I am looking for a backup/replacement for my trusty old Toshiba 4900, which is starting to act up quite often lately.

I was wondering if anyone here has the Pioneer DV-383, and can tell me about the PAL-NTSC conversion quality, ease of making it region-free, and overall functionality. I mostly have R1 DVDs, but also a couple of DivX fan edits and bootlegs (like Tripods series 2), as well as a few old VCD imports that I'd like to be able to watch.
There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of info on this player on the web, but what little there is sounds encouraging (more so than the Philips solution anyway).

I'll dare one bump, since my old player no longer reads discs 75% of the time...

did you ever get one? i'm thinking about getting one to replace my old malata.

thanks

I just bought one last week and couldn't be happier!!!

I use a projector so I can't comment on the PAL - NTSC conversion quality. But my old DVD player Philip 727 stopped working so I had to look for a replacement. I brought home Philip DVP-3005, supposedly one step up from the Philip 727's replacements in the market, as well as the Pioneer DV-383 and performed several A/B tests to decide which one to keep. Both of these players use better converters and DACs (108 MHz, 12bit D to A converter and 24-bit/192kHz DAC) than your average entry level DVD Players.

Immediately my girlfriend spotted a noticeable difference between the 2. Pioneer DV-383 just displays sharper, more vivid pictures hands down, perhaps because of the chip used in this player. In fact, I read that Pioneer makes excellent DVD players and DV383's video performance rivals that of Pioneer's higher end models and thus making it one entry level DVD player with the best bang for the buck.

In terms of the ease of making it region-free, it is not as simple as other potentially region-free players, which can be made region-free by the push of several buttons on your remote. You would have to find the firmware upgrades available over the internet, and burn them onto a CD to do so. The actual firmware upgrade takes just 1 minute so it is not that much of a hassle.

Overall, I think it is well worth the time and the money to get this player, especially one that will blow away the other entry level players.

Where can one find the black model?

i bought my gf one of these in silver. so far no issues, other than a slow boot time and disc open from the console. plays PAL discs wonderfully without a hiccup so far. you should be happy with it!

Thank you very much!