Sony G90 manual Meaning clear, Up menus allow you to configure such things as onscreen lan

put). From the setup menus, you also select whether you want

16.9formatted video output. This is called “wide,” which might

not be self-explanatory but the on-screen graphic makes the

meaning clear.

You can also select whether you want the digital audio out-

put to be 24 bit/48 kHz or 24 bit/96 kHz, the latter available only

on some DVDs. Older outboard DACs and digital preamps or

receivers will not accept 96 kHz bitstreams, so it is important

to pay attention to this. If you select the 48 kHz output in the

set-up menu, then any DVD audio track containing a 96 kHz sig-

nal will be downconverted to 48 kHz by the DVL-91 for back-

wards compatibility with older components. The DVL-91’s

internal DACs are 20 bit/96 kHz devices. The player will also

pass a DTS surround signal through its digital outputs. The set-

up menus allow you to configure such things as onscreen lan-

guages, menu colors, etc. One idiosyncrasy of the DVL-91, like

the Pioneer-based Theta Voyager, is that the set-up menus must

be accessed with a disc inserted, but stopped. The

kind of menu you get depends upon the kind of

disc you put in. The onscreen display, besides

having the usual chapter and time information,

includes a digital bit-rate meter, with both a bar

graph and numerical information. As with the

Theta Voyager, it is an accurate meter, unlike that on the Sony

players.

The front panel of the DVL-91 is sparsely populated with

controls. These include power, play, stop, forward, reverse,

side change (for LDs), display off, and the display itself. There

are also separate eject buttons for CD/DVD and LD. The

remote repeats all of these controls but has no separate eject

buttons, instead responding to what disc is in the machine or

which format was last used. The remote also contains menu

navigation controls, programming and search functions, a

numeric keypad, and a jog dial with shuttle ring. Unfortunate-

Convergence Laboratories Test Report Greg Rogers

Pioneer Elite DVL-91

he Pioneer Elite DVL-91 is compared to the Theta Voyager T reviewed in TPV 25, our Pioneer Elite DV-09 DVD refer- ence player, and the Pioneer Elite CLD-97, one of the best standalone laserdisc players from a previous generation. The DVD frequency response differences are insignificant. The DVL- 91 laserdisc player’s horizontal frequency response, like theTheta Voyager, is excellent to 4 MHz (320 TV lines per picture height),

but then falls off rapidly at 5 MHz (400 TVL).

Frequency Response (dB, MHz)

	MHz		0.5	1.0	2.0	3.0	4.0	5.0
DVL-91 DVD	YPbPr		0	0.1	0.4	0.3	-0.6	-2.4
Voyager DVD	YPbPr		0.0	0.1	0.4	0.4	-0.3	-2.0
DV-09 DVD	YPbPr		0.0	0.1	-0.2	0.2	-0.3	-1.9
DVL-91 LD	S-Video		-0.5	-1.0	-1.4	-0.8	-0.8	-10.9
Voyager LD	S-Video		-0.3	-0.6	-1.2	-0.9	-0.9	-9.0
CLD-97 LD	S-Video		-0.3	-0.5	-1.0	-0.8	-1.9	-8.9
	0.5	1.0	2.0	3.0	4.0	5.0
	MHz MHz MHz MHz MHz MHz
2
0
-2
-4		Voyager DVD YPbPr
dB
		Voyager LD S-Video
-6
		CLD-97 LD S-Video
-8		DVL-91 LD S-Video
		DVL-91 DVD YPbPr
-10
-12

Frequency Response

The DVL-91’s chroma noise did not equal the CLD-97, the best of the standalone laserdisc players from a previous generation, continuing the trend found in combi players. The noise is visible on test patterns but somewhat less so on movies. Measure- ments are for maximum chroma noise reduction settings since no adverse effects were found using that setting and noise improvements were significant. Chroma noise is far worse on the composite video output, so use S-Video with laserdiscs.

Signal to Noise
(dB rms)	AM Chroma Noise			PM Chroma Noise
Composite	DVL-91 Voyager CLD-97			DVL-91	Voyager	CLD-97
		LD			LD
100 - 500 KHz	42.0	40.2	51.0	43.1	40.7	41.0
100 Hz - 1 MHz	40.2	38.5	45.9	40.5	38.2	40.2
S-Video (Y/C)
100 Hz - 500 KHz	51.1	50.2	54.1	45.6	40.6	47.0
100 Hz - 1 MHz	48.4	45.3	51.7	43.5	38.8	46.5

DVD component-video noise performance is excellent. S-Video noise levels are very good and shouldn’t be visible on any discs. But YPbPr component video should always be used to get the best chroma bandwidth and color detail.

Signal to Noise
(dB rms)		S-Video			YPbPr
Unweighted	Y	C-AM C-PM		Y	Pb	Pr
DVL-91DVD	72.1	56.1	49.2	74.7	77.1	75.8
VoyagerDVD	74.7	69.9	48.8	74.6	80.0	77.5
DV-09	75.9	66.0	45.6	75.4	74.8	75.5

The DVL-91’s luminance noise is excellent for a laserdisc player and will not be visible above the background noise of most discs.

Signal to Noise (dB rms)		Video			Luminance
		Composite			S-Video (Y/C)
	DVL-91 Voyager LD CLD-97 DVL-91 Voyager LD CLD-97
15 kHz-Full	49.2	49.7	49.8	50.1	50.8	50.1

Component-video signal alignment was excellent. A 12 nS luma to color-difference signal delay is less than 1/6 pixel.

YPbPr Delay (nS)		Pb to Y	Pr to Y	Pb to Pr
DVL-91		-11.8	-11.6	-0.2
Voyager DVD		-18.2	-17.2	-1.0
DV-09	31.8	-42.9	74.7

NTC-7 wtd 54.2 55.2 55.7 54.8 55.9 55.8