Home > Consumer Reviews > Pioneer DV 563A - DVD player

This player is a very good player for a very cheap price. It not only plays regular DVD's with great results, it also plays both DVD-audio discs and SACD's with ease. The sound is great and setup is very easy. I had mine up and running within 10 minutes, and that includes connecting the cables to my receiver. The only reason I did not give this player a 5 is because I think it loads the disc a bit slowly, otherwise it's a terrific play. The outside is attractive and the player has a very small footprint. Buy this! It's worth the money.

I have had this player for some months now, and am very pleased with the performance all round. Video always looks good, no problems there. Every existing audio and video connection is available on the back, very nice indeed.
What makes this player truly great though is that it is a universal player - apart from the usual video, mp3, etc capabilities it also plays DVD Audio and SACD (super audio cd) - and it does so smashingly. The new formats are played back beautifully. It also gives you the best that your regular cds have to offer.

I would really give this player the full five stars, except that it has one baffling, and extremely irritating feature - while it actually does PAL to NTSC conversion (very nicely I might add), it is not region free, nor can it be rendered so easily.
I ask you, how many region 1 PAL discs have YOU seen on the market?
Because of this I have to keep a second player (one of those no name brand bargain basement ones - does an excellent job by the way) for the sole purpose of playing my region 2 PAL discs (expensive legitimately purchased discs of material that simply is not available in a region 1 version).
Of course if you do not own any other region discs (nor plan on ever getting any) then this will be irrelevant to you.

In conclusion, an excellent player all around, I fully recommend it - but with that one glaring error in design (Pioneer really let down their customers with that one).

I wonder why there isn't more interest in this player that has the unique ability to play both of the new formats. I bought mine for my mid level surround system and couldn't be more pleased.
I don't know it may compare with the $$$ players, but I find
the aural experience of SACD and DVD-A very nice for this price.

Fantastic Video, excellent audio, heavy feature set, and looks great...but that's not why I bought it.

In the past, if you wanted max format compatibility, you had to sacrifice video quality. Sure, you can stick a slice of pizza in a Sony DVP-NS725P and it will play a Little Caesars commercial, but the video quality is horrendous. I searched high and low looking for a player that can read a wide range of formats, including DVD +R, without having to sacrifice quality...and just when I was about to give up, someone turned on a Grail shaped beacon.

Enter the Pioneer DV-563A. I dropped in every +R that I have and it played them flawlessly. No skipping, no laser chirping. It even played disks on lower quality media that were burned right to the edge. Absolutely awesome.

By the way, the specs do not advertise +R and I am using a recorder that supports bit setting so your mileage may vary.

This unit has been thrown across the room once and dropped three times. It still works perfectly. The overall picture is not quite as fine-grade as the DV-45A/655A-Import, but it does not crush the reds in the way those do or have such an oddly-dark picture that you must compensate for.

Like the 655A-Import, the SACD playback is nearly flawless and if you've set the speakers all to large/On, the original Sony DSD chip just sends the pseudo-analog 1-bit signal directly to a filter and then to the volume-controlled output opamps. So all you're really hearing is the quality of the power supply, the filter coil, some caps, and the opamps with SACD's when it's set up properly.

DVD-A playback is quite good with very extended high frequencies and none of the upper-midrange artificial smearing or texturing the 45A/655A-import units exhibit. Homemade DVD-A's of 24bit DJ mixes from vinyl sounded more neutral overall. The 563A does lack the refinement that the other Pioneers and many receivers are capable of in this category, though. Cirrus DACs, such as those used by Harman, Marantz, and Rotel amps, tend to excel in this department. Unfortunately, this early Universal was unable to send 24/192 through its digital out.

CD playback is surprisingly lucid in its detail, but otherwise thin, lifeless, and fairly boring. The good thing is again the extension on top and lack of overt distortion. If you think there's a slight lack of refinement to 24bit PCM from this player, however, you're in for a cold shower with 16bit. The DAC architecture and its PCM-fed filter stage are clearly tailored to DVD-A, and are budget-quality at that. You will get better results with practically any amp's own decoders for Redbook 16/44.1. In all honesty, the 44.1 format is pitiful and should have been 48khz from the beginning. It takes expertise to get it to sound good. It isn't painful or offensive here, per say, but the unfortunate low-point of the player. There is no finesse, no warmth, no real midrange inner-light or liquidity. All the details are there and it is not rolled-off, but the music isn't quite...uh...musical.

For DVD-Audio and Video, this is acceptable performance. For SACD, you cannot do much better than this without spending much more. The 563A is also easily moddable by any of the reputable online companies to bring it into the Sony SCD-1 territory concerning Super Audio, which would also improve its DVD-A and CD playback to some extent. The Sony is in another universe when it comes to Red Book, though, and no amount of modding any Pioneer is going to change that. My modded Denon DCM-370 HDCD changer is smack dab in audiophile land, though. A different character than the Sony, but at least they're on the same planet and possibly in the same nation...o.k., I'm taking this metaphor a little far here.

The biggest thing about it, though, is its incredible durability. Being it was the first domestically-released budget universal player on the market, this is an amazing achievement and is a testament to Pioneer as a company. As an audio transport (sans SACD and 24/192) you cannot do any better than this.