DVD Player recommendations: Discuss DVD player recommendations here

[tomdkat]

Here is some discussion on DVD-A/SACD players:

DVD-Audio / SACD Player?

Peace...

[tomdkat]

Here is another DVD player recommendation thread.

Peace....

[snipsnapsappy]

I am in the debate currently myself. I want SACD support as well as need DVD Audio support. I am debating between the Pioneer Elite 45A ($318) or 47Ai ($635). But I have heard in this forum as well as others that the Pioneers have video performance that is not quite up to snuff. So I am thinking of getting the Denon 1600 ($250) for video as well as the 45A for high res music. This duo would still be cheaper than the 47A. But is the difference in picture between the 1600 and 47Ai worth having 2 different players? The Denon 2900 is not really an option because the cheapest I have found it is at Goodguys for ($900). This price is with tax and shipping included, though. But still way too much. So I guess the debate is between:
Pioneer 45A ($318)
Denon 1600 and Pioneer 45A ($568)
Pioneer 47Ai ($635)
Denon 2900 ($900)

I am really curious whether I will notice a difference in video on my RCA 38" HDTV. Not the best unit, but it is HD. I also know I will buy another player at some point down the line so upgradeability is not a must. Just what woulb be good for the next year or two.

[mrkeeling]

Let me ad a few more dilemmas to ones you already have.

With Pioneer 47Ai, you’ll probably get better sound quality than from 45A (I am just assuming this, and the question is how much of that difference will you be able to hear and is what you are able to hear worth the price difference). In any case 47Ai is definitely more of a player than 45A is.

If you decide to go two players route, maybe you should consider one of the Panasonic’s. They should perform on par if not better than Denon (picture wise) for a lot less money.

Final word of advice: find a place with liberal (no questions asked) return policy. Get all these players in you house and compare them in YOUR room, on YOUR speakers/system and YOUR monitor. Than see how much difference can you really detect and is it worth the price.

[snipsnapsappy]

There are no Pioneer dealers in my area and only one Denon dealer and he charges a nasty restocking fee. With the Denon only going for $250. I do not think any Panasonic would be able to match the quality at that price. I would rather get the Denon anyways. You did not help to answer my question. I know the 47A has better sound/picture than the 45A (Burr/brown DACs), but how does the picture quality compare between the Denon and the 47A, or for the case of argument, the Denon to the 45A? Is it really that much of a difference?

Tom says he thinks the Panasonic with the Faroudja is not that much better than his Pioneer player. I am guessing that the 45A and the 47A have better picture than his model, or am I wrong?

My Tv is not IFC calibrated and won't be anytime soon. So, without calibration, will I even notice the differences between these players?

If not, I am going the Pioneer route, and which one I choose will depend on what I want to spend when the time comes.

(I am buying an SVS sub first)

[mrkeeling]

You probably read this already but look HERE and HERE. This may shed some light on the players in question (Denon and Pioneer).

Unfortunately, with my 27” old tube TV, I can’t really say anything meaningful about the picture quality.

As far as sound of my system goes, I must say that Outlaw ICBM brought the biggest improvement in my sound quality. A few of my friends (that had the chance to listen to all the players in my system) share that opinion.

[tomdkat]

Originally posted by snipsnapsappy
Tom says he thinks the Panasonic with the Faroudja is not that much better than his Pioneer player.

This is basically accurate. I've got a Panasonic DVD-XP30 and a Pioneer DV-656a right now and both are connected to my Toshiba 57HX81. I DO give the video performance edge to the Panasonic as it DOES produce a sharper and clearer picture. However, I didn't find the picture quality to be absolutely "night and day" different. I conducted an "an hoc" test where I used my dad as a guinea pig. I put on the chapter of Star Wars Episode II when Senator Palpatine is talking with Yoda and Mace Windu and others in that room with the red walls. I played that scene on the XP30 and on the DV-656a. My dad could not tell the difference between the two. He was sitting about 12' - 13' away from the screen (my normal viewing distance).

I am guessing that the 45A and the 47A have better picture than his model, or am I wrong?

I'm not really sure if the DV-656a and the DV-45a have the "exact" same video performance or not. The DV-47ai scored MUCH BETTER than the DV-45a in the last Secrets shootout.

The Denon DVD-1600 is based on the Panasonic DVD-RP82, with some tweaks here and there. The XP30 does NOT have the chroma upsampling error (nor does the Denon DVD-1600) and I think I'm able to see it in Fifth Element in one scene, but I was actually doing video comparisons and looking for the error.

If video quality is of the utmost importance to you, try the Denon DVD-1600 for $250. That's a great price and if you get at a place with a good return policy, that's even better.

One other option is to wait 2 or 3 months and see what players hit the streets this Summer. There might be a new player that will suit your needs better than current offerings.

Even though I thought my Pioneer DV-656a's video performance was just about on par with the Panasonic XP-30's, that's not to say someone else might notice MORE of a picture quality difference.

