Hi,

I have a Pioneer DV-45, which I bought primarily for the DVD-A and SACD playback. I now have a Philips HD plasma TV that supports 1080i. Is it worthwhile to upgrade to the Pioneer DV-46, which has HDMI output? This will allow me to get the most out of my DVD's and current TV, correct?

Are there any other players I should consider? I'm not interested in 1080p, since my TV won't support it.

Thanks,
Dave

Dave:
I have had the DV 45 A for several years now in an audio only system and I am happy with its audio performance. However, in our HT I use an Oppo 981 because I didn't like the video on the DV 45 A. When I did the system in the bedroom I used an Oppo 971 which also has better video than the DV 45 A. Even though you don't need 1080p right now, the 981 will scale up to 480p, 720p, 1080i and 1080p. At $229 (direct), it is a very reasonable investment. The Oppo players have been well reviewed in a number of higher-end magazines (e.g., Sept 2007 Absolute Sound review of the 981 on p. 71).

I've never liked Pioneer "customer service" and have had excellent treatment from Oppo, so I won't buy another Pioneer product.

1080i is not as good a picture as 720p
If your current player supports 720p, then I would not bother changing to 1080i.
(1080i being interlaced has 540 lines of vertical resolution against the 720 of the progressive scan format)
Just my thoughts.
An upscaling player sometimes looks great, (I have the Cambridge Audio 540Azur MkII, and the picture on this is really nice if playing back a disc that was shot & mastered in HD - although with older titles that are cheap "knock-outs" with the usual Shoddy 'just get the thing in the shops' type of encoding where the characters all look like cardboard cutouts, then all the upscaling in the world will not make it look any better.

As far as Pioneer go, I have owned 2 of their machines - and swore to myself "Never Again".