Pioneer DV C503 - DVD changer - black
By: Pioneer Average Rating: 3.5 Total Reviews: 34
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 On: 2008-07-07
Received this for Christmas in 1999. It has been demoted to bedroom use, however it gets plenty of play and I have not had one problem with it. Youll obviously never find one, but if you do for a few bucks, pick it up! You wont be disappointed!
On: 2007-06-07
Great for DVDs and playing music. I never had a problem the entire time I owned it!
 On: 2005-12-18
Im using this as the CD player in my studio with a Pioneer VSX-D411 receiver, I needed a Pioneer DVD changer because the VSX-D411s remote is not a universal and has controls for only a Pioneer DVD player, so I had to look to find a Pioneer DVD changer that was cheep as it is not in my primary system.
The sound quality is good, unfortunately it has the typical "bright" Pioneer sound to it, although, when I had it hooked up to my Yamaha receiver, the sound went from bright to flat.
overall I like it, and the video is dang good too (had it hooked to my TV for a few days).
Perhaps you are wondering why, if I like it, the three stars?
Well... half the buttons on the front dont work, and at times it refuses to play CDs.
If your not heavy in to sound this should be a good choice.
On: 2005-09-07
I own Pioneer DV-C503 that I bought for about $250 in 2001.
Pros:
* I have played endless hours of audio and video and it plays all commercial disks & burned disks (CD-R, DVD-R)
* Audio sound (coupled with my Yamaha receiver) is simply great
* Remote hasnt given me any trouble, lots of buttons, so easy menu, subtitle, browse, chapter, etc. buttons
* Player also works with universal remote (after adding the code) however you dont have the option to change disks
* I like optical output for hi-fi audio, and the component + coaxial + s-video output is great!
* Size and color matches other components I own
* DTS and 5.1 Dolby Surround is exhilarating
* Plays VCD and DVDs I own, havent tried DVDs from another region
Some cons:
* For the last 2 years, the tray retracts when I click open, so I have to hold it and put disks...
* Scratched disks dont play (newer DVD players have better logic of skipping)
* MP3 support is missing (cant complain a lot as I bought this 4 years ago)
* Continuous disk spinning/ reading noise, although low, can be heard between pauses in audio/video tracks. I have not compared this with any other player in a quite environment - so I cant compare.
On: 2005-07-26
First of all, Ive read a number of reviews for this unit that mention some issue with laser pickup functionality loss over 1 year of use. In response to this, I have to ask, "what in Gods green earth are you doing to your DVD players?" If your laser pickups are failing after a year, maybe you should stop keeping your DVD player on a unit/table/slab next to your subwoofer. No subwoofer? Then stop throwing it around the house like a frisbee.
Ive had this unit for at least 3 years now, and I have not experienced a single loss in quality. I use it daily for DVD production, and Ive given it a number of discs (from a well-produced Hollywood release to my crapped-out test productions to scratched Whitesnake CDs) all of which, its read properly, and without failure. This player is a bad-ass, yes, but its not tuned to take the severe beating some of the reviewers have given it. Ignore the 1-star reviews on here (because I said so) and buy this puppy.
On: 2004-09-10
I enjoyed (past tense) this player right up until two weeks ago. It had a great picture, was easy to use, and had a lot of nice features. My only complaint was with the remote, which had rather tiny buttons and seemed rather cluttered. I often found myself hitting the chapter advance button when I wanted to hit pause.
I was also using this as a multi-disc CD player taking advantage of its random play feature. Then suddenly one day it quit playing CDs. It still played DVDs just fine. It took the local Poineer service dealer two weeks to get a repair estimate, and it came to more than I paid for the unit in the first place! They said the laser was bad. I told them to junk it, and Im now shopping anew. The machine was only 20 months old.
by: Anonymous On: 2004-07-19
Well - from the looks of the other negative reviews, I have been lucky. I managed to get 3.5 years out of it and now will play CDs fine but will not play DVDs...It still urks me that one component on these modular devices goes bad and youve got to throw away the entire unit....What a waste of resources.... Thanks to those who posted their views....Youve saved me much time....Not even going to waste my time with pioneer for repair or possible actions, but will be sure to never buy another pioneer device EVER !....
