Home > Consumer Reviews > Pioneer AVH-P4100DVD 7-Inch In-Dash Double-DIN DVD Multimedia AV Receiver with Widescreen Display

I have had this unit for about a week now, and generally it's a pretty impressive unit. I also purchased the Pioneer GEX-P10HD HD Radio Tuner for Pioneer HD Radio-Ready Head Units, the Pioneer CD-BTB200 Bluetooth Wireless Adapter, and the Pioneer Car CDIU200V 2 Meter USB iPod Cable for AVH-P4100DVD.

Installation:
Installation for the product was generally clear. I am using the unit in a 1999 Nissan Altima. Had plenty of room for all three pieces either below the stereo or below the steering column.

AUX Inputs:
You'll need to buy an 1/8" headphone extension cable if you plan to use the aux input to connect to a normal player since the AUX input is in the back of the unit. You can also use a normal RCA stereo to 1/8" cable like for a home stereo as well. The unit accepts both and you can use them for different units, so you can have an ipod hooked up and another player at the same time.

Video Quality:
* Album covers from ipods are okay. A bit fuzzy, but okay.
* DVDs look awesome on this unit. Every bit of what you'd want. Plenty of control options. I have no complaints on this one.
* Color on the screen is bright and easy to read and selecting things on the screen is also easy. It's a senstive touch, so I never have to press hard. Most of the text is very large, so it's easy to read and select on the screen in a moving car. Has a clean look, will be impressive to passengers, but when off, nothing that makes it look fancy (in my ideal world hopefully that'll reduce theft potential). If you go to the Pioneer Electronics website, they have many more images of the screens. And the unit looks just as good in real life as it does in those pictures.

Sound Options:
* EQ is parametric, only three bands, but it allows you to choose what frequency and how many frequencies on either side of that one are affected. Provides enough flexibility if you may be used to a 7 or 10 band EQ like I am.
* Also, for external players, the feature that compensates for MP3 compressed audio is great. Really helps improve the sound from ipods.
* The Loudness feature has three intensity levels--quite helpful since on some units the difference between it being on and off can be crazy.
* The sub woofer settings allow you to choose the sub frequency you want to accent or reduce--assuming you have one with an external amplifier connected.

* Clock is only military time with no option to change it to am or pm. And it has a "just" option that drops the minutes and rounds the hours up or not. At least in the U.S., why would someone want to know a rounded hour. Not sure how that helps with anything.

Radio:
* The automatic station presets (BSM) only work in each preset group. Each group only has 6 options. So, you can't have it find the top 18 strongest signals. For example, if you use BSM setup for FM set 1, and then do the same for FM set 2, they have practically the same stations in them.
* HD radio is great, but when selecting presets, it doesn't insert the name of the station like it does with normal FM. All you see is P1, P2, etc. And I have yet to find a way to manually add it in. I don't expect to. If you use the HD unit, the normal radio functionality in the unit is disabled. You can still get the analog signals, it just works a little differently. It seems like they forgot to dot a few i's. But it switches back and forth between the analog signal and digital signal pretty well. With strong FM signals, I really can't tell much of a difference. Generally speaking, I probably wouldn't buy this item again if I had the choice. Most stations don't provide song title and artist information, plus most average stereos have that capability anyway. And on the display, what information is available from the station is really small and cluttered at the top while tremendous space is wasted in the main areas. Poorly thought out for such a excellently featured unit.
* AM stations don't come in well. When they come in, they sound great. It basically acts like a digital signal, so it either comes in and out quickly so you can't catch the words, doesn't come in at all, or it's on perfectly. When perfectly, it sounds much better than a normal stereo. My guess is that there's a processor in the unit that tries to clean up the signal. But as a result, weaker signals are simply cut off. You can't turn this feature off. Pretty tough since AM signals are so weak in the first place. My last stereo was much better. AM HD certainly sounds better, but it requires a stronger signal than the analog AM. So, it doesn't help you either.

