Pioneer DV-563A firmware campaign

Pat Gleeson said:

Can't say I've had much luck though. I'm getting no joy from Pioneer here, and I'm sure they know much more than they're letting on.

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What did Pioneer say when you called them?

-HM

Hollow Man said:

What did Pioneer say when you called them?

-HM

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The very same things that have been reported here: namely

1. Unaware of the problem
2. Denial of the existance of a firmware upgrade
3. Having to pay through the nose - upwards of €100/$120
to fix a problem they know nothing about (see 1. above)
4. Pioneer insisting I use their courier service - hence the price above
5. Given no idea how long it would take, or if it would be fixed

I'm getting dizzy from going round in circles, and being put through the wringer by the same people over and over.
If only the e-tailer I got the player from still existed, I might have
some hope.
My local dealer is getting the same runaround.
I dropped in one day and overheard a phonecall he made
to Pioneer on speakerphone, and heard the same things.

I have the Pioneer DV-563A and am having the same problems as Hollow Man described with the NIN-With Teeth Dual Disc (note: the Downward Spiral DD plays just fine in the Pioneer 563a). It sounds like his software upgrade worked out fine. Looks like I will have to decide whether to bring it in for the firmware upgrade or do nothing.

Interestingly, the NIN-With Teeth Dual Disc plays fine in my el-cheapo Cyberhome CH-DVD 300MU player that was manufactured Oct 2004 Bios V13. It took a $30 player to hear Trent in the center channel!!

So, rather then upgrading the pioneer's software should I just hook up 2 players to my system and lay in the weeds for awhile and let the format wars carry on while I watch from the sidelines?

Since, the Dual Discs surround audio tracks carry thru the coax cable on the DVD players it would just be a matter of unplugging the Pioneer player and plugging in the Cyberhome Player when I want to listen to Dual Discs that are not compatible with the Pioneer 563A. Is this a stupid idea??

I may still pursue getting the upgrade if I can find a local service center in the Green Bay area that knows what they are talking about.

Thoughts?

Rod (Cheese-land)

RockNRod said:

I may still pursue getting the upgrade if I can find a local service center in the Green Bay area that knows what they are talking about.
Thoughts?Rod (Cheese-land)

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If you have a pioneer service center anywhere close i'd recommend taking it in for the upgrade. when i took mine in, it took literally 15 minutes. cleared up issues i had with several discs.

mailguy said:

I bought a 563a Feb '04 from pioneerelectronics on eBay; they sell refurb units. When I get a chance I will check the firmware version to see if it has been updated; I'd be willing to bet it's still the older version.

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I checked the firmware version of this "refurb"; it is 1.306.

After getting hipped to the firmware issue with the early DV 563's I had mine upgraded overnight at a local service center for a $35 bench fee. All my dual-disc issues are gone and all the old stuff still sounds just fine. I recommend this upgrade to all owners of original models. I use mine strictly for audio since the video presentation leaves someting to be desired (at least mine does - no change after the upgrade either) and I feel more confident when purchasing surround discs that they will work as advertised when I get them home. Just do it.

jeffty said:

After getting hipped to the firmware issue with the early DV 563's I had mine upgraded overnight at a local service center for a $35 bench fee. All my dual-disc issues are gone and all the old stuff still sounds just fine. I recommend this upgrade to all owners of original models. I use mine strictly for audio since the video presentation leaves someting to be desired (at least mine does - no change after the upgrade either) and I feel more confident when purchasing surround discs that they will work as advertised when I get them home. Just do it.

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That actually should have been a free upgrade from an authorized Pioneer repair center. According to Pioneer, they pay for the upgrade directly to the center.

Looking at my warrenty it said it was free only up to one year from purchase.

After all of the problems, I'd heard (in this thread) that they had extended the warranty to 3 years.

Your right Slug, I e-mailed them to check just in case I might need further work on mine.

Add Frank Zappa's Quaudiophiliac to the list. Can't get sound from the DVD-A option. It does play the DTS fine though. My player is v1.706.

hey all-

just picked up a used model and thie first dvd-a disc i tried to play - Hotel California - will not play in *192/24 stereo mode*. anyone else have this problem? all connections and setting appear to be fine. when i try to play this from the monitor menu, it squeaks once then goes silent. the counter indicates that it is 'playing', but no sound results.

tia,

S72

seattle72 said:

hey all-

just picked up a used model and thie first dvd-a disc i tried to play - Hotel California - will not play in *192/24 stereo mode*. anyone else have this problem? all connections and setting appear to be fine. when i try to play this from the monitor menu, it squeaks once then goes silent. the counter indicates that it is 'playing', but no sound results.

tia,

S72

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Welcome to the abomination that is the 563/565 machine.
I had this problem too, with the Who's "Tommy" DVD-A, and the player shows it is playing, you can use the OSD to tell you it's the MLP stream, and all seems okay - but zero output.
It is a basic incompatibility with certain versions of Sonic's DVD-Audio Creator software, and the firmware update might fix it.
On the other hand, as I found with the 565 (UK version) the update breaks other things too.

