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Jellodyne · 06-05-2003, 04:56 AM

An actual on-topic player recommendation:

I recently picked up a Panasonic DVDF85S which I believe is in the same family as the DVD-S35 review-linked above, except that it is a 5 disc changer and has multichannel DVD-Audio (with 192/24 dacs) and an integrated DD and DTS decoder. There's also the F65K/F65S model which is a 5 disc changer and only has stereo DVD-Audio and is lesser zoom modes. Circuit City had the 35 for about $100, the 65 for $129 and the 85 for $149, but the salesman dropped it to $139 without hesitation. So, for about 40 more than the base single disc model I get a changer and DVD-Audio... sold!

The player is slim and quite attractive out of the box, in shiny silver with black accents (the S in F85S indicates Silver, K would be all black). Its standard 17" wide and only about 2" tall or so, which makes it shorter than the single disc Sony DVD-S560D it replaced and a lot slimmer than the 5 disc CD changer it also replaced. It is quite deep (its a 5 disc changer after all, but fits perfectly on my Sony DA4ES which is a pretty deep receiver. Of course the manual says don't put it on top of a hot amp, so I may need to put it under it. I'm not in an enclosed space so I think I'm going to run like it is and check to see how hot it gets.

I can vouch for the player's weakness in video mode. Watching Futurama in progressive mode it looked good but just overly smoothed out compared to interlaced mode. Switching it back to 480i totally fixed the trouble at the cost of no progressive scan. In 480i the Panasonic looked better than my Sony ever did. Of course, my Toshiba HD-RPTV does 3:2 pulldown as well, so I may not even be losing 'progessiver mode' by doing this. Movies look fantastic in Progressive mode, and that's my main interest. Tons better than my old Sony. Sharper, better 'depth', better colors. I'm very impressed with the visual quality. According to the above review there is no chroma bug, but there is potentially a related issue. I personally never noticed the bug on my old player, so its not an issue for me.

I haven't got any DVD-A material, and my speakers are HTIAB crap, but listening to the built in DD/DTS decoder through the multichannel analog output sounds as good as my Sony DA4ES decoder. For what its worth. Hopefully I can scrape together some speaker monies in the near future and have a better setup for evaluating the sound quality. It is worth noting is that unlike the S35, the F85S has a dual pickup for better compatibility reading CD, CD-RW etc.

The zoom mode is cool, realtime up to 2x zoom in .01x increments. In related functionality, the player looks to do all the cropping, matting, and whathave you to work on anyone's TV. There's letterboxing for widescreen on 4:3 sets, windowboxing for 4:3 programs on widescreen sets, etc. I don't believe you'll have any problem getting the correct aspect ratio no matter what mode your set locks into. Also neat, though of questionable usefulness, there's a feature which can vary the play speed from .8x to 1.4x with pitch adjusted sound. This is distinct from the ff/rewind search, its something you can call up from the display menu.

Other minor gripes -- the remote is functional enough if a bit cheap looking. I like the multi-speed search and slow, and it gets the job done. I don't like the fact that there's no menu navigation keys on the unit like my Sony had. These are increasingly rare, though. In any case if you want to navigate the menus you'll need to have the remote in hand. Also and interface gripe -- no direct disc access keys! To access a different disc, you need to press the disk skip button, wait for it to read the next disc, and repeat as needed. The remote can call up a disc selection menu, but I had trouble getting that to work reliably, though its likely a user training issue since I think I've got it working right now. It would be nice if the 5 leds which indicate whether there are discs loaded were buttons to skip directly to the disc in question. Ultimately I need to get a universal remote with macros and I can make 'em on there, but there's that money thing again.