iPod Controls:
* iPod controls work just like on the ipod except the scroll wheel action. In playlists, you can't see title and artist together. It also truncates titles and shows only 5 at a time. It's hard to find artists on the screen if you have a lot and scrolling is time consuming. There's really nothing special with this feature. It's better on the ipod because you can use the scroll action. The stereo allows you to use the ipod to select songs instead if you want. I didn't find any significant bugs when using this feature.
* The unit allows you to play videos from your iPod or iTouch if you have video capability. I have a 5th generation ipod video (The stereo does have requirements as to what ipods can be used. Basically if you have one manufactured in the last two to three years, you'll be fine.). I used DVDFab's software on a PC to convert my DVDs to a format for the ipod. But for some reason, the videos wouldn't play via the stereo like they should. I have the same problem on exercise units with the same feature. It's probably a problem with my encoding. Just know you may have some adjustments to make. I haven't bought a video from iTunes yet. I'd assume the videos would work just fine then.

Parked Requirement:
* I found a way around the parking brake requirement like a couple other reviewers. It is as simple as connecing the parking brake lead to a switch and the switch to the car chasis. The switch will have to be on (i.e. grounded) when you start your car. Then you'd switch it off and then on again. Most product descriptions on sites about this unit talk about it blocking DVDs, but if you don't hook it up at all, it actually blocks other features in the unit as well, such as changing the display intensity and setting up the bluetooth module. Even after you engage the "parking brake", there is a compliance screen prior to watching a DVD that requires you to press OK saying you're parked. It's good they do that. They shouldn't be liable in an accident caused by us going around their system and watching a DVD or trying to dial a number while driving. By going around their system, we are certainly fully responsible for the consequences.

Bluetooth Capability:
* It allows you to dump your phonebook into the unit if your phone has that option. Wasn't too hard to do that on my Treo 700p. The microphone sounded great on the piece and callers through the stereo sounded ok. I wouldn't say it's clear, but not much better than what you hear through your cellphone. The unit disables the EQ, however. So, you're stuck with the default cellphone sound. The only thing you can do is balance the signal volume with the other equipment, which for the Treo is unnecessary since you can control that on the unit.

Backgrounds:
* The default set of background options are really good, except for the animated versions. They are very pixelated--very poor quality. The are still pretty cool, though. I still use one of them for some sources.

Summary:
Overall, I'm glad I bought the unit. The radio shortcomings and ipod clumsiness are pretty big ones for me. But considering the price here on Amazon vs. other options in the same price range, I still would have bought the unit again.

This thing is amazing! it will turn a few heads for sure, and for the price is one of the best additions you could make to your car audio system!

The best things about this particular unit are:
-The customizable screen/button illumination colors if you're trying to stick to a unique interior color theme
-The full 7" screen that's crystal clear and has a tilt feature for lower-set dash locations
-Full compatibility with iPod Video so if you have any video content on your ipod you can easily get it on the screen
-Easy install

There really aren't any negatives for this unit. It doesn't include GPS or bluetooth but is fully expandable to include these just in case so if you want you can always upgrade!

Definitely buy with the CDIU200V iPod adapter cable and you will not be disappointed!

I bought this product on Amazon and it was delivered in 2 days. Once I installed it, it worked great. The sound is fantastic and installation was very easy. The screen size and picture were great. The only thing I did not like was that the on screen graphics are a bit un-polished, but since you can load a picture as your background and the user graphics are rarely seen, it's not a big deal. I definitely recommend this over any unit that does not have GPS.

Installed it my '08 Tundra. The bypass was easy. I simply wired a toggle switch from the "break wire" coming out the the back of the unit to a ground. Flip the switch when you start you DVD and viola, easy bypass!

I bought this unit because my XM radio subscription was ending, and I decided I wanted to buy a new radio that allowed me to play MP3s easily. I have a double DIN opening, and I was sick and tired of only seeing a 1 line 8 character display. The USB port flexibility, big screen, and cool features of this unit made me happy. I don't like using iPods or any other device for that mater, so having the USB port was the big seller for me. I got it installed and I quickly hooked up a small flash drive with a few MP3's. It was awesome how well it worked. I loved that I could scroll through the song with my finger. I listen to a lot of "podcasts" that are 60 minute long episodes, so being able to scan through at will is nice.