On: 2004-04-29
Ive owned one for over a year now. Its great! I havent had a bit of trouble out of any of my pioneer products. It reads pretty much any recorded format I can throw at it. The remote is configured very well, aswell as the menus.
by: Anonymous On: 2004-04-06
This DVD player worked great for me for about a year. After that, is stopped reading DVDs. After reading the other reveiws here, I can see Im not alone. Its too bad cause I have had a hard time finding another DVD player that lets you go directly to the disc you want (ie, press Disc 5 instead of pressing Disc Skip a bunch of times).
On: 2004-03-09
After about a year and just out of warranty Ive also had problems with the laser pickup.
The unit no longer plays any of my CDs, after reading the other reviews Im expecting the DVD laser to quit soon.
Excellent sound and picture...... while it lasted. Wouldnt touch another Pioneer product unless they were giving them away.
On: 2003-05-22
Like others who have posted here, I have also had a bad experience with Pioneer. I had to take my Pioneer LD player to the "authorized service center" (which was 100 miles away) twice in a two year period. After it quit for the third time, it was out of warranty. Pioneer refused to do anything about it, but would be happy to sell me a new one. I will NEVER buy another Pioneer product!
On: 2003-01-29
After purchasing A pioneer DVC-503 it had a defective laser and was sent back to the store. The replacement was then found to have a defective laser 1 month later (outside store replacement now under warranty). 3 months in the shop while they order laser after laser (3 in total) which are ALL found defective they finally replace the product (again). 1 year later the product dies yet again!(yup you guessed it, BAD laser, thats 5 so far!). Pioneer wants to SELL me another dvd player because the old one is now OUT of warranty! Needless to say I DO NOT recommend buying ANY pioneer laser products (dvd cd laser disc etc). I wont be buying ANY pioneer products ever again!
On: 2003-01-29
After purchasing A pioneer DVC-503 it had a defective laser and was sent back to the store. The replacement was then found to have a defective laser 1 month later (outside store replacement now under warranty). 3 months in the shop while they order laser after laser (3 in total) which are ALL found defective they finally replace the product (again). 1 year later the product dies yet again!(yup you guessed it, BAD laser, thats 6 so far!). Pioneer wants to SELL me another dvd player because the old one is now OUT of warranty! Needless to say I DO NOT recommend buying ANY pioneer laser products (dvd cd laser disc etc). I wont be buying ANY pioneer products ever again!
On: 2002-10-18
BUYERS, BE AWARE.
I had 2 DVD players made by Pioneer. They are nice machines... for a little over a year. Then the warranty expires. The problem these players seem to have has to do with poorly designed dual laser pick up (one - for DVDs, the other one - for CDs and Video CDs). The first player I had stopped playing CDs and Video CDs, I got the other one - this one stopped playing DVDs.
On the positive side - the picture is very good, so if you are after a short-term buy go ahead, otherwise look for another brand.
 On: 2002-09-09
The unit worked well for about 8 months. Read all supported formats without difficulty. After about 10 months it started having trouble reading commercial CDs. Often spits them out with an error message or says "No Disc". Still works well with DVDs. I notice that some Sony units have exhibited similar problems.
by: Anonymous On: 2002-01-24
Hands down the best DVD changer on the market for the price. Ive always bought Pioneer products in the past and theyve never let me down yet. This player is no exception. Plays everything I put in it, including high-bitrate SVCDs (near DVD quality) that Ive ripped from DVDs. Few other players on the market have this capability, and even fewer multidisc machines. Also has ALL the connections you need for audio and video. This player should work with pretty much any system you hook it to. Oh, and the DVD playback quality is flawless, I dare say better than some... machines out there. Go buy it now, its worth it....
by: Anonymous On: 2001-12-17
Ive had this player for four months now and have been very impressed by it. Initially bought it on the strength of pioneers reputation and once again, have not been dissapointed. Didnt plan on getting a 5 disc, but saw the price and jumped on it.