Oh - in DVD-A multichannel mode, everything below 200Hz goes to the Sub! - regardless of your settings. It's another bug, apparently.

bugdaddy said:

If you have a pioneer service center anywhere close i'd recommend taking it in for the upgrade. when i took mine in, it took literally 15 minutes. cleared up issues i had with several discs.

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Lucky you. I took mine into my local shop on the 1st of May. I got it back a week ago. 3 months for a firmware fix.

If anyone is thinking of using Audio and Video Specialists in Birmingham, AL - don't.

Hi-

I recently purchase a used DV-563A unit. I *cannot* seem to get my DVD-A's to play in hi-res stereo mode. I have Eagles-HC and REM-Up, and neither will make a sound in high res stereo (the REM will not even play in Multi either - but for some reason i can hear the video that is on the same dvd).

the guy i bought it from INSISTS that i am incompetent and that my settings and/or connections are wrong.

please, is there anyone out there that CAN play either of these DVDs in hi-res stereo mode on this machine and that would be willing to walk me through the setup? i have the manual and have gone over it three times and i am no dummy in using electronics...i am very frsutrated and would appreciate any help.

anyone can also email me offline at jeffreylorienATcomcastDOTnet

thank you!!

jeffrey

seattle72 said:

Hi-

I recently purchase a used DV-563A unit. I *cannot* seem to get my DVD-A's to play in hi-res stereo mode. I have Eagles-HC and REM-Up, and neither will make a sound in high res stereo (the REM will not even play in Multi either - but for some reason i can hear the video that is on the same dvd).

the guy i bought it from INSISTS that i am incompetent and that my settings and/or connections are wrong.

please, is there anyone out there that CAN play either of these DVDs in hi-res stereo mode on this machine and that would be willing to walk me through the setup? i have the manual and have gone over it three times and i am no dummy in using electronics...i am very frsutrated and would appreciate any help.

anyone can also email me offline at jeffreylorienATcomcastDOTnet

thank you!!

jeffrey

Click to expand...

Regarding cables and connections, you must use analog connections only between the unit and your receiver to listen to either DVD-Audio or SACD: Hi-rez will not work with digital (optical or coaxial). Also make sure your receiver is set to output in analog mode.

Yeah, same problem here guys. This player will not play ANY of my DVD Audios, all my Neil, Zappa and REM. The problem I have is that I just bought mine off ebay, and was unaware of this problem before i bought it (obviously), so what options do i have?
What is more annoying is that i have bought this player for its SACD playback and to replace my NAD T533, which ironically is an excellent DVD Audio player
Any ideas?
I am in the UK and it is an "October 2003" model
Cheers

Well, here I am again to moan about this machine and the general state of mediocrity. So, the Yamaha universal player is in the shop for locking up on the Talking Heads dualdiscs and the 563a is my only player for the moment. I've had the firmware upgraded twice. Last night I was listening to several discs and had a few problems, just wondering if anybody else has had similar experiences. On Elton John's Yellow Brick Road the counter jumped from 0:00 to 0:02, 0:04, 0:05 etc, but no sound was made. A little later, after having given up hope on YBR I tried to play Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde, upon closing the tray the face read "DVD", well, pretty close? The unit locked up and I had to unplug it. Afterwards it played the disc.

I've never really had any problems with consumer electronics until these damn universal players. I treat my equipment well, keep them on different shelves (for heat) out of the sun and clean. Anybody else having similar frustrations with this particular beast?

Hello fellow Pioneer owners.

