Category: (CE)
8 new, starting at $82.95
VIDEO Dual-Layer/Single Layer DVD-R**/DVD/DVD-R/DVD-RW***/DVD+R/DVD+RW Compatible, SVCD/VCD/CD/CD-R/CD-RW Compatible, DVD PAL, DVD NTSC, DVD Region 0,1,2,3,4,5,6, HDMI Terminal for Digital Audio/Video Out HDMI Upscaling (to View on 1080i/1080p) WMV (Windows Media® Video) Compatible Official DivX® Certified Product Compatible with All Versions of DivX® Video (including DivX® 6) with Standard Playback of DivX® Media Files 108 MHz/12-bit Video DAC PureCinema 2:3 Progressive Scan I/P Simultaneous Output USB Input for Compressed Video (DivX/WMV) and JPEG HD JPEG Playback Video Adjust Function with Sharpness/Brightness/Contrast/ Gamma/Hue/Chroma Level Control Zoom Function AUDIO FEATURES 96 kHz/24-bit Audio DAC USB Input for Compressed Music Playback WMA (Windows Media® Audio)/MP3/MPEG-4 AAC**** Compressed Music Playback Compatible DTS® 2-Channel Decoding Dolby® Digital Output Dialogue Enhancer Virtual Surround Sound Equalizer (Rock/Pop/Live/Dance/Techno/Classic/Soft)
NOT a multi region, NOT multi voltage supported productReviewed by A. Mohanan, 2010-03-07
The feature description says this product supports 110 & 240 voltages, but it is not. And this is not a multi region product. Don't buy this if you these are your primary requirements.
It does what I'd hoped and does it well.Reviewed by Mr. N. B. Stevens, 2010-03-04
The delivery to my door was prompt and it was packaged
securely.
So far so good! Easy set-up. Great picture. Plays the region 1 and
region 2 discs that I've tried. For some reason the PLAY symbol
sometimes remains on screen once this button on the remote has been
pressed. At first I was worried as I didn't want this blue
horizontal line to be permanently displayed at the top of the
picture whilst viewing. I did however find that this disappears if
I hit rewind/forward then play so it's not a problem.
Completely satisfied.
A word of warning: Don't confuse this with the same model listed as
Multi-"Format" if you want it to play other region DVD's as this
does not mean the same thing.
Hope this helped!
A great multi-region DVD player for modern TVsReviewed by A. Moore, 2010-02-24
When we moved to the USA, we had a shock. In the UK, multi-region
DVD players are common, with cheap models retailing for the
equivalent of $50 or less in every supermarket. Add to that the
fact that 90% of TVs will play NTSC signals, as used in the USA and
Asia, and playing discs from other countries is as easy as can be.
Over here, most TVs will only display NTSC, and not the PAL signals
used in Europe. Also, the vendors have severely locked down DVD
players by region, so American consumers can't play foreign
DVDs.
Well, I brought with me a collection of 150 DVDs from the UK,
Europe, Hong Kong, China and Japan. I refuse to buy them again,
since in many cases I picked the best version available. Even if I
did plan to re-purchase them, many are simply not available in an
American, Region 1 disc.
Although players are available on the cheap in the UK, I spent a
little extra on a Pioneer player in 2003, which is still in use by
a family member now. It had a great picture quality on our
widescreen CRT TV, and played any disc I threw at it - even a badly
authored disc which many other machines refused to touch. This made
a Pioneer player the obvious choice now we needed a new unit.
But some things had changed: We needed a player suitable for a 42"
1080p HDTV, rather than a 28" widescreen CRT. The size and the
nature of the display is much less forgiving when it comes to
picture quality. It also needed to convert PAL colours to NTSC
whilst upscaling the image (and not downscaling it first). This
meant there was an element of the unknown when it came to picking
our player.
I am happy to report that this player works perfectly. It is built
as well as you would expect a $90 player to be built, so don't
expect a 20lb chunk of metal. The remote is the same layout as my
7-year old player in the UK, and it has one of the most logical
button layouts I've used. Even the on screen menus and displays
match that old player. They may not look fancy, but they tell you
everything you need to know.
The player is a Japanese version, designed for tourists. It will
output PAL or NTSC, and it works on American and European voltages.
Change the power cable and you can use this in the UK without a
step converter. It's truly an international DVD player.
Using HDMI, Pioneer's Kuro link is available. European users will
remember this from the SCART days -- when you power on the player
it switches your TV input automatically to the just-activated unit.
