Hmm I am unsure about that one, the review I read on DVD times about the Pioneer DV490V, which as far as I can make out is identical except without the ability to play SACD/DVD audio, had this to say:
"Video playback: PAL movies
Sadly, this is where things begin to really fall apart. Playing PAL movies on this player reveals what I believe is commonly termed as a Picture Shift problem: the bottom few lines of the picture are misplaced at the top of the screen (almost like when you go to see a film at the cinema where the projectionist hasn't framed the image properly). My LCD TV (a Sony BRAVIA KDL-32V2000) has an option to add more overscan and sidestep this problem, but I believe this is the only LCD TV on the market that allows for this adjustment. If the glitch is visible on other displays, it's going to annoy quite a few people.
If you think this issue is annoying from the picture, trust me - when you see it full-sized, moving, and in the flesh, it's a lot worse.
What's by far more serious though, is that only ONE of the PAL discs I tried - the UK release of "Howl's Moving Castle" - was free of combing artefacts on movement (particularly noticeable on camera pans). Live action PAL content such as "Thirteen" and "Alias" both showed this problem, although it stuck out like a sore thumb on animated movies such as the UK releases of "The Incredibles" and "Monsters Inc.", the Australian PAL version of Disney's "Mulan", and the Danish PAL version of "The Nightmare Before Christmas", which contained some very grizzly panning shots. It seems that the Deinterlacing chip in this player isn't capable of properly engaging a 2:2 Pulldown Detection mode to extract the proper film frames from PAL DVDs.
I was left asking, "what's the point?" - the reason for Progressive Scan DVD players existing is to avoid motion issues like this and to present natural, film-like frames. Here's a small Flash demonstration of just how grizzly the motion on PAL movies can be. Look at how the flames in front of the man's face cause his features to jitter and lose detail. Pay special attention to the jagged look his eyes now have.
Even in "The Incredibles" - a near-flawless video transfer (and I do mean near-flawless, not the "lad's mag review" near-flawless) - some issues are created by the player. All too often, action that's too close to the letterbox bars at the top and bottom of the screen (it's a 2.35:1 ratio film) have little squares that jitter up and down over them - that is, parts of the picture change into blocks and shift a few pixels higher than the rest of the bars. It can be extremely distracting and at times, it feels like you're watching a dodgy video standards conversion.
Seeing as Pioneer advertises this DVD as having "Dual PureCinema Progressive Scan" for "PAL/NTSC", I was expecting something a little better than this.
What's more, calling Pioneer's UK support line ahead of time, I was told that this would not be an issue and that "Basically, it operates properly". If Pioneer UK think that this is an example of "operating properly" then they need to go back to the drawing board. Very disappointing indeed."
Maybe it has different internals, but the small price difference indicates not so likely ?