1998 Pioneer DVD Player spotted at Goodwill, is it worth my time?
 

Hello everyone today after work I found a 1998 vintage Pioneer DVD Player at Goodwill (which is where I work now if you all haven't caught on by now) and its in pretty decent shape yet (no dents or scatches in the cabinet or anything just the Pioneer name plate is a little loose on the front.) I was thinking of picking it up for my LCD Projector as a spare in case the el cheapo GPX DVD player that my parents gave me that I'm currently using on my Projector goes out. I was wondering if its worth my time, I know I had a Toshiba DVD Player from 1997 for awhile but it refused to play burned DVDs (assuming that the age of the unit had something to do with it because of the fact that it was early in the DVD technology and back then they did everything they could to discourage DVD burning) would this Pioneer be the same way or would be of better quality being that its Pioneer?

Any help and advice would be greatly appreciated.

By the way I haven't bought the unit yet, I figured I would ask you folks on here first about it before buying it (learning from my mistake I made yesterday with that TV.)

Wow if its cheap .I would take it since its a great name brand and its a classic .I would not pay to much for it like more then $25 bucks for it.With an employee discount you probably get it cheap and your boss would be happy to get rid of it.I do agree on problems playing burned DVDs as the old school DVD players were fussy about it then.My first DVD player was a Apex about the same age is that Pioneer which Apex is in the same boat as GPX..At the time I could not afford that Pioneer set at the time along with Panasonic and Sony..

I got a old cheap Cyberhome $29.99 Walmart special and a Durabrand portable DVD player that plays anything which the Apex had some issues with the burned DVD and CDs.

Get the model number off it and run it on Google on your cell phone or computer and get some info on it. Might be lucky to find a service manual and instructions for it.Also you can post the mod number on here for us and see we can help you with some info on it.

I got a marantz DVD player in 1998, copper screws, made in Japan, expensive unit. Was great to experience digital video but it was not reliable at all, I would pass unless you have an interest in late 1990s electronics in general. Those early players are not as good as later ones.

I've had a couple of early Pioneer DVD players including a couple of their Laserdisc/DVD combo players and while they were somewhat interesting (at least to me) and well built they weren't viable for actual day to day use. They were simply too fussy on what they would and wouldn't play. They would generally read DVD+R, and most pressed DVDs, but would be tripped up by certain format variations and menu functions enough that gave up on them...

There are pros and cons to owning a late 90's DVD player:

Pros: They were built well. This was before manufacturers started cheapening the manufacturing process, so at most it may need the reader lens cleaned every now and then. If yours is in goodwill that means it was tested and will likely work for years to come.

Cons: Just plays DVD's, nothing more nothing less. May not like burned DVD's, won't touch newer formats like Xvid.

I always pass on the older DVD players, there are some newer factory pressed discs they won't play, probably had something to do with their anti piracy attempts.

Pioneer's track record with DVD players wasn't that great. Seemed like they took years into the format's life to really start producing quality models. Even many of their early Elite DVD players are junky when it comes to performance. Although honestly despite this it's likely far better than a GPX, Apex, or CyberHome.

There's the two Pios that are generally regarded as their highest performance DVD players, the DV-59ai and the DV-79avi. The third is the DV-09, an early statement piece that's really only good for CD playback now. The 59ai is actually better video-wise than the 79, which traded some video performance for a richer feature set.

If it's under $20, jump on it. :thmbsp:

It was only $9.99, and with my 25% employee discount it was $8.00, I even ordered a remote for it on ebay for $9.99 and free shipping. I believe the model on it is DV-414, and surprisingly enough it does play and recognize burned DVDs although one of my burned DVDs I was trying to play which was a 3 hour long seminar DVD by Kent Hovind concerning Creationism glitched out at about 20 minutes in but I think it was because the disc was scratched up pretty badly from what I could see.

Glad you bought it. Ant beat the price. Mine is the exact same model. Paid $20 a couple years ago and ordered the remote on ebay for $8. Main reason for buying it was sentimental reasons. Dad bought me one back in 98 and even then, they were around $500. I was dumb and sold it in 2003. Bought this one for that reason. And yes, they do play the burned discs.

Sweet! Now I just need to wait for the remote to arrive in the mail, but for right now I'm using a Sony Universal remote which works ok but it doesn't operate the menu fuctions for the DVD properly (I'm assuming that with this DVD player you have to use the "enter" key to play the movie from the main menu and not just the "play" key like some of them do because when I hit the play button on the remote or on the unit itself it pauses the video which I didn't think it was possible to pause a DVD's main Menu.)

Yup, the enter key is the one you need. I always preferred Alot of Pioneers equipment just because of the gold feet. Remote uses pretty standard AA batteries.:thmbsp:

That's what I figured, and this Sony Universal Remote has an "enter" key but it doesn't work like its supposed to for this DVD Player. Of course it might be that I'm using the wrong code though too. :scratch2:

So you need a remote with an Enter button eh?

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...L._SL1000_.jpg

I own one of these.


Okay to be honest I bought it as a joke but I have actually made real use of it because it has an Enter button and a few other keys that some other universal remotes lack. Plus it's just about impossible to lose the thing.