CD/DVD button switch is a little annoying but a very minor inconvenience. Over all, this player rocks.
On: 2001-12-01
We replaced our CD player with this unit. The DVC503 has lots of output choices (component, composite, s-video) to help it blend it with your system. This unit is a 5-disc changer - handling multiple discs at once is an exceedingly convenient feature, especially for CDs. Once you have a changer you will never go back. Our unit has worked well. No complaints.This unit does not have progressive scan and does not claim to recognize MP-3s. If you require these features, look elsewhere.
 On: 2001-11-27
This Pioneer player is a solid buy. Ive had it for over 6 months and have had no problems with playing either regular CDs or CDRs. The remote layout of the keys is a bit odd, but has all of the functions you need. It changes discs quickly and "learns" to skip DVDs when in random mode (Ive heard some players actually try to read DVDs when youre listening to music CDs.
On: 2001-11-09
Initially I had no intention of buying a regular DVD player, but when my Playstation 2 wouldnt play some of my favorite DVDs I started shopping around. I mainly focused on this player and a 5 disc Sony DVD. While the Sony player was a comparable and nice piece of equipment the Pioneer model had everything I wanted in a DVD player and more. It plays CDs so I was able to take out my CD player when I got it home, and I could also watch VCDs on it as well. The last selling point over the Sony model was it was much more inexpensive [..at the time]. What sold me even more on this player when I got it home is its features. I was able to set the screen color when I change DVDs, it has adjustable letterbox and widescreen modes (a necessity for any big movie buff). Last of all is that I am a huge anime Otaku and it has a feature that enhances all of the colors in animated DVDs, making them seem more vibrant and thrilling. With all those features, great picture and sound quality, I dont see how you can go wrong. Ive had this player for 6 months and have never been disappointed by it.
by: Anonymous On: 2001-09-29
I have not had much experience with DVD players, this being my first. But I am very impressed by this player and its many features. Setting it up was a snap and once I got the S-Video cable as well, the picture quality was even higher. Great features at a great price and easy to set up.
On: 2001-09-18
All I can say is I love it. Have had no problems what so ever. Easy to use & setup.
by: Anonymous On: 2001-09-03
This is a fabulous DVD player! I have had it for about 9 months now, and I have had no problems whatsoever! The sound is great. The picture quality is fantastic! Its easy to set up the first time out of the box and has more advanced settings for the hard-core entertainment system lover.A huge plus for me is the ability to program across chapters between DVDs. For those of you who are scratching your heads, wondering why anyone would want to do such a thing, let me explain: For those of us who choose to exercise at home,the DVD medium offers the opportunity to mix and match sections of various DVDs to customize our workouts. When you do the same videos day in and day out, you can get tired of them. Or there may be times when what you want in that days workout just doesnt exist on a single video. Mixing and matching allows you to get exactly the workout you want each and every time, assuming what you want is available on DVD. Want to do abs at the end of your cardio but the workout doesnt have them? No problem! You can tack the abs from another workout on without any tiresome fast forwarding or rewinding. Short on time? Why not program a workout where you do the warm up, 1 of the 3 sections, and then the cooldown? Cant decide who youre in the mood to workout with? Do a section or 2 from each of your favorites! Again, so FF or REW required. Having this feature available is a huge plus, and is the reason I ultimately chose this particular machine. I did want to correct a previous reviewer who said that the 503 only has 1 FF speed, and it requires a 30 second jump. There actually are 3 FF speeds. None of them are a nice, smooth, frame-by-frame FF, its true, but certainly enough so that you CAN find the spot youre looking for. My one and only complaint about this machine is the remote. The buttons are small and the layout is not intuitive for me. It did take me a little bit of time to learn the positioning. But thats a small price to pay for such a great DVD player! :-)
On: 2001-08-06
This DVD/CD player gives you everything you want! As a DVD player, it has the highest quality of audio and video features; giving you the feeling of a movie theater, especially if you have a big-screen television. What makes this unit better than all the rest is the high quality CD player. If you know anything about quality audio systems, then you know that Pioneer has always been one of the leaders of the pack. I love all the extra features like the random shuffle and the program mode. The unit also comes with a "user-friendly" remote that isnt as confusing as most. Get this five-disc player and you will see and hear your movies and music in a whole different light!