The manual claims it only works with Pioneer TVs, but my Philips TV
has a similar function (as used by the Philips Blu-Ray player
attached to it), and it works just the same on my TV. There are
other connections on the back of the player, but I see no reason to
use them over HDMI. One downside is that there's no HDMI cable
included.
So... picture quality. I'm comparing this to the upscaling
performed by my Philips Blu Ray player. Obviously I could only test
US, Region 1, NTSC DVDs on that player, so the comparison is by no
means complete. Regardless, upscaling from 480i to 1080p is of a
very high quality, even if detail levels pale in comparison to HD.
My Japanese version of Kill Bill Vol. 1 looks great, with the
bright colours blaring out at us. Switching to The New World -
Director's Cut shows that the upscaling features of this unit
outstrip the $100 Philips Blu ray. That player exhibited quite a
bit of Haloing and edge enhancement without adding details. Those
effects are still present, but much less obvious.
The player will, however, show up low quality discs. My HK R3
edition of House Of Flying Daggers looks atrocious. Pretty much
unwatchable. It's a low quality transfer of a visually difficult
film, so this should come as no surprise.
On to PAL discs. Out of the box, the player outputs to 480p. Taking
a DVD with a vertical resolution of 576 lines and downscaling it as
such, the picture quality is nasty to say the least. If you are
stuck with a SD NTSC TV, at least they will play. The good news is
that with the HDMI set to output at 1080p, the player does not
downscale to 480 before upscaling to 1080 - it takes the 576i
signal and directly converts it to 1080p! This means that PAL discs
look incredibly sharp. With 20% more vertical detail to work with,
the upscaler can produce incredibly good images for your
HDTV.
I tested the UK DVD of The Incredibles, which has as perfect a
transfer as DVD is capable of, and it looked stunning. The chase
sequence through the jungle looked as good as I have ever seen it.
Compared to NTSC DVDs, this was a revelation. Following this, I
tried an old edition of Father Ted on DVD. Produced for TV in a 4:3
ratio, I expected to see numerous interlacing/combing effects, but
the show looked as good as one could expect of a 15-year-old TV
show filmed on video tape, and no real problems were apparent. We
followed this with an episode of Spaced and an episode of The IT
Crowd, both produced in 16:9, and in the case of the latter, very
recent. They looked great.
In fact, the only thing giving away the conversion process was a
slight judder to the end credits of all three TV shows. While
watching fast motion, this was not evident. Raiders Of The Lost Ark
looked good, regardless of the action on screen.
One note regarding colours -- my TV is already set up to display
Blu Ray and HDTV with pretty accurate, natural colours. This unit
was rather dark out of the box. We set the HDMI colour to Component
and made minor Brightness/Contrast adjustements using a THX
Optimizer, but things still appeared a little dark on PAL discs.
The solution? We adjusted the Gamma setting to -3 and it solved all
our problems.
There is more to this player. It will record your CDs to a USB
drive plugged in to the front of the unit. I haven't tried that one
yet. Also, it will play DivX and AVI movies from USB, CD or DVD.
AVI rips of some UK TV shows and the Berlin premier of the restored
Metropolis both looked better that on a computer monitor, thanks to
the upscaler's help. The playable formats are very limited, but
it's a nice extra feature.
So, in conclusion: if you have many foreign DVDs, buy this player.
Even if you don't, it's worth it as a dedicated DVD player, since
it has better upscaling that the average supermarket Blu-Ray
player. Well worth every penny, and it could only be improved by
including an HDMI cable in the box.
Real DealReviewed by M. Liu, 2010-02-16
It does what it promises.
Having no trouble playing Region 2 DVD discs.
Not as expectedReviewed by RadSret, 2010-02-15
After 3 good working Philips DVDs I decided to buy Pioneer. Pioneer
was Hi-Fi leader in 80s and 90s. After 6 weeks of light use, GREEN
line on the right edge of my TV showed up and is still there. It is
connected on HDMI output. Very annoying when you watch. Unit looks
and feels very cheap. Very `plastic' feeling.
PAL disks are working but sometimes not when I have menu with
multiple shows. Unit can not pick particular show from menu.
I connected portable 40gb WD Hard Drive. HD get power from unit but
unit do not read any information. Philips dvd does.
MP3 playback is poor. No ID3 track or song art. Just file
name.
Buy PHILIPS! At least you wil save some money. And do not trust to
incompetent reviews as I did.
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