Then the bad started...I pulled out my 16 gig flash drive and copied over my MP3 collection (~10 gigs). I was so excited when I plugged it in to the usb port. Finally, I could take all of my music with me wherever I go! No cd's!!! Awesome. Then I turned my car on and was prompted with "loading"..."Loading"...."Loading" about a minute or so later it finally came up and started playing my music. Okay, so maybe it only does it the first time I hook up the usb flash drive right? Nope. Infact, if you switch from the USB to the radio and back, it waits again. It wouldn't be so bad if it at least played ANY song, but I have to sit there for a minute of silence as it loads all of the music. Most of my driving is 15 minutes or less, so wasting 10% of my time listening to silence is a real downer.

I've tried finding a way to make the device work better with USB drives, and the only recommendation I have is that if you use 4 gigs or less, it seems to be better. With 4 gigs I was waiting around 12 seconds or so. That's still annoying, but at least it's playing by the time I pull out of my driveway. So, I decided the only logical choice was to do what I swore I would NEVER EVER do. I bought an iPod. Looking in the manual, I saw that the iPod has features not available in the normal MP3 player. For example you can easily search by artist name/album/song name. The USB flash drive software only lets you search through your folder structure. That works most of the time, but it would be nice to automate it a bit more. The iPod also has a "Link Play" where you can have it queue up all songs by that "Artist", "Album", or "Genre". Very nice. Now the bad part of the iPod...Well, there is the fact that I HAD TO BUY A !#@$* IPOD!!!! I had to spend $250 to get a feature that was supposed to be included with the radio (I guess I would have had to spend $50 for a 32gb flash drive). Second, the iPod disables the song position scrolling. You can fast forward, you can skip through the file if it has tracks (Luckily my podcasts DO have tracks, so this isn't to bad), but you can't put your finger on the location bar and have it skip to where you pointed to. Losing that feature was very sad. The other annoying thing is that since everything is database driven and not file driven, while it's easy to queue up the album of the song you are listening to, often I find myself wanting to just play "1" song by the same artist I am listening to. With the USB you could just hit the list button, select the song from the folder you are in, and then it would play away. With the iPod I have to load the album, flip through it randomly to get the song I want. It's a little frustrating. I would also love to be able to set, view or use ratings of songs, but the software doesn't support it. Probably just a compatibility issue. On the plus side, the iPod cable they tell you that you MUST have, well you don't need it. As long as you only want to play music, you can use the regular sync cables for your iPod. Video will require the extra cable.

My only other complaint about the unit is it's file format support. While the unit does support MP3, WAV, and AAC format, it doesn't support any Loss Less codecs (WAV doesn't count). FLAC support would be awesome. To get Lossless support, you have to use the iPod with Apple Lossless. No FLAC. I can't complain to much about this though, as I knew this when I purchased it.

Overall this is a good unit. The flaws aren't that bad if you are planning on using an iPod, but if you're like me and wanted to simulate having a in-dash hard disk by using flash drives, you'll be pissed with this. Hopefully there will be a firmware update, but until that time I can't recommend anyone use a USB flash drive over 4GB in size. (FYI, using a DVD with mp3's on it results in the same loading time issues).

On a side note, I did bypass the video cutoff. It's parking brake wire just needs to connect to ground. The trick to it though is that it needs a pulse on the ground line. So you can't just connect the wire to ground permanently. Some people rigged switches that they manually press to get it to work. I rigged up a relay that is triggered by the head unit's amp turn-on line that makes the ground connection. I now have a unit that fully automatically lets me view video at any time. Don't be an idiot and try to watch a video while driving though, I did it for the benefit of passengers.

I've read through many of the insightful reviews here (not all of them, so some of this may be repeat), and I'd like to add something that I haven't seen commented on yet.

Let me try and break this down into a few small areas of my deliberately limited focus for this review: Overall, Sound, and Control.

