problom with Pioneer 588A

[Dinkar Rai]

i have just purchased (last week) a new Pioneer 686A which i believe is the 588A in north america. i have problom with it playing some DVds. this is only with some DVDs and not all. the DVD is brand new as well. it plays perfectly on my sony DVD player.

also the Cd takes a bit long to load and is a bit noisy. i have looked on the forums and have seen one post that had the same problom. is it a firmware problem? how do i update the firmware if i need to. pls help.

 

[supervij]

I've spoken with the Pioneer Canada service people. They've been anything but helpful, but I did find out that there has been no firmware upgrade for the 588A player yet.

My 588A is pretty slow to load as well, but I haven't noticed any noise problems at all. I also haven't been having any problems with DVDs either. Maybe you just got a bad unit. Call up the store, tell them the problem, and ask them to replace your player with another. If that still doesn't work, give Pioneer a call. Hopefully, they'd be able to help.

cheers,
supervij

EDIT: While Pioneer hasn't released any firmware upgrades, I believe you can find some boards on which users have created their own firmware upgrades and shared them with anyone else on those same boards. Do a Google for it, and you'll probably come up with something.

 

[Arg]

You can find a modified firmware for several models of Pioneer at the following link:

http://board.softpedia.com/index.php?showtopic=2217

I´ve been using it for a couple of months and works great. It converts the unit to zone free and adds a lot of new functions.

Cheers,

Arg

 

[supervij]

You think it's worth it to install this update? The only part of it I'm interested in is switching picture formats (Letterbox, Pan&Scan, 16:9) while still playing a DVD. All the other stuff is not so important to me. How would I revert back to the original firmware if I find it doesn't work/I don't like it?

Sorry to ask the questions here instead of at the softpedia board; I just don't want to have to join that forum just to ask this once.

cheers,
supervij

 

[Arg]

Well, it was worth for me just for the zone free conversion, since I was transferred to Argentina a couple of months after purchasing the player. But I agree with you, the only other feature I use is the switching of pic formats.
The only way I can think of reverting to the original firmware would be to load it again, you can find it in message 125 of the same post.
If you download the modded firmware, be aware that the ones modified by a guy named Gufiak (the one who does the serious work over there) replaces the background image, instead of a pioneer banner you get a horrible picture and his signature. Check the post from newest to eldest, there are some versions by other people in which that image was removed or replaced.
Cheers,
Arg

 

[SilverMK3]

My 588A isn't any slower than my 578A was and has handled every DVD and DivX disc I've thrown at it in the past 8-9 months.

My only complaint with it is that there's a slight "hitch" when playing DivX files that were ripped from TV. Probably a problem scaling from 25-30fps or something. Its barely noticeable though, so its not a huge problem.