headrusch

Both are in my pricerange. ALMOST decided to buy the Toshiba, but then heard that I'll need to check the firmware revision to make sure its a later model (which means no buying online for all intents and purposes), while the Pioneer 333 is a replacement for the much-loved 525(I think), but everyone hates that one because of the loud disc tray.

????

Anyone know if the 333 suffers from those same problems? Also, I hear the Pioneer has better downconversion for anamorphic discs being played on a 4:3 TV like mine....true? not true?

mooky7

Well, I don't know if its better, but I do know that from what I've read the Tosh just deletes lines every 4th/5th line to downconvert an anamorphic title for play on a 4:3 TV. This is not the prefered method, which would involve some mathamatic calculations by the hardware internally to "blend" the remaining lines with the missing lines and create a smoother image that doesnt seem to shimmer as much because of the missing parts.

All in all though, I don't notice it too bad though on my SD-1200 and 32" JVC most of the time, and the price was right for my SD-1200

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DVD's ARE Addictive

Galactus

Well, I'm preparing to buy the 1200 myself; mainly because I already own a Toshiba projection television......and I can't wait to try out the ColorStream connections.

Also, the 1200 has gotten good reviews overall; I think at this stage of the game, until mechanisms become more advanced......every DVD player out there has the potential for some minor problems. After all, the DVD market is still fairly young, so there may not be a 100% perfect player out there.

My father owns a Pioneer model and it's been good too, but for me.....the 1200 seems ideal. Plus, I'm no where near ready, finance-wise, to go to 5.1 yet (I'll have to make due with 2.0 for now)....and the 1200 promises simulated surround adjustments which are attractive for me and my plain ol' stereo set-up......while allowing for dts/Dolby Digital receiver attachments in the future. Pretty cool.

But next to the RCA model I currently own, the Toshiba 1200 looks beautiful. RCA's botching of "The Man With the Golden Gun" was enough for me. I'm going for the Toshiba.

BEC

Anamorphic conversion makes more of a difference on larger screens (>36"). Some complaints about this even on smaller screens. It's a "videophile" thing. Tosh's image look sharper, but has a tendency to motion artifacts (jaggies). Some other players choose a softer picture, but leads to less artifacts.

The Pioneer 333 is much quieter than the 525. Perhaps a minor issue, but the 333 during play back is at least as quiet as a Tosh. Plus the FF/RW scans are smoother.
Remote is little better too (bigger buttons, better placement). Let's you play cd-r/w.
The anamorphic presentation has noticably less artifacts, IMO.

Both are fine machines as is the Sony 360.



[This message has been edited by BEC (edited June 27, 2000).]

RoboDad

I have tried both the Pioneer 525 and the Sony 360 in my home. If the 333 has resolved the noisy tray and poor scanning problems of the 525, I would probably give the nod to that player. The 525 produced one of the best-looking down-converted images I've ever seen (on my 50" Mitsubishi RPTV). I just couldn't tolerate the above-mentioned problems though, so I exchanged it for the Sony. The Sony produces a beautiful picture, but I believe the Pioneer was just slightly better - as sharp as the Toshiba, but no downconversion artifacts, at least, none that I could see.

I suppose what BEC says is true, that it is somewhat of a "videohpile thing," and it is definitely more noticeable on big screen sets, but I have no trouble seeing, and being terribly annoyed by, downconversion artifacts, even on my second TV, a 27" Panasonic. The Pioneer and The Sony players are the clear winners in that category, from my experience.

Now, if I had a 16:9 set already, I would definitely go with the Toshiba SD-1200, but I don't, so I never even considered it.

Robo

BEC

quote:<HR>Originally posted by RoboDad:
I suppose what BEC says is true, that it is somewhat of a "videohpile thing," and it is definitely more noticeable on big screen sets, but I have no trouble seeing, and being terribly annoyed by, downconversion artifacts, even on my second TV, a 27" Panasonic.<HR>

Annoys me too!

I bought a widescreen TV just to avoid this issue, but seems like most people are more tolerent. I think most of the Toshiba owners in this forum have standard sets and alot of them don't seem to care.

RoboDad, did you try the compression trick? Squeeze down on the vertical range of your set to make it more like a widescreen? Few post about that in this forum and in hometheaterforum.com . Woks for some sets. Kind of a cool way around the anamorphic issue.

RoboDad

Yeah, I tried it. Unfortunately, the Mitusbishi sets don't compress far enough. I was only able to get about 1/3 of the compression that would be needed . So, I just have to live with downconversion until I can afford a decent HDTV.

Robo