After buying a magazine rating DVD players, I decided upon the Pioneer 626D. I bought it with an e-mod modification chip which makes the player multi region. The good thing about e-mod it that the chip is external so no one has to take the DVD player apart to fit it and the warranty remains intact. I think that e-mod is only available on Pioneer players. The player itself is excellent and sturdily built. One thing that attracted me to this player is its speed. You don't have to wait for menu screens to appear or to skip chapters. Although most people probably wouldn't take it into consideration when buying a DVD player, I think it is a very important aspect. The sound and picture quality is unbelievable. This is helped by gold-plated sockets at the back of the player, making it possible to get the best possible sound when connected to other high quality items with high quality cables. The player has internal Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS decoders so you don't have to buy them seperately if your DVD player is destined for a home entertainment system with complete surround sound. In my opinion the player looks good and is easy to operate. One small problem is that sometimes the player emits a whirring noise whilst playing but as long as the DVD player isn't right next to me, I don't usually notice it. Although I think the player is excellent, there are some extra features which could have been included, for example a zoom feature. It could also have more than one reverse playback spped, as it has many speeds for forward playback. Also, although the one frame advance function works well going forwards, it always skips back more than one frame when going backwards. These are all minor things though and for regular playback, the player is quite substantial. I would definitely recommend it.
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