Pioneer DV-383S Multi-Volt DVD Player
Great Picture, Plays Everything, Simple to Use, Good Value
The 383s has a small foot print, low profile, and appears to be built to a high standard. The disc tray and door are robust and operate smoothly and positively. The unit's specifications suggest that the picture produced by this DVD player should be very good indeed, and in fact it is. The progressive scan output produced a richly detailed image, almost three-dimensional in quality, whether from an NTSC or PAL source. The picture was significantly better than that produced by my old player which was not a region-free, code-free device. The Pioneer has a 12MB PAL converter which produces a sharp, steady image with no  shudder, color shifting, or other conversion artifacts. The PAL conversion is nothing short of remarkable. The remote and on-screen display are well designed and easy to use. Follow the instructions for setting the unit to NTSC output (page 39 of the user manual) and you'll have no problems. Yes, there are cheap, off-brand players out there at roughly half the price of the Pioneer, but the chances are the disc drawer and drive mechanism will fail prematurely or you'll begin to get read errors. There are also a few better units than the Pioneer at twice the price or more. But you probably won't notice the difference in picture quality. Given how often formats change and technology evolves, it doesn't make sense, in my opinion, to buy a unit at a higher price point that's destined to become obsolete in a year or so. The Pioneer does the job and does it well.