's ability to remember something like 24 playlists (based on CDs, DVD-As and SACDs)
- The remote's jog-dial feature, which is quite unique and provides for a very easy frame advance/back ability....

Apart from these minor points, all else seems to be covered in quite some detail.....

My Hunt
My hunt for a DVD Player started around 5 months ago, and involved pretty much every Denon, Cambridge Audio, Panasonic, Sony and Arcams. Pioneer came out on top for me !

My saga with Denons is discussed here (http://www.dtvforum.info/index.php?showtopic=12081) (in addition to various posts on this forum)

My review for the player is discussed here (http://www.dtvforum.info/index.php?showtopic=14805).....

Great thread, glad to be part of this community now....

cheers,

Ritesh

Here's something I stumbled on, a photo anatomy of the featured player: http://gate.crashing.org/~fray/DV-59AVi/DV-59AVi.html

larry

Nice find Pooper.

Yes. Nice find.

But it would be more complete with some arrows pointing to the correct pin assignment and with pictures to perform an SDI modification to the 59avi ... :D

That's something I would like to see... Did someone SDI mod a 59avi themselve with a kit like the one from Pixel Magic?

Originally posted by ritesh
The Australian model is shipped with a HDMI and an iLink cable, which is not the case with the US model at least (correct me if I'm wrong).

The US model comes with an iLink cable, there was not a HDMI in the box.

ritesh,
Thanks for posting your review, and the link to your OTHER review!

The version of the 59avi shipping in the US *DOES* include an I-link cable, but as you point out, does NOT include an HDMI to HDMI or HDMI to DVI cable.

Your comment on disc playback memory puzzles me. My experience is that the "Resume" function to restart play from where you stopped a disc only works as long as the given disc remains in the disc tray. If you take out the disc, have a power failure, or hit Stop again while the disc is already stopped, the Resume memory gets cleared and hitting play for that disc will cause it to restart from the beginning. So Stop works like Pause (only without having to worry about screen burn in), but only so long as the disc remains in the tray, power stays connected, and you don't hit Stop a second time.

Now I haven't played with the "Program List" features of the 59avi yet since I almost always just play discs through from start to end. The ability to store a Program List for up to 24 discs and have it recalled automatically when you re-insert the disc seems great for folks who want to do selective play, but of no particular value for folks who play discs through normally.

But have you found an easy way to use that feature to get the equivalent of a Resume function for multiple DVD-Video discs? I.e., have you found an easy way to play disc A, stop it, replace it with disc B, stop it, re-insert disc A and have it automatically pick up where it was playing when you stopped it, and then re-insert disc B and have it also automatically pick up where it was playing when you stopped it?

There have been numerous requests for just such a feature on the 59avi, so if you've figured out an easy way to make it happen, please do tell us.
--Bob

For anyone interested in hooking up the 480i HDMI output of the DV-59AVi into a proj which accepts 480i over HDMI, according to Proj. Cent, of the 21 projs. with HDMI inputs only the SIM2 Domino 18H and EVSX1 do so. The InFocus 7205 w/the latest firmware/7210/777 also do through the MD input. (The Marantz 12S4, and SIM2 HT300E/Link and HT500E/Link do not for example.)

I wonder how the DV-59AVi at 480i HDMI going into one of the InFocus projs which use the FL2310 chip would compare to a similar hookup using the Lumagen output 720p over DVI-D? Using the direct hookup one would lose 1 to 1 pixel mapping, but how much else?

Originally posted by ritesh
No Australian poster yet..... I guess I'd better make a start......

Ritesh

Hi Ritesh,

1. What is the firmware version of the current Australian model?

2. Does the Australian model have the Y/C delay issues discussed at various times through this thread. (may be related to the firmware version?)

3. Likewise, a lot of people seemed to have various experiences using a variety of writable media. Have you tried DVD+R or more importantly DVD+R Dual Layer?

Thanks,
Bill.

