I had noticed that my Pioneer DVL-700 LD/DVD player was not responding as well lately. It needed a slight bit of aiming to respond. And after reading the other thread on docking stations and checking my battery meter it was indeed no longer at max (it was at 3/4). So I wondered if the batteries were starting to indeed slip.

I was at my local dealer last night browsing and asked if he had the Pronto Chargers. He said yes so I decided to give it a go.

After a full charge the LD/DVD player now responds to signals bouncing off the walls again.

So in my opinion the batteries were on the way out after about one month of what I'd consider average usage with all timers set to 30 seconds. This is respectable considering what the unit does but a set of batteries every month is not acceptable for me.

So even cost wise the charger will pay for itself. Not to mention it will always be running at full power now (and I can even extend the timers if I wish) and it has a nice parking station to boot.

If you can wait to "back up" the unit to the PC (prontoedit) before removing batteries, I would do so. But I love living on the edge I guess :-)

Go get one, I don't think you'll regret it !!!

P.S. During the full charge the light was on solid for several hours. Then it started blinking for a while, then went out. The manual says "blinking" is a bad connection, "on" is charging and "off" is charged. But it seems to blink when it's near the top of a charge before shutting off.
Is this normal?

Re: blinking before shutting off.

I've noticed the same thing a few times. Normally I'm not around when it's done charging (as I put it on before going to bed) but a few times I've caught it blinking when I knew it had started charging okay.

No bravery required - Pronto is entirely flash-based. You can leave the batteries out as long as you like, no harm will come of it.

As to battery level and transmitted power, yes, less battery power available will reduce the transmitted power slightly, particularly if the backlight is on at the same time (the other main power drain). But my unit continues to work just fine on about three bars left, though I do point it in the general direction of equipment about 12 feet away, and don't rely on any IR gymnastics off the wall, ceiling, cat, etc.

Don't get me wrong, it was working fine with 3/4 bars. I just noticed it could not do the double rebound shot.

For cheap batteries it also did excellent considering what it's doing. The RC2000 MKI lasted about 3 days (with heavy use).

The docking station is Nirvana and since there has been some indication of problems when taking batteries in and out of the unit, I'd recommend the docking station over NiMH batteries until that issue is resolved.

Also lets say it's running low with NiMH batteries and you go away on vacation or something for week. Pick the unit up for a big movie and event and you can't use it until you recharge them. So then you might say rotate 2 sets.

The idea of the Pronto itself is ultimate convenience. The docking station allows that to be achieved IMHO.

The good news is that you can't really go wrong whichever way you go because you will still have a Pronto either way. :) Man do I love this thing!

I am going to go with the Docking Station myself. I have been using normal duracell's (I had a bunch hanging around), and I have an unfortunate tendancy to leave the pronto between my couch cushins. That occasionally causes the batteries to get nuked.

I figure if I use the docking station, I will have a dedicated place to put it, and even if I forget I can use it from the station while I wait for the batteries to recharge. I hate changing the batteries in the dark, so this works out perfect for me.