On: 2001-07-26
This DVD player was a bargain! I got it at [retail sotre] in the summer of 2000. I was looking at a nearby Pioneer single-disc player, and when I noticed that this one was only about $25 more I immediately became interested. Picture quality is great! I have not had any problems with any DVDs and it works beautifully with my Sony KV27FS12 27" Trinitron WEGA Stereo TV or my Pioneer VSX-D409 Surround Receiver. Bit of advice: Although CDs sound just fine on this DVD player, I found that its just not the same when you dont have a dedicated CD player. Somehow it just doesnt replace it! GREAT DVD PLAYER
by: Anonymous On: 2001-05-02
I purchased this player in January initially as a replacement for a 5 disc CD changer. I went ahead and purchased it because it played DVDs as well. I use a Yamaha receiver to power it. I use the Optical DTS and Dolby Digital outs for sound and run S-Video to the TV for video. No need for any RCAs. The optical cable is perfect for CDs too. I am happy with the 500 line resolution since I dont have HDTV. I also agree with the other review that it makes a little noise when you play the DVDs, but it is doubtful you will notice that unless the volume is all the way down.
by: Anonymous On: 2001-03-05
Its simple, I bought a Sony 660, got it home and found out it wouldnt play the CDs I had made at home. This unit is worthless to me and I returned it. After doing the research that I should have done previous to purchasing the Sony, I have found only a few companies manufacturing DVD players that will play CD-R, Pioneer, Phillips, JVC and Denon. I hope people will support these companies and boycott the big boys like Sony. I used to be a Sony and Toshiba fan, but not anymore.
On: 2001-03-04
Heres the story behind why I got this player and why I would again:* If youre like me and dont have an HDTV you can first off rule out the need for progressive scan. This player doesnt have it = "so what?" * I dont have the space for lots and lots of components, so I really wanted a multidisc player that had CD-R recognition. This enabled me to get rid of my old cd player. * Had to have component output. Wouldnt want to start out with something obsolete. If youve got the same wishlist and criteria, this is the one. Id have no qualms buying it again. Look around .. you can probably get it for ~$.. if youre patient and look through all of the online electronics vendors. I got it through Amazon because I wanted to redeem some gift certificates. one final plug: if you want to research and compare electronics you ABSOLUTELY MUST check out.. youre welcome
On: 2001-01-21
I did a lot of research before buying this player. And it paid off. If you want a good 5 disc player that plays CDRs or VCDs flawlessly? Look no further. I primarily bought this to replace my CD Player which was dying and this full 24bit DAC sounds amazing. The bass defintion compaered to my old Technics is like comparing apples to oranges.THe Video is just as good for a player in this price range. Good features, fast loading, great sound and a good picture. A bit thin on scanning features but so what. The only con I have found, is the drive is a bit loud when playing DVDs. So if your placing it very close to your viewing seat it could be annoying. Remote is fair, could be better. But its more than usable. Id buy it again!
by: Anonymous On: 2001-01-16
Just like the person from Wisconsin, I bought a Sony 660 DVD/CD player, hooked it up, and found out it didnt play CD-R. (The book says this as well.) That makes it worthless. I returned it and bought the 503 from Pioneer. I like it. It is simple to use and lacks some of the more advanced features of the Sony which I would never use anyway. It does exactly what I ask of it and was ... cheaper with the current ... rebate from Pioneer.Along with this set-up I also bought the Philips 980 home theater system. I looked at more expense models but this one sounded the best.
