Cant get the upscaling on Pioneer 600AV to work

[Wazza69]

Hi all,

I have a new Pioneer 600AV DVD player to use with my Panasonic AE500 HD projector. The AE500 supports 720p and can downconvert 1080i/p to 720p. It dosent have HDMI but I have been using a HDMI to DVI cable successfully with my Sky HD box and old upconverting DVD player which I no longer have.

I can select 720 or 1080i/p on the DVD player but only get a black screen. The manual says cryptically that the DVD player dosent support DVI sources. Isnt the projector an output?

Has anyone had this problem and resolved it or have any ideas?

Thanks,
Waz

[malcolmk]

The Pioneer 600 seems to be particularly troublesome in that area. Some months ago I got involved with some tests in conjunction with my nearest Pioneer dealer. To sum up we tried two samples of the 600 and one 400 and all failed to work on five of the six devices we connect them to. That includes some older Pioneer devices.

All the devices happily accepted a Pioneer Blu-ray player so the only conclusion was that the DV600 has problems. Pioneer support denied it of course and told some very big fibs along the way.

I suggest your first course should be to try another DV player.

[Wazza69]

Malcolm, can you give more details on what you were trying and what you were getting?

Thanks

[malcolmk]

Originally Posted by Wazza69

Malcolm, can you give more details on what you were trying and what you were getting?

It started when I bought a DV600 as a gift but out of curiosity tried it on my Pioneer amp (see sig) first and found that the two wouldn't talk to each other via HDMI. Lights blinked for ever and no picture or audio. I have two friends with Pioneer amps of similar age and found the same on those.

Dealer provided replacement 600 and eventually 400. Same result. Also provided replacement Samsung upscaler. No problems anywhere.

He took the player back and tried it on more amps. The only ones it would talk to were the then current range of Pioneer amps.

With some trepidation I added a Pioneer Blu-ray player to my system and it played out over HDMI to all the devices the DV600 failed on.

It's hard to conclude anything but that the HDMI output of the (early samples of, no very recent experience of them) DV600 is suspect. All the connections were HDMI to HDMI so a simpler situation than yours if I have understood correctly.

The experience seriously damaged my opinion of Pioneer's technical support. Just washed their hands of it and rang my dealer to say I was a liar. I was there when they rang through.

[ollie501]

Originally Posted by malcolmk

Dealer provided replacement 600 and eventually 400. Same result. Also provided replacement Samsung upscaler. No problems anywhere.

When you say a Samsung Upscaler, do you mean a Samsung dvd player, which then worked perfectly?

I'm considering an upgrade myself at the moment, and the Pio 600 or 610 is pretty high on my list, although having downloaded the instruction manuals for both, have concerns over the comments in the manual regarding DVI connections. Surely there is no logical reason why an HDMI-DVI shouldn't work if it is carrying exactly the same signal, albeit without audio.

If DVI didn't work at all, would a reasonably priced (around the £30 mark) HDMI switching unit work? I only have one HDMI socket on my TV, which is being occupied by Sky HD, and I don't want to switch them around, as I always use my amp for DVD, but not when watching Corrie(!), so DVI for Sky is out of the question.