First, you should know that the USUAL price for this unit is approximately one hundred USD. However, it can be found for about eighty USD during sales or online.

I've tried out several different 1080p upconverting dvd/divx players - and this one is my favorite. I've returned: Philips 5982, LG DivX player, and a Toshiba player (the Toshiba was the cheapest feeling with a very annoying bright blue light). Anyways, only the Philips 5982 had a USB input as well, so it could play from a USB drive. However, the Philips had trouble reading from my external hard drive - and although it worked fine from a USB flash drive, I wanted it to work from my hard drive as well. Furthermore, the Philips can only display short file names 8.3 - so that was very very annoying too.

About the Pioneer DV-400:

Pros:
- Adjustable the video output: (brightness, gama, hue, contrast)
- High quality video output (better than the Toshiba, Philips and LG)
- YES it can... Read more

After going through a Toshiba and two Phillips DVD players I decided to try the Pioneer upscaling DVD player with my 32" Sharp Aquos 720p TV. The picture quality is fantastic, and the player has been working without a hitch for the past several months. Pioneer has always seemed a bit pricey to me, but so far the slightly higher price has been worth it. By the way, I would recommend not purchasing the Monster HDMI cables. I purchased cables from an Ohio company for about $10 and the picture quality is great.

This DVD player is a lot better than I was expecting. Overall it provides an excellent picture, with punchy, accurate colors, true blacks, and very good sound. The only drawback is that its USB port will only power RAM devices (not hard drive devices) and the menu system is slow and less than enjoyable to maneuver through.

Pros
-- Excellent DVD playback; very good colors and true blacks; good 3:2 pulldown
-- Excellent XVID/DIVX playback; digital broadcast quality playback
-- Clean audio (either stereo, Dolby Digital, or DTS); I haven't tried the SACD
-- The unit physically looks good; most other DVDs in this price range look cheap or cheesy

Cons
-- USB input will only accept RAM devices; hard drive devices (powered or not) will not play; but you can use re-writable DVDs
-- The unit's menu is very basic and painfully slow to move through

Although I haven't tested the upscaling I'm sure that it is good too. And, I want to... Read more