If you get these players from a place with a good return policy, conduct your own video comparison and keep the player(s) that suit you the best.

Good luck!

Peace...

[snipsnapsappy]

I do not have a place near me that carries Pioneer, much less a good return policy. And I hate the store that carries Denon around me. I also want to buy through the internet because prices are half the cost through the internet and none of the stores around me lower their prices at all. The owner of the store yelled at me because I tol him that Good Guys had the Denon 2900 for $200 cheaper than him and I asked him if he would price match or at least lower the cost a little. All he said was that he would give me a free dvd.

So, yeah, no auditioning for me. I had never auditioned my Axiom speakers before I bought them, and I have never made a better decision, I just want to know how much better these players are on video and audio performance.

Remember, even if I purchase the Denon, I still plan on buying a Pioneer for the highres music.

But I am wondering if Denon will come out with an SACD compatible player that is built like the 1600 with Faroudja chip. That would be cheaper than the 2900 for sure.

[tomdkat]

Originally posted by snipsnapsappy
So, yeah, no auditioning for me.

If you go with an online retailer that has a good return policy, that is an option to consider.

I had never auditioned my Axiom speakers before I bought them, and I have never made a better decision

Well, now you have a great opportunity to try something new.

I just want to know how much better these players are on video and audio performance.

That's really a subjective question and all we can do is give you the best feedback we can. It might even be worth driving to a Home Theater store in another city close to you and audition these players at the store.

But I am wondering if Denon will come out with an SACD compatible player that is built like the 1600 with Faroudja chip. That would be cheaper than the 2900 for sure.

Who knows. I _think_ they have a "DVD-3900" coming out, which is the successor to the DVD-3800. That might be a DVD-Audio/SACD player that would offer Faroudja de-interlacing among other things.

If I were you, I would wait until Christmas time and catch some year-end sales. That way, you could see what else comes out this year.

Peace...

[MRSMITH]

Originally posted by tomdkat
This is perfectly valid as a DVI connection does not require HDCP but I _think_ HDCP does require a DVI connection.

So, if people have a DVI connection between various video sources (DVD players or HD receviers, etc) and their displays and they are NOT watching HDCP encrypted material, everything will work fine.

Catch my drift?

You can read more about some testing that people with DirectTV can do now here:

http://www.dvdfile.com/interactive/f...highlight=HDCP

Peace...

Looks as if we have another entrant into the
field: the Manowa Momitsu V880 which purportedly
upconverts current-generation DVDs to user-selectable
720p or 1080i - but this one allegedly does the trick
EITHER via DVI or component output. If so, this would
presumably eliminate concern about an intervening
'black box' for older displays. Also, eliminate concern
about 'HDCP'(???)

This should drive Jack Valenti up a wall. Verrrrrrry interesting . . .

Milt R. Smith
mrsmith2002@yahoo.com

[MRSMITH]

Originally posted by tomdkat
For those getting HDTVs with DVI inputs, the Bravo D1 might be a DVD player to consider, especially at the $200 price point.

Here is some feedback on this player from AVS Forum.

Edit: Here is more feedback on this player too.

Peace...

Looks as if necessity for DVI input to view
720p/1080i upcons is gone: check out
Manowa's Momitsu V880: this one does
the same trick with EITHER a DVI or component
input. Assuming it works as advertised, what
else could you want? Better yet, most people's
eyes will not be able to discern the difference
between upcons to 720p/1080i and genuine
H/D DVDs. And what does that mean? No need
to go out and re-buy, all over again, your current
stash of DVDs. What a disappointment for
Jack Valenti and the MPAA!

Milt R. Smith
mrsmith2002@yahoo.com

[tomdkat]

Originally posted by MRSMITH
Looks as if we have another entrant into the
field: the Manowa Momitsu V880 which purportedly
upconverts current-generation DVDs to user-selectable
720p or 1080i - but this one allegedly does the trick
EITHER via DVI or component output. If so, this would
presumably eliminate concern about an intervening
'black box' for older displays. Also, eliminate concern
about 'HDCP'(???)

Sounds like a GREAT new player! I'm not sure the HDCP issue will "go away" since the DVDs we have TODAY are not encoded with HDCP protection. Who knows what will happen with HD-DVDs encoded with HDCP....

By the way, do you have a link to this new player? I'm too lazy to search myself...

Peace...

[tomdkat]

Originally posted by MRSMITH
Better yet, most people's
eyes will not be able to discern the difference
between upcons to 720p/1080i and genuine
H/D DVDs. And what does that mean? No need
to go out and re-buy, all over again, your current
stash of DVDs. What a disappointment for
Jack Valenti and the MPAA!

Hopefully this player will do a good upconversion. It would be interesting to see how an upconverted current DVD would look compared to a newly mastered HD-DVD, mastered from a HD source.

