OPEN AIR RADIO INTERFACE:

This is pretty straight forward.  You can program up to 18 memory slots and it displays the frequency in the memory buttons which is nice.  This unit does NOT display RDS info which is silly to me that it wouldn't, but no Pioneer radios do that I've found.  It's not a huge deal because I spent 99% of my time on Sirius radio or listening to the iPod, but I wanted to mention it.

Radio Interface

SIRIUS SATELLITE RADIO INTERFACE:

Here is my primary and almost only complaint about the Avic-D3, and all Pioneer satellite ready head units for that matter.   Pioneer has of late used the SIR-PNR2 Sirius radio tuner and bus interface unit.  The big drawback to this is that unlike the iPod, and CD interfaces which show artist, song, and album at the same time, the SIR-PNR2 only displayed one line of scrolling data at a time.  You could hit "Info" and step thru all of the information but it didn't show you on the same screen at the same time.  About the time I decided on this unit Pioneer released the CD-SB10 Sirius bus interface which is used in conjunction with the Sirius SC-C1 Direct Connect universal receiver, or any Sirius Direct Connect tuner for that matter.  It was brand new with no information available but I thought certainly they had to have addressed the main drawback to the SIR-PNR2 right?  WRONG!  It's the exact same situation.  You can save favorite songs with the "memo" feature  and the unit will alert you when that song is on any station, so that is relatively cool.  You can also use the "Game Alert" feature to alert you when your favorite team(s) are on the air.  Which is also a cool feature.  All of that said, I am still quite bitter that they didn't fix the lack of a multi-line Sirius display.

I plan to rectify this myself once the Sirius and XM merger is complete.  The XM interface for the Pioneer is excellent.  It lists all information on the main screen and the favorite buttons show the station as well, including logos (which this does not for Sirius).  So once the merger is complete and XM starts broadcasting the NFL and NASCAR channels I will pick up an XM receiver and be in hog heaven.  In the picture below I intentionally chose a picture where the text was scrolling to show you the thing that annoys me.

Sirius Interface.  Pretty, But Not Very Functional

DVD VIDEO PLAYBACK:

This is about as straight forward as it gets.  The D3 is 100% a fully functional DVD player.  It allows you to switch chapter to chapter, display closed captioning, zoom, change the angle (if supported on the disc), the works really.  I do not use this feature other than to show it off really, but it has a nice picture and the screen to my surprise isn't too small to enjoy the film.  The wireless control does an excellent job controlling the video playback.  The remote controls basic functions on the audio screens, but shines on the video portion.

DVD Playback (Sorry for the so-so Picture)

CLICK HERE to see the comments on the Bluetooth speakerphone, steering wheel audio controls, and my final thoughts and pictures!