All in all, the visual quality is excellent, the feature list is jam-packed, the unit is very attractive and the price is very, very right. There is the small gripe with the shortage of controls on the unit itself, and possibly a bigger issue with the progressive scan quality when viewing video sourced material, but all in all it's a great unit for the money. I'm extremely happy with my buy

06-05-2003, 04:56 AM	#67 (permalink)
Jellodyne Actor Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Minneapolis, MN, US	An actual on-topic player recommendation: I recently picked up a Panasonic DVDF85S which I believe is in the same family as the DVD-S35 review-linked above, except that it is a 5 disc changer and has multichannel DVD-Audio (with 192/24 dacs) and an integrated DD and DTS decoder. There's also the F65K/F65S model which is a 5 disc changer and only has stereo DVD-Audio and is lesser zoom modes. Circuit City had the 35 for about $100, the 65 for $129 and the 85 for $149, but the salesman dropped it to $139 without hesitation. So, for about 40 more than the base single disc model I get a changer and DVD-Audio... sold! The player is slim and quite attractive out of the box, in shiny silver with black accents (the S in F85S indicates Silver, K would be all black). Its standard 17" wide and only about 2" tall or so, which makes it shorter than the single disc Sony DVD-S560D it replaced and a lot slimmer than the 5 disc CD changer it also replaced. It is quite deep (its a 5 disc changer after all, but fits perfectly on my Sony DA4ES which is a pretty deep receiver. Of course the manual says don't put it on top of a hot amp, so I may need to put it under it. I'm not in an enclosed space so I think I'm going to run like it is and check to see how hot it gets. I can vouch for the player's weakness in video mode. Watching Futurama in progressive mode it looked good but just overly smoothed out compared to interlaced mode. Switching it back to 480i totally fixed the trouble at the cost of no progressive scan. In 480i the Panasonic looked better than my Sony ever did. Of course, my Toshiba HD-RPTV does 3:2 pulldown as well, so I may not even be losing 'progessiver mode' by doing this. Movies look fantastic in Progressive mode, and that's my main interest. Tons better than my old Sony. Sharper, better 'depth', better colors. I'm very impressed with the visual quality. According to the above review there is no chroma bug, but there is potentially a related issue. I personally never noticed the bug on my old player, so its not an issue for me. I haven't got any DVD-A material, and my speakers are HTIAB crap, but listening to the built in DD/DTS decoder through the multichannel analog output sounds as good as my Sony DA4ES decoder. For what its worth. Hopefully I can scrape together some speaker monies in the near future and have a better setup for evaluating the sound quality. It is worth noting is that unlike the S35, the F85S has a dual pickup for better compatibility reading CD, CD-RW etc. The zoom mode is cool, realtime up to 2x zoom in .01x increments. In related functionality, the player looks to do all the cropping, matting, and whathave you to work on anyone's TV. There's letterboxing for widescreen on 4:3 sets, windowboxing for 4:3 programs on widescreen sets, etc. I don't believe you'll have any problem getting the correct aspect ratio no matter what mode your set locks into. Also neat, though of questionable usefulness, there's a feature which can vary the play speed from .8x to 1.4x with pitch adjusted sound. This is distinct from the ff/rewind search, its something you can call up from the display menu. Other minor gripes -- the remote is functional enough if a bit cheap looking. I like the multi-speed search and slow, and it gets the job done. I don't like the fact that there's no menu navigation keys on the unit like my Sony had. These are increasingly rare, though. In any case if you want to navigate the menus you'll need to have the remote in hand. Also and interface gripe -- no direct disc access keys! To access a different disc, you need to press the disk skip button, wait for it to read the next disc, and repeat as needed. The remote can call up a disc selection menu, but I had trouble getting that to work reliably, though its likely a user training issue since I think I've got it working right now. It would be nice if the 5 leds which indicate whether there are discs loaded were buttons to skip directly to the disc in question. Ultimately I need to get a universal remote with macros and I can make 'em on there, but there's that money thing again. All in all, the visual quality is excellent, the feature list is jam-packed, the unit is very attractive and the price is very, very right. There is the small gripe with the shortage of controls on the unit itself, and possibly a bigger issue with the progressive scan quality when viewing video sourced material, but all in all it's a great unit for the money. I'm extremely happy with my buy __________________ DO NOT SIT NEXT TO DENIS! Last edited by Jellodyne : 06-05-2003 at 05:11 AM.