Stupid question (I'm full of them) Where is the IR sensor for the avi player? I'm trying to block it so I can control my other Pioneer Elite player with the remote and manually use the AVi. I tryed a couple of different spots but have'nt found it yet. Maybe I'm using the wrong material.(black electrical tape) Any material suggestions as well? I may just velcro something to it and the other player to alernate between the two as needed. Yeah, life is rough for me. lol

I'll jump in and answer Bob's questions about the disc memory. I, too, was curious after reading ritesh's post. I figured it out this morning. It's called Program List. See pp. 49-52 in the manual.

By itself, a program you create is erased when you remove the disc, but if you activate Program Memory, it automatically saves any programs you've created for up to 24 discs.

Here's how I'll use it. If we get sleepy and pause a movie for the night, I'll create a program with the current chapter,which is defaulted when creating a program. Then, if I remove and later replace the disc, all I have to do is press play and it resumes at the beginning of that chapter.

It's still not as easy as my old Sony, which automatically saves the exact position of the disc (not just the beginning of the chapter) without me having to choose to save it. However, it is nice to be able to save the approximate position w/ the Pioneer, and I thought it didn't have that capability.

There's one more thing I just tried. If I choose only the current chapter in a program, then resume the disc, does it stop at the end of that chapter, or continue to the next? I popped in a Star Trek DS9 disc, but the Program List won't work at all on this disc. Maybe it only works on certain discs?

Doug

Originally posted by cissado
Stupid question (I'm full of them) Where is the IR sensor for the avi player? I'm trying to block it so I can control my other Pioneer Elite player with the remote and manually use the AVi. I tryed a couple of different spots but have'nt found it yet. Maybe I'm using the wrong material.(black electrical tape) Any material suggestions as well? I may just velcro something to it and the other player to alernate between the two as needed. Yeah, life is rough for me. lol

I think it is towards the left side of the front display. I have an IR transmitter from my TV pointed there so I can use my tv's netcommand setup to control it. Works very well... :)

Great tip dougotte!!

Originally posted by Bluesea
Great tip dougotte!!

Yes, that is pretty cool!

I just pulled the plug and ordered one of these after reading this entire thread (over a few hours). I paid about $200 more from an authorized local dealer then I could have online but I don't mind supporting the local store and it's well worth the 2 year warranty.

Thanks to all for a great thread on this machine...

Brian

PS Going to match this up with my Pio Pro1410-HD display and my PIO VSX-1014TX-K Receiver.

Originally posted by bkushner

PS Going to match this up with my Pio Pro1410-HD display and my PIO VSX-1014TX-K Receiver.

Brian:

I just checked out the 61" Plasma display you have and wow! That looks incredible!

I have a feeling that you are going to be upgrading that VSX-1014 to a VSX-56TXi or VSX-59TXi pretty soon. You would really benefit from using the iLink on the DV-59AVi to a Elite receiver.

Does anyone with DVE know the best way to set the contrast on a DLP or similar display using the grayscale ramp? I think I've got it close, but I'd like to know the proper way. Brightness is straightforward, but I don't understand completely what to do with the contrast... Thanks...

BTW, I've been pretty impressed with the player so far. Well mastered DVDs and superbit DVDs look great... almost as good as HD... certainly better than any SD that I have ever seen :) Plus no macroblocking... :D

Originally posted by bkushner
I just pulled the plug and ordered one of these after reading this entire thread (over a few hours). I paid about $200 more from an authorized local dealer then I could have online but I don't mind supporting the local store and it's well worth the 2 year warranty...

Agreed, and that's route I took as well.

Regarding that disc memory thingie, it didn't work for the next disc I put in after DS9 - Star Trek II. Both are Paramount discs - is it possible there's some code on Paramount discs that would prevent Pioneer's disc memory from working? The automatic memory on the Sony worked on these discs. I'll try some more discs.

Doug

Originally posted by dougotte
Agreed, and that's route I took as well.

Regarding that disc memory thingie, it didn't work for the next disc I put in after DS9 - Star Trek II. Both are Paramount discs - is it possible there's some code on Paramount discs that would prevent Pioneer's disc memory from working? The automatic memory on the Sony worked on these discs. I'll try some more discs.

Doug

Doug: Did you hit stop twice before removing the DVD? That cancels out the memory.

Originally posted by ritesh
No Australian poster yet..... I guess I'd better make a start......

969AVI

The Australian model is 969AVI (US is 59AVI and UK is 868AVI, just for completeness).