OVERALL
I think the unit is pretty good. I thought it was great at first, and love the DVD and video and all that (which is what I've wanted for SO long!), but as I've worked more with it, I'm noticing some very annoying issues (I'll explain below.) The installation was easy (easier than I thought), and the parking break thing didn't pose much of a problem to tweak. The unit looks nice, the screen is well designed, and the touch screen is very responsive (I love that!). One BRILLIANT addition to this unit is the display button on the left of the front of the unit. To turn the ENTIRE screen off and just make it black is just brilliant to me. I've had units where even the dimmer at night doesn't do enough to not distract me with the display while driving, or doesn't give me enough of an option to turn the brightness down to where I want it at times (if I'm parked somewhere just talking to a friend). To push a button and have the screen toggle off and on (keep in mind we're not talking about a 4 step menu option) is just great. One of the nice things about this unit. I love that. I too have a gap between my deck and the double-din area in my car (as one commenter noted), and can't seem to get the flat piece of plastic, that's supposed to go around the unit, to fit right. But overall I'm very happy with the look and functionality (in this sense) of the unit and am glad I got it.

SOUND
The sound is good, as I've always experienced with my Pioneer decks. Deep base, good mids and highs, and full output range (3 pre-outs, including a sub). What I don't really get is the EQ. Why? I have a 10 or 11 band on my old Pioneer deck and would LOVE to have that on this unit. I've been able to get this (really a 3-band) EQ to the sound I want, so I'm good for now. But I do wish this unit had a volume knob instead of buttons for volume up and down, but I've grown accustom to them now. Overall, I'm quite satisfied with the sound.

CONTROL
Here is the crux of my complaint with this unit. Everything else (even the things I disagree with above) I can live with (even some of the complaints of others), but these below are almost deal-breakers for me (and if I'd have known about these things beforehand, I might not have bought this unit, but I couldn't find a display of it at any store anywhere!)

*First* is the listing of the artists and albums from my thumb drive. I have a 32 Gig drive (and I know it takes about a minute and a half to load, which sucks, and if you switch between sources you have to wait AGAIN, but I can live with that). The main problem I have is that the music seems to show up, NOT in alphabetical order, but in the order in which you PUT THE MUSIC ONTO THE DRIVE!!! Which is insane to me. Why does it index by create date (or whatever it does)??? Does any else's do this? It should have the artists, albums, folders, etc, sorted alphabetically (or at least give us the option of being able to choose our own sort criteria.) There doesn't seem to be any adjustment that I can make to address this. This is a serious issue for me and totally doesn't make sense. I can't stand the fact that it does this.

*SECOND* is the fact that I can't control ANYTHING with the remote (CD-R55), save some DVD options, or track forward and back, volume up and down, and pause. The remote operation for this unit is foolish. Without touching the screen I should be able to go forward and back on the screen with the remote between different folders, scroll up and down through artists, pick one, and click to play! Why do I have to do everything from the touch screen?? I should be able to select what I want from the remote. It just seems like they paired these two things up, but the remote doesn't do half of what it should. This too is a SERIOUS issue that I have. To me, it's far more distracting to try and scroll through and find the right folder and artist and album I want than any movie I have on. Not to mention that when you scroll down about 50 artists, select that artist, and then realize that you want someone else, when you go back, you don't go back to where you left off when you scrolled down to the 50th artist, but you're brought all the way back to the top to scroll through ALL of them again. Go back to where I was please!

*Third* (similar to the second) is that the remote doesn't control any of the audio functions either. On my old Pioneer, I could hit "Audio" and my audio menu would come up, enabling me to turn on/off, up/down my sub, change the Loudness, change any aspect of the EQ, or just change the preset to any one I wanted. I could change the fade, balance, etc. as well. You can do NOTHING of the sort with this one. Extremely frustrating for me, because I'm always tweaking the audio for different kinds of music. This is insane that it doesn't work like it should.

These are serious issues that, like I said, had I known, I might've looked into something else.

What can pioneer do to make this model better (in addition to the other things people have rightly pointed out)? Get a fully functional remote design to work with the unit, allowing both folders (artists, albums, songs, etc.) and audio to be accessible with the remote, get a 10 or 12 band EQ with each frequency independent from one another (accessible from the remote, obviously), and have the folders and artists from the USB be sorted alphabetically, rather than by create date (or, at least, if it's create date, put the most recently created ones AT THE TOP (instead of the bottom as it does now), since you'll likely be looking to listen to those new songs you just added.)

These to me are serious flaws that someone should've addressed before releasing this thing. I hope that a new model will have these issues addressed.