My review of the Pioneer DV-270(S)

[jeex]

First Look

It looks like just its brothers the dv-250 & dv-260, even the remote is exactly the same. When you first turn it on it doesnt immediatly display the setup screen like on the dv-260. It defaults your tv to 4:3 Pan & Scan. So if you have a 16:9 W/S TV you'll need to change this.

Connections
RCA L/R audio, RCA video, S-video, RGB, & digital audio out (coaxial)

Playback
This thing is at the tops when it comes to display quality. DVD looks great, S/VCD decoding is improved over the dv-250. Sound is fine with me, I don't have an expensive sound system, so I dont really know if its awesome or not. I would imagine so though.

Compatibility
I think the vast majority of us are interested in this mainly. What can I say but, WOW?!

VCD, SVCD, DVD, DVD-R/W, DVD+RW/ CD-R, CD-RW. I would have tried a 45, but it wouldnt fit on the tray
It can play MP3's, WMA's, JPG's on CD-R, and various types of picture cd's. The manual says you cant play JPG, WMA, or MP3 on a DVD-R/W, but I burned one just to be sure and it played!

Comparisons
As some of you may know although the DV-250 would play PAL S/VCD's it would give you a black & white rolling screen if you tried to play a PAL DVD (on DVDR/W), which was really dissapointing. The DV-260 corrected this problem, and the DV-270 plays them just fine too.

The DV-250 & DV-260 had a nasty bug where if you tried to play a SVCD (maybe VCD too) and you had your tv at a 4:3 A/R the picture would be displayed incorrectly, in order to view them correctly you had to set the player to the 16:9 A/R, not so with the DV-270 it displays just fine!

Another complaint with the DV-250 & DV-260 was that fast forwarding through S/VCD's was almost unbearable, the DV-270 fast forwards with the best of them.

Pro's
This is a VERY GOOD dvd player, I dont think I have seen another dvd player that will play everything this one does at the quality this one achieves. Everything I threw at the player, it would play. This is just an awesome dvd player. It has cursor/navigation buttons on the dvd player, so if you lose your remote, you're not screwed. The DV-250 did not have cursor/navigation buttons on the player, the DV-260 did.

Con's
No region or macrovision hack. I'm no dvd player h4x0r, but you really cant play Pioneer for not putting this in the manual
There is no known region or macrovision hack for the DV-250 or DV-260, so I kind of doubt there will be one for this one. Hopefully Pioneer made it easy for us to do this time.

Final Thoughts
For being a single disc DVD player this thing is just excellent. Pioneer has really identified the issues that were in their DV-250 & DV-260 and fixed them for the DV-270. I would give this dvd player a 9.5/10. If a macro & region hack is discovered that doesnt require hardware modification, I'll gladly give it a 10/10 raiting.

And you want to know the most impressive thing about such an awesome dvd player? Its only $70 @ Wal-Mart. This thing blows Shitpex out of the water as far as picture quality & actual quality of the item. I've been through 3 Apex's in 1 year, and I know a few people who have gone through them quickly too. They may play everything, but not for long. A relative of mine & I havehad the DV-260 for about 7 months now and the thing has played fine. Another relative of mine has had the DV-250 for around 18 months and it plays just fine too. These things are built well.

If playing out of region DVD's is not important to you, or you are fine with backing up these disc to a DVDR/W this is the dvd player for you.

[dennisharmon]

I think I must have got a bad one out of the box, and I'm going to exchange it first. It won't even see most of the disks I put in it. And when it does, it only plays them for between 21 and 23 seconds.

I'll let you know if the replacement is any better.

Dennis

[woodywoodman]

I just brought home the dvd player last night and hooked it up. My apex 1200 final gave out after a few years. I do like the Pioneer player but there is not a noticable improvement in neither sound or audio. I am puzzled about one thing. Even though my receiver is showing 5.1, my audio on screen shows 2.1. I double checked my hookups and all is well. The rear channel speakers are working. Any ideas?

[dennisharmon]

Guys just wanted to let you know this is an amazing DVD player. I got a bad one out of the box, exchanged it and wow...this is very good. Versatility, quality, and performace can't be beat. The Pioneer 270 simply rocks.

[Beavis]

Bump for this great player, which is now down to $59 at Walmart in the US. Just got one and it plays everything I've tried from SVCD to CVD to DVD, with good quality, nice manual, and great on-screen displays and menus... even has an LCD display and directional cursor keys right on the player. I can't imagine why anyone would buy something like Apex or any of the other really low-end junk players when this is out there and still fairly inexpensive.

[tacoman97x]

I have 2 of them in my house...

[Matt_]

Hi

I read the comments/reviews in the "DVD Player" section for the 270 and the 275.
Is there any difference between the two besides price ?
Ultimate Electronics is the only store I've seen that carries the 275, and the availability of the 270 at Walmart apparently varies because it is not carried at the one by me.
I saw that "jeex" in the 270 thread linked above says "dv-270,dv-271, & dv-275 are the same dvd players", but if that's the case, I don't understand the reasoning behind releasing the same player with different model numbers -- perhaps one model number is meant for one chain of stores and another for another chain ?
The other thing I noticed is that the specs and the manual for the 270 are not available at Toshiba's website -- I don't know if that's indicative of anything.

[Beavis]

Not Toshiba, Pioneer-

http://www.pioneer.com.sg/storefront/ProductDetail/default.asp?ProductId=9&CatId=64,7,11

The manual for the 270 also says it's for the 271 and 275 on the cover. No idea if there's any differences at all.

I had to go to 3 Walmarts before I found one that stocked the Pioneer players... so some of them, but ovbiously not all of them, still have it. If you can't find it, I guess you could always order through walmart.com.

[lumis]

matt_,

the reasoning you had was correct. the dv-270 is the "wal-mart version" of the dvd player. i believe the 275 is the "manufacturer version" and i'm not sure what the 271 is.. but they are the same dvd player.

[Bridge]

Does anyone know if the 270 plays back Panasonic DVD-RAM disks? Has someone with a 270 tried it? If so does it work?

[008]

Anyone know how to make below hacks work on a IBM Thinkpad IR port? I don't have a Palm, and WinLIRC doesn't support IrDA.

https://www.videohelp.com/dvdhacks.php?select=Pioneer+DV-575A
https://www.videohelp.com/dvdhacks.php?dvdplayer=Pioneer+470&hits=50

[solidsnake]

Does this player let you browse through the mp3s, or do you have to play them one by one to get to the mp3 you want?

[lumis]

yes, it has a browser..

[cablgod]

Ok, I have had this unit for approx. 6 months now and until the other night I absolutely loved it. I have been using TDK and Memorex dvd-r for the majority of my needs. But, as fate would have it, I ran out and sent the wife to the Wally World to get more. She hands me a neatly wrapped package of Memorex dvd+r. No big worries I think. I burned around 25 movies or so b4 it dawned on me to check and see if the player would play them....... ........guess the egg is on MY face now. So just bbecause you have read all of the reviews on a certain foorum don't end up like me and check your player out before you make a bunch of coasters.

[lordsmurf]

You were using bad media, most likely.

[lumis]

yeah, memorex media is low grade CMC crap.. i bought some wal-mart/memorex's, they seemed nice at first.. but in the end, they're crap.

[Dan East]

We have both a 260 and 270. One capability the 260 possesses that was removed for the 270 was the ability to use the front panel forward and back buttons to seek. On the 260 you can press and hold to seek. On the 270 it will always jump to the next / prev chapter, even if you hold the button down. Just found that to be a step backwards with the newer model.

Dan East