As I understand the US model is available in "black", UK is "silver" only and Australian is "Gold" only !

The Australian model is shipped with a HDMI and an iLink cable, which is not the case with the US model at least (correct me if I'm wrong).

The other specifications are exactly the same as the US model, (thus unlike the UK model there is no SCART port).

Just to chime in, the South-East Asian version is exactly the same as the aforesaid Aussie version -- except we don't get an HDMI cable in the box :( And of course it is notionally R3, but in reality is region-free right out of the box.

The interesting thing is the manual is for both the 59AVi and 969AVi, and references to the 969AVi call it the "Australian model". The manual does say, when discussing HDMI connections, that you can use "a commercially available HDMI cable", suggesting that HDMI cables are not usually supplied, so perhaps the local Aussie distributor threw them in as an "incentive" -- it was quite bizarre for me, my usual shop didn't have any in stock, and initially loaned me an HDMI to DVI cable, with a DVI to HDMI adapter to clip onto the DVI end... :rolleyes:

As an aside, the remote for the 59AVi is different from that for the 969, in that it has a few extra buttons that can control a TV set as well. Would've been nice to have, especially since I have a Pioneer plasma and the remote would've worked on that without any additional configuring.

Originally posted by armoury
Just to chime in, the South-East Asian version is exactly the same as the aforesaid Aussie version -- except we don't get an HDMI cable in the box :( And of course it is notionally R3, but in reality is region-free right out of the box.

The interesting thing is the manual is for both the 59AVi and 969AVi, and references to the 969AVi call it the "Australian model". The manual does say, when discussing HDMI connections, that you can use "a commercially available HDMI cable", suggesting that HDMI cables are not usually supplied, so perhaps the local Aussie distributor threw them in as an "incentive" -- it was quite bizarre for me, my usual shop didn't have any in stock, and initially loaned me an HDMI to DVI cable, with a DVI to HDMI adapter to clip onto the DVI end... :rolleyes:

As an aside, the remote for the 59AVi is different from that for the 969, in that it has a few extra buttons that can control a TV set as well. Would've been nice to have, especially since I have a Pioneer plasma and the remote would've worked on that without any additional configuring.


Yep, I think the local distributer is probably throwing the HDMI cable,

Two other points are well picked up as well:
- Manual is same
- Remotes are different !

Ritesh

Originally posted by Bob Pariseau
ritesh,
Thanks for posting your review, and the link to your OTHER review!

The version of the 59avi shipping in the US *DOES* include an I-link cable, but as you point out, does NOT include an HDMI to HDMI or HDMI to DVI cable.

Your comment on disc playback memory puzzles me. My experience is that the "Resume" function to restart play from where you stopped a disc only works as long as the given disc remains in the disc tray. If you take out the disc, have a power failure, or hit Stop again while the disc is already stopped, the Resume memory gets cleared and hitting play for that disc will cause it to restart from the beginning. So Stop works like Pause (only without having to worry about screen burn in), but only so long as the disc remains in the tray, power stays connected, and you don't hit Stop a second time.


Yep, that's exactly how it works.... now that I have rechecked it.....shouldn't have been so overenthusiastic.... I guess it is still better than nothing.....

Originally posted by Bob Pariseau
Now I haven't played with the "Program List" features of the 59avi yet since I almost always just play discs through from start to end. The ability to store a Program List for up to 24 discs and have it recalled automatically when you re-insert the disc seems great for folks who want to do selective play, but of no particular value for folks who play discs through normally.


I guess it is "nice to have", for some party or something, one can setup playlists.....


Originally posted by Bob Pariseau
But have you found an easy way to use that feature to get the equivalent of a Resume function for multiple DVD-Video discs? I.e., have you found an easy way to play disc A, stop it, replace it with disc B, stop it, re-insert disc A and have it automatically pick up where it was playing when you stopped it, and then re-insert disc B and have it also automatically pick up where it was playing when you stopped it?

There have been numerous requests for just such a feature on the 59avi, so if you've figured out an easy way to make it happen, please do tell us.
--Bob

No, I thought that's how it worked, but should have tested a bit more carefully.... I guess the above feature is on my wishlist as well then.....