We can use the T2:EE as a discussion point on this. The T2:EE non-HD video transfer was re-mastered from an HD source and most, if not all, of the edge enhancement has been removed, apparently, and people can notice a difference between the T2:EE and the T2:UE releases TODAY, on their current equipment. Not everyone can see differences, but there are those who can. I don't have my T2:EE copy yet so I don't know which camp I'm in yet.

Now, I wonder how T2:EE upconverted to 720p by this player would look compared to the T2:EE HD video (provided they could both be displayed on the same display). I also wonder how if HD-DVD will support 1080p, which I've read some grumblings about, which would be better than 720p.

This new player is GREAT news, but I think it's still too early to tell how it will perform and if it can be considered a "savior" machine or not.

Peace...

[MRSMITH]

Originally posted by tomdkat
Sounds like a GREAT new player! I'm not sure the HDCP issue will "go away" since the DVDs we have TODAY are not encoded with HDCP protection. Who knows what will happen with HD-DVDs encoded with HDCP....

By the way, do you have a link to this new player? I'm too lazy to search myself...

Peace...

Try http://www.manowa.com

Milt R. Smith
mrsmith2002@yahoo.com

[tomdkat]

Originally posted by MRSMITH
Try http://www.manowa.com

Thanks!

EDIT: Actually, that link didn't work. I guess yo've got me level of motivation today too...

Here's a link to a site in Korean, which at least has pics and some readable specs:

http://vhd.co.kr/ct/read.htm?sm_id=db&sb_id=-699

I see MPEG4 (DivX) is also listed as a supported format. I wonder if this player could play the HD T2 video on the T2:EE DVD. Hmmm....

EDIT #2: Here's an ever BETTER link:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...hreadid=262063



Peace...

[snipsnapsappy]

I finally have a Elite 45A in my house. A brand new store opened up that carries Pioneer. The nice store allowed me to borrow a brand new 45A for a few days to test it out. Then I can either buy it or I can just give it back at no cost to myself.

Currently, I think the picture is better, but the sound is definitely better than my JVC. The store will sell it to me for $399. I am so happy to finally have a store near me where the employees are actually nice to me.

[Jellodyne]

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

[Dirty]

I recommend buying a PIONEER DV-444 DVD Player. It plays just about everything on a compact disk.
DVD Video; DVD-R; DVD-RW; DVD+R; DVD+RW; XVCD; SVCD; VCD; MP3; CD-R; CD-RW and probably more. I was planning on buying this player but I cant find it anywhere. I've searched
sears.com, kmart.com, bestbuy.com and a few others but none have this.

If you find it, more power to you.

[tomdkat]

Originally posted by Dirty
I recommend buying a PIONEER DV-444 DVD Player. It plays just about everything on a compact disk.
DVD Video; DVD-R; DVD-RW; DVD+R; DVD+RW; XVCD; SVCD; VCD; MP3; CD-R; CD-RW and probably more.

Thanks for the feedback! This is some very rare positive feedback I've read about this player. Both the DV-434 and the DV-444 have been regarded as "joke" progressive scan DVD players since they don't have "film mode detection", according to the Secrets report (which actually tested the DV-434).

I guess using the interlaced output of the DV-444 would be a-ok. My DV-656a plays all of the formats you've mentioned and DVD-Audio as well.

Since you didn't find the DV-444, what player did you end up getting? Walmart is selling the DV-260 (another very new progressive scan Pioneer DVD player) for like $90. Maybe you could get that player and post a report here so I can decide if I should pick one up to evaluate.

Welcome to the forum!

Peace...

[snipsnapsappy]

I tested out the Pioneer 45A and can not say I was completely sold on it. I gave it back to the store. The sound and picture were improved from my JVC, but some of the features I missed when my JVC was not hooked up. Such as the 7 disc changer and the 4:3 scaling of non anamorphic widescreen dvds.

Ah well, I guess I am not getting a new player anytime soon. I did like having SACD though for my Pink Floyd SACD.

[tomdkat]

Originally posted by snipsnapsappy
I tested out the Pioneer 45A and can not say I was completely sold on it. I gave it back to the store. The sound and picture were improved from my JVC, but some of the features I missed when my JVC was not hooked up. Such as the 7 disc changer and the 4:3 scaling of non anamorphic widescreen dvds.

Stay tuned as there might be DVD-Audio/SACD capable DVD/CD disc changers with progressive scan video coming out during the Summer and Fall.

Good luck!

Peace...

[snipsnapsappy]

thank god!

[Dirty]

Originally posted by tomdkat
DV-444 have been regarded as "joke" progressive scan DVD players since they don't have "film mode detection", according to the Secrets report (which actually tested the DV-434).

Really? I never bought the player so I wouldnt know.
Some people recommended it, others dont, but I figured it would be awesome since it plays just about everything that is thrown at it. I've read mostly good reviews about it at www.dvdrhelp.com

I am still searching for the 'right' player.