Progressive Scan DVD recommandations

[syphon00]

these are 3 I'm looking at

I planning on getting them at Bestbuy

I really want the Sony DVP-NS715P
but it doesn't play SVCD

the only other progressive players I found that can play SVCD
are the

JVC XV-S500BK

and

Philips DVD724AT

which one should I get?

[syphon00]

nobody's got anything?

[LeeBear]

I like the Panasonic RP62 player... like the Sony it doesn't play SVCD unfortunately, but if you're making your own CD's you can use the header trick to get SVCD quality VCD's. The Panasonic also uses the Sage/Faroudja deinterlace chip which is usually only found in much higher end players and many consider it the best deinterlacing chip available. It's also cheaper then the Sony player.

-LeeBear

[syphon00]

thanks for the suggestions

so you would not advice getting the Philips?

[kayfam]

I own the JVC XV-S500BK and so far it's played everything I've thrown at it. It doesn't get much better than that.

[Dai_Maxwell]

Great, now I find out that the Panasonic RP62 doesn't play SVCD's! I wish I had checked here before buying it for a christmas present.

Dai

[babaji]

Whatever you do dont go for the Phillips. I had it, many problems. If you have it hooked up to a digital reciever it wont output the sound from vcd's unless you go into the dvd players menu and select "pcm" sound instead of "bitstream". So the nextime u want dolby digital you will have to go back into the menu and re-enable the "bitstream" audio and so on and so on.... also it generally looked , felt and behaved cheap! also max fast forward speed is 8x yikes i think the panasonics do 200x max. Aslo i am still waiting on Phillips to send me a firmware update but had to return machine to walmart as 45 days were expiring. Also lamo tech support didnt know much, they couldn't even tell me the version number of thge firmware update they were suposedly sending me.

The JVC also looks and feels cheap but it does play svcd. BUT it has a bug with subtitles turning on by themsleves during SOME movies (and refusing to stay off) according to reports on the list and my neighboor.

I would Go for the panny but the rp62k has some issues with no doing resize or scaling or zooming to change aspect ratios if you have a 16:9 tv that cannot stretch anamorphic material then you will not be able to strecth it to propper dimensions to fill the screen. If you dont have a 16:9 tv or you do and it will do the scaling for you then no problem i endorse it fully as that sage fourjda chip rocks ( ie does not have chroma bug)

But the ones th i really recomend areToshiba 3750 , 3800 , 4750 ,4800
They also have excellant chipset wich suffers almost no chroma bug imperceptable to me at least. Does not play SVCD ***BUT*** it plays vcds (XVCD)at super high nose-bleed bitrate levels with no jitter or any such problems. I regularly encodce tv shows at 3500kbps bitrate even sometime @5000 no problems looks so good, a little softer than DVD cause of the lower res but not artifacts at that level IMHO.

Although the panny does SVCD it has some issues with jerkiness from what i remember. (actually i had the rp32k when i was testing) but i beleive they score the same in that respect I may be wrong.


Good luck and buy from a store with a money back 30 day deal!! Try a few and enjoy

[dariuszr]

I have to disagree with the harsh comments on Philips 724AT.
I have just bought one to complement my Pioneer DV-333 and Apex 1500 and now use it as my main player since I hooked it up over component outputs to my HDTV.
Let's look at the "con's" mentioned
8x max FF speed - well why do you really need more, i assume FF is used to skeep over sceenes or advance, how can you possibly find what you are looking for using 200x FF ?
The PCM / RAW switching may be actually a problem with your receiver than the player itself. I've played many VCD/SVCDs on it and never had to switch the setting (always left on RAW, I am using Philips receiver)
Now philips has some features that panasonic or JVC will not give you.
For starters it is easily made region free (1111 trick with the remote) and it also properly plays PAL on NTSC TV and vice versa.
So far solid buy for me.

[babaji]

I have to agree Phillips are great hackable machines i did the region free trick too before i returned it. That IS a real nice feature. Worked by punching in 0111 on the remote (or something like that) while holding down the eject button on the machine!! Super easy!! But its not that important to me. I rent region 1's and play region 1's. Perhaps its me but i dont get what all the fuss is about region free. Could some tell me what the big deal is asside from moving to europe with it?


As for the problem with the sound cutting out (with vcd/svcd) when left to "bitstream setting" I am not the only one with this problem ,it is a common occurence with some models of phillips and there are firmwares out there to repair it, unfortunately they did not work for me (found all this info some great Phillips DVD web pages from europe, it's almost a cult thing over there.) so i had to call phillips tech support and they still havent sent me a firmware cd to fix it (been 60 days and counting).

I do have to disagree about the usefulness of a faster search i use it all the time to jump ahead 20 mins it would take 2.5 mins with the phillps whereas it can be done in 6 seconds or so with a faster search. If that is too fast perhaps there is a slower search speed like 100x. I dont know if 8x max is normal among dvd players but i certainly appreciate the faster modes.

I also found the picture to be too soft or blah compared to the tocshibas or the pannys and i am using component outputs in progressive scan mode. I was really disapointed because on paper that machine looks great, excellant MP3 with long filenames, photo cd etc...

Phillips the "inventor" or "co- inventor" of the dvd format congratulations, but the 724at was a real let down for me.

Best thing is to give a few a try and keep the one YOU are happy with.

[dariuszr]

Being from Europe multi region capability is very important to me as I do have and get many reg 2 DVDs and farther they are all PAL, so having machine that can play everything I can throw at it is a big plus.
I can see fast search being useful only on VCD/SVCD if you don't have chapters. On DVDs I find 200x rather not important since I can choose a chapter an jump to any point I want.
There are many cheap players looking great "on paper", the best example is the Cyberhome deal from BBuy - progressive scan, all the formats PAL/NTSC, regian and all, Well I got one of those and it was back in the store the next day. It was the worst piece of machinery I've ever seen. Couldn't even play normal DVDs properly, was hanging in the middle of the movie etc, not to mention I rather couldn't verify all the claims on the box, didn't even recognize DVD+R, what a dissapointment.
In the and, I guess you are right, the best advice is to buy the one you are happy with, no review can replace personal experience, 1 on 1 with the player. Just make sure you can return it without any hassle.

[bill_lumberg]

I bought the philips q50 about a month ago. Has 32X fast forward and looks nice when it works. When playing svcd's there is a definite freezing problem. It also happened with some dvd's. Mine was manufactured in June 2002 so had firmware 4.15i. I updated the firmware myself since I have been waiting 3 weeks for a firmware cd from philips. Now the picture has a major green tint to it. Everything white is now green. Now I will have to return it to philips to get a new one.

Customer service is bad. I wish I would have bought a sony, pioneer, or a jvc.