Pioneer 45A or Panasonic RP91 (1 Viewer)

[Brad Newton]

I am trying to decide between these 2 units. It will be used mostly for movies, and will be paired with the Pioneer 45tx and an older 36" direct view tv.

I have also read that the RP91 has scaling. Since I am still trying to learn the lingo.........what is scaling & how would it benefit.

 

[David Susilo]

everything else aside, the Pioneer has CUE (Chroma Bug) and the Panasonic does not. From that alone (plus the much-cheaper-price of the Panasonic) makes me lean a lot more towards the RP-91.

 

[Ben LG]

I listen to more music and have been looking at a universal player for about a month now so I decided to go with the Pioneer Elite 45a. I compared the 45a back to back with a Marantz DV-4300 which I was returning because I had a problem with the video flickering when patterns were displayed. Initially the Marantz seemed to have a more vibrant and sharper picture but after a little tweaking with the Avia disc, the 45a was on the same level if not better than the Marantz. I dont have any of the discs that were mentioned that has the chroma bug but I have not had any problems with any of the dvds I own so Ill leave it at that.

DVD-A performance was excellent with The Corrs In Blue album (the only dvd-a I have atm) and the only dvd-a player I can compare it to is the budget Panasonic S55S I previously owned, of course I expected the Pioneer which is more than twice the price to outperform the Panny. Moving onto dvds which you are probably more interested in, along with some movies, I popped in The Corrs Live in London (sort of my reference dvd and yes I am a Corrs fan :b) and Kylie Minogue's Fever 2002 concert, again the audio was top notch. On the video side - Kylie Minogue was dressed in all kinds of bizarre and colorful costumes on the Fever 2002 dvd as were her dancers, the whole concert was just full of eye candy including the props and lights. The 45a handled it all without breaking a sweat and without any noticeable artifacts or "hiccups". To sum it up, the 45a outperformed the Marantz DV-4300 ($340) in both audio and video(by a hair) and I am extremely satisfied with this little gem. I was also considering the RP91 which had alot of great reviews but I was sold on the ability to play SACD's and DVD-A for a couple of bucks more.

FWIW, thats my mini review so far of the 45a and hope its useful info for you in deciding which player to get because I really do think it is one spectacular player for the price I got it for ($330).

 

[David Susilo]

Ben...

ahhhh, another Kylie Minogue fan! Yaaay!.

 

[Brad Newton]

Is the chroma bug only visible in progressive mode, or does it show in interlaced also?

 

[Brian L]

Brad,

In my case, I have only seen it in interlaced mode to an older 32" interlaced-only TV.

In progressive mode connected to a Pioneer 533HD display, and in interlaced mode connected to the same display (using the 533's deinterlacer) I am not seeing it.

I have posted elsewhere that I have had some communications with Don Munsil on this, and without having seen my display, he suspects a possible focus issue may be masking it.

All I can say is that to my eyes, the 45A does seem to look better than you might expect given it finished DFL in the Secrets shoot-out. I would recommend you eyeball it yourself before passing judgement.

And lastly, this ain't apples to apples. The 45A is a universal, the 91 is not. That may or may not matter, but I don't think the 91 does SACD.

BGL

 

[Patrick Sun]

That's correct, the RP91 only does DVD-Audio (without any fancy bass management features, either), and not SACD.

 

[Darryl_B]

I compared the 45a back to back with a Marantz DV-4300 which I was returning because I had a problem with the video flickering when patterns were displayed. Initially the Marantz seemed to have a more vibrant and sharper picture but after a little tweaking with the Avia disc, the 45a was on the same level if not better than the Marantz. I dont have any of the discs that were mentioned that has the chroma bug but I have not had any problems with any of the dvds I own so Ill leave it at that.

Have you check to be certain the "flickering" problem you were seeing wasn't due to the chroma bug in the Marantz? If so, you will have the same problem with the Pioneer.

 

[Brian L]

Have you check to be certain the "flickering" problem you were seeing wasn't due to the chroma bug in the Marantz? If so, you will have the same problem with the Pioneer.

While I do not dispute that the 45A has the CUE, I can say with some certainty that it does not cause any sort of flicker on my display.

Unless or course its a piss-poor transfer that has some background flicker built in. For reference, cue up The Sound of Music or Pocahontas).

BGL

 

[David Sorenson]

I didn't think the Marantz players had the chroma bug.

 

[David Susilo]

IIRC, many Marantz are just re-badged Pioneers.

 

[Ben LG]

Have you check to be certain the "flickering" problem you were seeing wasn't due to the chroma bug in the Marantz? If so, you will have the same problem with the Pioneer.

Besides the two concert dvds I mentioned above, I also played Fight Club, Die Another Day, One Hour Photo etc. on the Pioneer and there was no flickering as there was with the Marantz so I doubt it is related to the chroma bug issue. The Marantz displays fine during a "quiet" scene and the problem only happens say when a action scene kicks in or when there is alot of detail/contrast/patterns to the picture. Another way to describe is that the Marantz flickers constantly like it is not refreshing the picture fast enough when I have it paused while the 45a displays a steady picture, sort of like a photograph.