Thanks, I have updated my original post accordingly...

cheers,

Ritesh

Originally posted by btiltman
Hi Ritesh,

1. What is the firmware version of the current Australian model?


This is what it says:
Region: 1/ver: 1.516(16)/AV1:2.0/2.8

I am not sure what the various portions of the above information means, but I think the above means that the firmware version is 516?

Originally posted by btiltman
2. Does the Australian model have the Y/C delay issues discussed at various times through this thread. (may be related to the firmware version?)


I haven't checked it yet, if someone can be kind enough to explain which pattern/s of the DVE might be useful for checking the above that would be much appreciated? (don't have access to AVIA)

Originally posted by btiltman
3. Likewise, a lot of people seemed to have various experiences using a variety of writable media. Have you tried DVD+R or more importantly DVD+R Dual Layer?


I have tested various disks that I had trouble with on the Denons; they have played flawlessly. I have tried a few DVD+R disks, no problems, and only 1 DVD+R DL disk which seemed to have worked. But will over the next few days try more DVD+R DL disks and then will report the findings.....

But, in addition to the DVD-r/-rw/+r/+rw etc.; I also had lots of problems with ALL the denons that I tried with normal original disks (rented etc.); none of them have given me any problems on the Pioneer.....

Ritesh

Originally posted by ritesh

I also had lots of problems with ALL the denons that I tried with normal original disks (rented etc.); none of them have given me any problems on the Pioneer.....

Ritesh

Thanks for all the info Ritesh!

I am intrigued by the disk reading issues as I was able to borrow a 2910 and a 3910 for extended periods and they were flawless playing all disks, even some rentals that looked like they should be thrown in the rubbish bin, and all my various home made ones! Checked the forums for the above and couldnt see much mention of these probs either. I was hoping the Pioneer would be as good as the Denon in this respect and it sounds like it is.

Sounds like the Firmware is up to date as well, going by comments about 506 being the newest not long ago. So I imagine the Y/C delay is fine as well, as this seemed to be fixed in firmware prior to 516.

Thanks,
Bill.

Originally posted by Fred Krampits
Doug: Did you hit stop twice before removing the DVD? That cancels out the memory.

No. On the problem discs (don't really know if it's the discs or the player), all of the program list functions were grayed out and the player wouldn't let me choose any of them, so I never got to the point of creating a program or memory, much less actually removing the disc afterward.

I'll play with some more discs when I get a chance. I was helping my daughter get ready for a math test last night.

Doug

Originally posted by ritesh
This is what it says:
Region: 1/ver: 1.516(16)/AV1:2.0/2.8

I am not sure what the various portions of the above information means, but I think the above means that the firmware version is 516?


Interesting: mine is 1.526. I wonder what, if any, differences there are? FWIW, build date is January 2005 :D

So is there a new firmware rev then? Or is that only for the australian model?

I am recovering from a total replacement of the 3 tubes in my Sony KP57WV700 RPTV which developed a widely-known flicker problem. The tech installed the new tubes,. aligned them and converged each one, before calling it "good." So I am now trying to "reaquaint" my DV59AVi player with the TV and setting up picture adjustments from Avia and DVE for the Sony's various pic modes: mainly STANDARD and MOVIE. Since the tubes were replaced it seems that BRIGHTNESS and CONTRAST are way off and I can't seem to get them adjusted properly. One question I had was how should I set the player's black level for doing these adjustments: at 0 IRE or 7.5 IRE? And then should I use this same setting for actual DVD viewing? What does "IRE" stand for anyway? I am using a component feed thru my Pioneer VSX56TXi receiver, but I also have the DV59 connected to the Sony via a Monster HDMI to DVI breakout cable and frankly, I seem to prefer the component feed rather than the HMDI. Is this normal? Back to adjusting...
What is the best pattern for adjusting "Contrast" with my display? The "needle pulse" pattern doesn't work too well, since the line never bends. Unfortunately, my Sony only has "GLOBAL" adjustments with their four picture modes, so I can't set each input for optimum performance separately. I just try to use either STARDARD OR MOVIE modes and then switch to the appropriate mode depending on what I'm viewing. Anyway, I would appreciate any help and advice you guys can give me on this. thanks a bunch!