I just got off the phone with a manager at Pioneer's customer service call center. After bitching at two other people below him, I was able to escalate the issue to his level. This is how my experience went:

Called the 800 number. Opened a case, registered problem. Was told by rep that "someone will call you and then they'll come to your house to do the fix". This surprised me a little, but I said fine, I'll wait for that. That was 2 days ago, this morning I got a call from some smarmy CS rep. First he played dumb about the problem, saying he hadn't heard of it. I cut him off, saying "this is a well known issue, and I'd like you to fix this." Once he realized he couldn't BS me into going away, he told me that "you'll have to bring it to a service center to be fixed." I told him I'd been told differently, that someone would come out to fix it. He told me that that was not the case, that I'd been told the wrong thing by a new rep, and I would have to have the fix done in a service center. He also blamed "Universal" for the problem, implying that the DVD manufacturers had caused the problem, not Pioneer. We argued about that for a few minutes, and eventually I asked for his supervisor. He offered me his supervisor's voice mail, to which I replied "I'll wait for a supervisor to become available". We went around for a few minutes about that, I again asked for a supervisor (who in truth was probably not this particular rep's supervisor, that may have been a distinction) I was transferred to a "Roger", who identified himself as a "service supervisor" (I think.)

(A tip: Don't mention any DualDisc titles when you call on this issue, they'll try to BS you into going away because "we don't support DualDiscs in these players". I asked him why that was, he said because the disks are thicker, and that "they're still spinning when they're put back on the tray". I asked him how that was different from, say, a CD or DVD, and he didn't have a good answer for that. I eventually told him about a DVD-Audio disk that I'd had trouble with, "Empire" by Queensryche, and that was that.)

He repeated that a tech would not come out to fix this, that I'd have to take the player to a repair center. Not wanting to be without the player for weeks (especially since I'd been told already that someone would come out), I asked for the disk to do it myself. Roger told me that "special equipment" needed to be used and it had to go into the service center. I asked how putting a CD in the tray and then waiting for the process to be finished required "special equipment" he told me it wasn't that simple. I told him about the information I'd found here and in other sources, including the quote from the Public Relations rep included in the article linked in the first post of this thread, that the firmware could be updated from a CD. He tried to insist that it wasn't that simple and I had to bring it in. I told him that the local service centers had a very bad reputation and that some people had waited weeks for their players to be finished, and did not want to be without the equipment for that long. He told me the average repair time was 1 to 2 weeks. I told him that I had seen information that said that was more like 4 to 6 weeks, and he tried to deny that, at the same time reminding me that the repair centers are independent and "we can't tell them what to do." (This is, of course, intentional, so that Pioneer has plausible deniability when some idiot technician spills his Slurpee on your laser pickup.) I again asked for the disk to be sent to me, and again I was referred to the service center. I reminded Roger that I had been promised something that I was now being denied, and that under the circumstances felt like there should be some accomodation. Roger told me that there was no evidence that I had been told of a home visit, that the rep was "new" and he would be speaking to her. I asked him if it mattered that the rep had, in effect, lied to me, and he accused me of making it sound differently from what was actually the case. Eventually, I asked for Roger's supervisor's name, and was given Kathy Ulich at 310 952 2333. I called that number at a time Roger had told me she would be in, and got her voice mail. I left a message to call back.

While I was waiting, I called the local service center to get some more information. Playing dumb, I asked what was involved in this "firmware" upgrade that "they were talking about." He said that it reprograms the memory in the player, and that it was the kind of thing that you only did if there was a problem. I told him about the problem, and he seemed to be familiar with it. I asked how it was accomplished, and he said that he was "95% sure" that it was just a disk that you put into the drive, and it reprogrammed it. He also said that it's the kind of thing where if you were to bring in the player, it could be accomplished while you were waiting (if there were a technician available at that time to do it), and suggested calling ahead before I came in. I thanked him and hung up.

A few minutes ago, I received a call from a different supervisor, not Kathy like I had left a message for. He again tried to bluff me with the DualDisc lack of support, but I told him I'd also had problems with the Queensryche disk, and he said he "recognized that one" as being part of the problem. He then said in light of the situation he'd make an exception and approve a disk being sent out to me, and that I would receive it in about a week's time. He sounded rather indignant that they were being forced to do this, to the point where when I suggested perhaps I could be emailed an .iso to save some trouble, the tone of his response said "Hey, be glad we're doing this at all, we're doing you a favor, so shut up." He confirmed my address and we ended the call.

So, we've learned a few things:
1) There IS, in fact, a disk that can be sent to the consumer to flash the firmware;
2) Pioneer CAN send you this disk;
3) Pioneer customer service will take any and every opportunity to try to exploit your lack of knowledge to make you go away (eg, the DualDisc diversion, denying knowledge of the problem, insisting that you need "special equipment" to do the flash, etc);
4) Pioneer will lie to you about what they're prepared to do to fix the problem;
5) Getting the disk sent to you is like pulling teeth.

It CAN be done. I'll let you all know when I get the disk and how the process goes.

I have to give you props on your persistence Evil Otto.

Nice work!