Great machine but personally let down :(

I already had a DVD machine which plays DivX n Xvid files, but was getttin fed up of always burning a dvd so i could watch it on there. and now n then id find that the film would skip, just like a scratched cd or dvd would.

So the sole purpose of buying this machine was to hook up my external hard drive directly without using anymore DVDs, only to find that the machine isnt compatible with my hard drive, although my Memory stick worked.

Otherwise im very happy with this DVD player, so buy it if ur not expecting to plug in ur external hard drive

region free

i would just like to say that i thought this machine was region 2 only, until i bought the shawshank redempton region 1, it worked straight away no problems.

Stunning performance

Had this about a week now, this is a new release from Pioneer and I have to say it doesn't fail to deliver.
When purchasing equipment like this I tend to go for the appliances that are compliant with all formats, which was the same when purchasing this DVD player.
It will play anything.
The USB interface is great for instant multimedia, will show photo's, plays music, etc.
This isn't the great part though, i bought a Samsung LE40M87BD at the same time and the DVD player upscales all DVD's beautifully up to 1080p, the transformation in resolution is fantastic. Its worth it if you have a lot of DVD's that aren't HD or blu-ray yet. I've watched both blu-ray and HD DVD's and i'm serious when i say the difference is un-noticible. I have also connected it to my tv through a gold plated HDMI lead, so haven't skimped on quality, but definately worth it!
The on screen menu is easy to use and you have alot of options to configure it with your tv too, works really well with HDMI connection.
There is no bad points for me yet, have only had it for a week, but its an awesome bit of kit for £150.
Pioneer have delivered a top quality product for an amazing price, its designed to efficiently play all formats & all regions which it easily succeeds, it works exceptionally well for what it is made for.
It is their top model in this series, but worth every penny, I have it in black to go with the tv :) but i'm sure the silver looks just as good.

Why have separate SACD & DVD Audio players ?

I've owned this DVD player for a couple of months and I am still astounded by how many functions it does. It's almost as if Pioneer can sense the end of the standard DVD player (for replacement by HDDVD or BluRay) and have thrown everything into it. For a start off there is the HDMI upscaling socket, an essential connection for those of us getting HD Ready flat screens. Sure the picture through such a connection isn't as good as HDDVD/BluRay but is a massive improvement from Scart connection. But if it's just a HDMI multi-region player you're after then you can get cheaper than this. What swung me in favour of this player is not only DVD-Audio playback but also SACD playback in the same player. You'll need an amp with 6-channel analogue input for connection from the 6 analogue outputs on the player. But boy does this player sound great once connected. There are so many menu options for set-up e.g. Speaker Size, Distance From Listener This might make it sound difficult to set up but it's not. I'm just saying that there are plenty of options to tweak with to get that optimum sound and picture. That's without mentioning that there is a USB socket on the front so you can listen to downloaded mp3 files. And the whole thing is packaged into a slimline player that won't hog up your shelf space. For the price you're getting an absolute bargain and this particular one is multi-region so should play anything.