If the inputs on your TV work the same at 0 IRE or 7.5 IRE, then it doesn't matter what you set it to as long as you can get a good setting on the TV that allows you to see the full dynamic range... the IRE is just a reference level for the signal. If you find that you can't see the full range of black level at one setting, then try the other one. You should use the blacker than black test pattern with gray bars on DVE to set the brightness properly.

I still don't know how to adjust contrast properly with DVE since I have a DLP. For your CRT, it should be easier as DVE steps you through it.

What needed to be improved? WHy the firmaware upgrades?

Originally posted by armoury
Interesting: mine is 1.526. I wonder what, if any, differences there are? FWIW, build date is January 2005 :D

Mine is November 2004.....(and the firmware as mentioned is 1.516)......

From the posts regarding 59avi, it seems that the latest in US is 1.506?

In anycase, not sure what the differences are, but since the machine is working wonderfully, I guess I'll leave it at that......

Ritesh

Perhaps an email to Pioneer support is in order to verify the latest US version... I have a September 2004 build 59avi with the 506 FW... no issues with the player as of yet.

I don't thinkn there are any noticeable changes. I think it is more academic than anything else. Mine looks fantastic on my Qualia and it is 6 mos old. (unsure of firmware version).

Wow,
- Sept. 04: 506 firmware
- Nov. 04: 516 firmware
- Jan. 05: 526 firmware

I am not sure how they number their fimware versions...... between sept. 04-jan.05, did they update the firmware twice or 20 times ? Most probably twice..... well they have been busy nonethless.....

Ritesh

Someone surmised that 516 was identical to 506, except that 506 is region 1, and 516 is another region. 526 could just be yet a different region. ??

Kevin makes a good and plausible point. Also, each version number "bump" does not mean it was put in production. Most of the time you bump the version for each change/fix and a release can incorporate multiple fixes. e.g there could have been 20 changes in the firmware between sept and Jan. However, I doubt Pio is that active changing the firmware. It would be a Q/A nightmare. Or, it could be changes they had made and been testing for a while and are making one last firmware for EOL (end of life) for the product - continue to sell it but not maintain it - like the 45a and 47ai.

larry

Originally posted by Kevin C Brown
Someone surmised that 516 was identical to 506, except that 506 is region 1, and 516 is another region. 526 could just be yet a different region. ??

I think this makes sense... All of the prior revs have been 306 -> 406 -> 506 .... those are probably major revs, but the 506, 516, 526 could just be region specific or minor revs...

One question I had was how should I set the player's black level for doing these adjustments: at 0 IRE or 7.5 IRE? And then should I use this same setting for actual DVD viewing? What does "IRE" stand for anyway?

This is explained at length in the Guide linked in my signature

I was looking at the Secrets test of the DV-59AVi and noticed something interesting. If this has been posted before, my apologies. For component out, the DV-59AVi flunked Y/C Delay.

But HDMI out the DV-59AVi passed Y/C delay. The text noted that for HDMI, blue was one full pixel off on HDMI, but since the chroma delay control in the DV-59AVi works in one pixel increments, this one pixel delay in blue is correctable. Perhaps that's why it passed Secret's Y/C Delay test over HDMI (not even borderline).

Any thoughts? I know the Y/C delay was corrected in Firmware upgrades, but did it only correct component delay or the one pixel blue delay on HDMI, too?

I just got my unit dated Sept 04 with the 506. Do I need a firmware upgrade?

No, you are good to go.

thanks

I purchased my DV59AVi in April 04 and the firmware version is "1.406." Do I need a firmware upgrade and, if so, how do I go about doing this? Also, as you know, if HDMI cable is connected, the options for picture quality are changed to "Direct, Natural, Enhanced and Memory" instead of CRT, Plasma and Pro. I have my player connected both ways, so if I watch thru the component inputs is pic quality being degraded since the output is being tailored for HDMI? Thanx.

I will try asking here as the question has some relation to this DVD player.

I'm using an HDMI cable from the 59avi to a Toshiba 65h84 CRT TV. I also have a Dish network HD tuner that I'm using component cable with right now. I have'nt seen the PQ of HDMI with the STB and would like to get an HDMI switcher for connecting BOTH the Sat box and the DVD player. Is a switcher going to reduce the PQ coming from my existing connection? If so, I may not do that.

