Anyone audition the new Pioneer 79-AVi yet? (1 Viewer)

[MarcoBiscotti]

I'm considering upgrading from my 59 Elite which I just bought this past Spring. Possibly moving that to my bedroom and the new 59-AVi to the home theater.

The only thing is, I'm going to have to order it online with a chipset hack for region-free mod. I wonder how long it will take for the code free e-tailer sites to get these units in from the distributors and what they will charge for them modded?

I'm most anxious to hear how this new unit handles layer changes which is currently my biggest complaint with the 59-AVi. If this aspect hasn't been improved upon with the new model, than I'm going to save my money.

Anyways, I'm curious to hear if anybody's seen this thing in action and how it fares performance wise to the previous 59 model and if the improvements are enough to justify an upgrade?

 

[Kevin C Brown]

Lots of info over on AVS. The layer change is reported to be a little bit better. But Kris Deering of Secrets is seeing some video issues the 79AVi has that the 59AVi didn't.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...&&#post6917207

 

[MarcoBiscotti]

Thanks Kevin, it took me over an hour to wade through that whole thrad!


From what I've taken, it doesn't sound worth it. It looks like I'll be happily sticking with my current 59-AVi.

Thanks again for bringing that to my attention!

 

[Kevin C Brown]

I have a 59AVi too, but I'm waiting to see if there's anything there Pioneer can fix with a firmware upgrade. I'd really like the beefed up build quality and presumably incremental improvement in audio performance of the new one. Similarly, the layer change on the 59AVi is a big beef of mine too. The 59AVi was worse than the 47Ai!

 

[MarcoBiscotti]

I agree!

I'd still be concerned about these issues though because it sounds pretty bad to me. I'll wait to see how Pioneer responds to this. If it was just an oversight and can be easily corrected than I'll wait for an official review from Secrets and hopefully be able to make up my decision by than.

I'm still curious when the region-free sites will get their hands on this unit.

Btw, I notice somebody in that thread mentioned a 9-something model from Europe (Holland maybe?) which was supposedly region-free out of the box. Do you know anything about this?

I need to be able to playback PAL sourced material (albeit a small portion of my collection) but this is a major issue for me. Regionfreedvdplayers.com had a great chipset mod for the 59-AVi and while that unit supposedly doesn't have an internal converter, I had no problem with playback on my DLP proj. I'm curious if it will be the same for the 79-AVi?

 

[Kevin C Brown]

I would have a fear. My fear is because that Secrets has spotted some items that are definitely "different" on the 79AVi vs the 59AVi, that things like region free hacks might also be different enough that it might take a while for the modders to figure things out.

I think that I do know that the Australian version, by law, has to be region free. I'm not sure about Europe.

I have successfully played PAL discs on my unmod'ed 59AVi. But what's with all that vertical scrolling?

 

[Dave H]

Has anyone compared the 59AVi to the Panasonic XP-30? I currently own the XP-30 and was wondering if the video is any better with the 59AVi.

 

[Kevin C Brown]

Probably not. The XP30 is rated a little bit higher on Secrets than the 59AVi.

But you should read through the details to see if there'd be any benefit to you.

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/cgi-b...deInt=0&mpeg=0

 

[Dave H]

Yeah, I think I'm better off probably just sticking with my XP-30 as video quality is my main concern with a DVD player. I'll more likely just wait for an actual HD player.

 

[Kevin C Brown]

Good thing we waited.

The 59AVi is rated as 88 for HDMI and 80 for component video for the best settings.

The 79 AVi is rated as 69 for HDMI. (In the review, he says that the component score is similar to that of HDMI.)

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/cgi-b...deInt=0&mpeg=0

Newer, doesn't necessarily mean better!