Positives of the 600/610 and even the 400/410 is that the firmware modifications that are carried out by Hkan unlocks a lot of options that are not included in the initial firmware..Another major plus for this is that it can output 480i signals, very good for those who have AVRs that have better scalar chips. Pioneer's original firmware does not enable BTB and WTW but with the firmware hack this is enabled. Plus a host of others. PM me if anyone is interested in the Pioneer DV-600/610/400/410 modded firmware site.

Aiman,

It does do SACD over HDMI. See excerpt of manual..

Component specification Disc Format (DVD-Audio or SACD)
SACD, DVD-Audio and
5.1 channel compatible on HDMI*1 DSD 2ch/5.1 ch

This post has been edited by anfieldude: Nov 15 2008, 01:37 PM

Funny, I heard otherwise. I believe it needs to be formatted for FAT32 and it needs to be powered by external source. There are some users in the AV forums who have tried it.

I would recommend the Oppo of course, especially if you plan to get a combo of a DVD player and BluRay player (Oppo BD-83). On the budget side, I believe if you do not need 5.1 Analogue outs then the DV410 is pretty good, it can output 480i thru HDMI. DV610 would be if you need the analogue outs.

I have not player around with the other budget players out there, as long as there are no artifact errors and the signal that it can send out is pure enough, I believe it shd be ok.

The problem is in Malaysia we do not get well mastered DVDs. The R3 originals are not up there compared to the R1 and R2 originals you can get at fraction the price. Malaysia seems to be stuck in the era of original VCDs, whereas everyone else has at least moved on to DVD9..