Does anyone have a switcher using this Player and or any other device and notice a difference.

The way I came to this possible purchase is My Samsung LCD tv was always connected via component. Now I just changed it to a DVI connection and see a big difference. So, I figured I'd try it with the toshiba and HDMI as well. Any thoughts?

I'd hate to connect the 59 avi via a component just to have the HDMI connection to my Sat viewing, but a switcher may do the trick.

A switcher won't hurt the HDMI connection at all...

To make DV-59AVi owners feel good:

First, my DV-59AVi is in for repair. But I talked with a tech a great deal about PE vs. Denon. He said that it is very rare for them to get a PE in for service. On Denon, he said they have great PQ, but they are constantly in for repair; "They aren't very reliable, at all."

Second, I was reading from some past mags, and came across these comments and observations by Thomas Norton:

1) In the Jan '05 issue of Ultimate A/V (the final one), he rated DVD players. For DVI/HDMI out players, the Ayre DX-7, which can only do 480i/p and costs $6k rated 4 stars. The next highet rated player was the DV-59AVi, which was rated three stars with the comment "borderline four stars."

2) Comaparing the Ayre to the DV-59AVi, he said, "The picture differences were subtle" and "the Ayre looked better than the Pioneer by a nose at best." He also prefered the DV-59AVi video over the discontinued Denon DVD-5900.

3) For SACD and DVD-A, compared to the discontinued Denon DVD-5900: "The Pioneer sounded cleaner, had a much stronger bottom, and simply produced more of what I expect from hi-rez audio."

So, know you made the best choice (except for the Ayre), and for heaven's sake, don't post any of this in Denon threads! (At this late point, DVD-3910 owners are STILL complaining of green push, and passing BTB.)

(IMHO, probably the second best player out there right now is the Pan S97, although it lacks SACD. Unlike Denon, which has done nothing to address the MBing problem from the FL23xx chip, Pan has released two upgrades which apparently reduce the MBing a good deal.)

Originally posted by Robert Whitehead
To make DV-59AVi owners feel good:

3) For SACD and DVD-A, compared to the discontinued Denon DVD-5900: "The Pioneer sounded cleaner, had a much stronger bottom, and simply produced more of what I expect from hi-rez audio."



Robert,

Was that quote with ref to the iLink output on the Pioneer or Analog audio outputs?

I guess it would have to be the Analog outputs as the DAC's in the Pioneer/Denon aren't used for SACD/DVD-Audio via the iLink. :)

Originally posted by bizzibee

I guess it would have to be the Analog outputs as the DAC's in the Pioneer/Denon aren't used for SACD/DVD-Audio via the iLink. :)

I just checked out the reviews at the Ultimate AV Mag website and it was stricly analog used for the comparisons.

Yep I just checked out the Denon 5900 review myself.

http://ultimateavmag.com/dvdplayers/904denon/index1.html


"When I switched over to the Pioneer DV-59AVi, there was no getting around it: the Pioneer simply sounded clearer, had a much stronger bottom end (I'd matched the players' output levels as closely as possible), and, overall, simply produced more of what I expect to hear from hi-rez audio. The same turned out to be true with SACD, whether I used bass management (which, remember, results in a conversion of SACD from DSD to PCM) or switched to Source Direct. Still, I suspect that many audiophiles will find the Denon's sweet, smooth sound more appealing than the up-front, brighter Pioneer."



Then I looked at the Pioneer Elite DV-59AVi review.

http://ultimateavmag.com/dvdplayers/904pioneer/


"You'll find comments on the Pioneer's sound quality—particularly when playing DVD-As and SACDs—in the Denon review, so I'll cut to the chase here. I used the analog 5.1 outputs exclusively. They sounded highly detailed, with fine depth and soundstaging; solid, tight bass; and an open, clear top end that some (not I) might find just a bit elevated. That last point could just as easily be attributed to a small rise in the brightness region of the speakers I used: B&W's 703 L/Rs, HTM7 center, 705 L/R surrounds, and ASW750 subwoofer."


Very interesting!