On: 2000-12-24
I like this DVD player. At first i picked up a Sony 660, which I like very much but it didnt play my cdrs. Which is pointless. So I returned it for the Pioneer DVC503, which I have had no problems with at all. I have it loaded with 3 movies and 2 cdrs. The Video and Audio quality are class A and the setup was easy. My only gripe is the remote. The buttons are kinda small and its not lit up, but I can live with it. Its worth the money and it will play your cdrs. I have never encountered a problem where the player didnt recognize a disk, ever. I give it a thumbs up, you cant go wrong with the Pioneer DVC503 DVD...
by: Anonymous On: 2000-12-10
I wish I could have found more info on the various changers available prior to buying this unit. I was down to comparing two specific units: the Pioneer 503 and the Sony 660. If I had better information on how the Sony handled CDs and CDRs, Id probably have bought it, as I think the DVD replay is superior in that unit versus the Pioneer. Since Sony doesnt claim the 660 will play CDRs but Pioneer does claim it for this unit, and since I only have space for a single changer for both CDs and DVD I went with Pioneer. What I Like: The 503 plays DVDs fine, CDs fine and CDRs fine (individually). What I dont like: The 503 only has one speed scan forward or reverse on DVDs, and it does this in a "step" fashion showing a short frozen snip of a next scene 30 seconds or so further ahead or behind on the track. Versus multiple speeds (fast and faster forward/reverse) and a smooth continuous picture. A bit hard to find an exact scene your looking for and to stop at the point you want. Next dislike: The 503 doesnt recognise some CDs or CDRs right off the bat. Here is the test I used: I loaded the unit with one DVD, 3 CDs and one CDR, then played back using random all discs. The unit doesnt try to play the DVD (good), but only goes between two of the CDs randomly selecting tracks, skipping the 3rd CD and the CDR all together (bad). I could force the unit to "see" the other discs by manually skipping on the remote (it then would stop on all CDs and CDRs) -- go figure... All-in-all this is an ok combo unit for the price, however I wish someone would do a thorough review of the Sony DVP660 and reveal if it can play CDRs. Maybe Ill buy one and keep the one that can "do it all"!
On: 2000-11-16
I selected the DVC503 because I wanted a multi-disk DVD player with excellent image and sound quality, Dolby and DTS support (but no decoder built in), but also as a replacement for my 3-disc CD player. So CD and CD-R support was critical. CD-video support is an added bonus, but I cant see myself using it much.The DVD image quality is superb -- it is definitely worth using the component video outputs if you have a TV that supports them. I have seen other DVD players run into problems with scratched DVDs and/or highly compressed scenes giving poor picture quality. No such problems with the Pioneer. The player loads DVDs quickly and starts playing them quickly, and I have yet to come across a DVD that doesnt work -- even with a wide variety of DVDs of varying quality from netflix.com. Regular analog stereo sound is great, and the unit performs very well with regular CDs -- sounding just as good as my old NAD CD player. Digital audio outputs go to your external Dolby and DTS decoder via coax or optical interconnect. I took off one star for the fact that the unit often does not recognize audio CDs. You have to open the sliding tray, re-seat the CD and try again. Reading the Amazon reviews, this seems to be a problem for lots of DVD players, but it is still irksome. On the other hand, the Pioneer does have a CD-only mode which makes the unit behave more like a regular CD player for those times when you just want to listen, and this goes a long way to compensating for the CD recognition problems. The Pioneer remote is logically laid out and easy to use. The on-screen menus are simple to understand, and once you have the unit set up its unlikely youll need to use them again. The Pioneer remebers where you were on a DVD if you push the Stop button, so that you can pick up exactly where you left off. Some other DVD players dont seem to have this option. The price of the unit seems very competitive to me, especially when I compare it to single DVD units that often dont have component video output. I have no need for a built-in Dolby digital or DTS decoder, as any recent surround-sound receiver contains those functions already. Theres no point paying for extras you already own. I am glad I bought my Pioneer DVC503, consider it good value and would recommend it to anyone.
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