Thinkin aboutgetting Panasonic s97.Anbodywith experiencewana comment onthis

[mikej3131]

Ok ive read alot of good reviews about this player and also a couple bad ones. these bad ones do concern me and here they are :

"Panasonic DVD-S97, a review cut short
The popularity of up-converting DVD players such as the Denon DVD-1910, Samsung HD-941, and Bravo D2 demonstrate the desire for DVD players that output 720p or 1080i. Owning one myself I have to say in the end, standard definition source material is just that, standard definition.

But until HD-DVD makes it to the shelves, ‘up converting’ DVD players may be the best we can get. I have to say I was a little surprised that, until recently, one such player flew under my radar, The Panasonic DVD-S97. At $499.95 (MSRP) it is quite a bit more than say the Denon DVD-1910 or any of the previously mentioned DVD players for that matter. What’s up?

The only features included with the S97, that aren’t present on some of the other players, are HDCD and WMA, neither of which are anything to get excited over. Unfortunately one thing it does have is macroblocking. I was able to get my hands on one recently for an install, I wish I hadn’t.

As soon as we finished the connections and fired up the Samsung HL-P6163W DLP it was to accompany, we quickly noticed macroblocking, to an almost annoying level. Given this we’re going to have to give the Panasonic DVD-S97 a ‘buyer beware’ notice at this time. This problem may not present it’s self on some displays, we however had bad luck our first shot.

Macroblocking rears its ugly head in several ways, as a blocky pixel artifact in poorly produced DVD’s or in some DVD players where ‘video noise’ or subtle shades of color next to one another, are over emphasized. Although this page is more about video conversion than software playback, it contains some excellent images of macroblocking (first image). Note don’t take this recommendation (or lack thereof) as any comment on Panasonic's level of quality in general. To the contrary they make many excellent video products, specifically the Panasonic PT-AE200U which by all reports is an excellent projector."

The areas where this player is lacking rests with it's excess pixel cropping and the macroblocking artifact as seen in a variety of DVD players, including one that is three times the price of the S97- the Denon DVD-5900. The severe pixel cropping of 17 pixels on the left side is downright unnacceptable. The good news is that this was seen only via the component video interface, and the picture cutoff of 17 pixels was not seen via the HDMI connection. So if your plan on putting the HDMI interface that you might have on your HDTV, you won't be loosing that much on the left side of the image.

Macroblocking is a visible manifestation of the blocks that go into making up the image stored on the DVD. DVD frame images are stored on a disc and broken into a series of blocks for compression reasons. Within each series of blocks(64 total) there is a certain number of pixels, or picture elements. Several players on store shevles these days are exhibiting the macroblocking compression artifact and it can be very distracting and extremely noticable when the backgroung of the image is of one color, most especially black.
The good news is that the Macroblocking of this Panasonic is not as severe in other reported DVD players.

DVD layer change(for dual layered DVDs) is average at about 1.5 seconds, and white levels-for accurate contrast levels- are right on the money.

While this Panasonic is a good player, its too bad that the Faroudja FLI2310 de-interlacer is not configured to get the most and best use of it's capabilities. A firmware upgrade could alleviate most, if not all of the issues, that plague the S97 including the pixel cropping, the MPEG issues, and the Faroudja chip imperfections.

Ok now with all that said, has there been firmware upgrades to fix these issues???? and how good does it fix them?????

is this a good dvd player??
And for the people with experience on this player, does it play dvd-r's well???

[mikej3131]

i dont even know what macroblocking is. does this players macroblocking affect PQ that much?