Looking for Prog. Scan DVD player...mulit-disc (1 Viewer)

[Brian O]

I am probably getting the Toshiba 65HDX82 RPTV soon. I am looking to upgrade my DVD player. I currently have the Toshiba 3109 Dual-tray player which I have enjoyed for 3+ years.

I would like to preferrably get a multi-disc, Progressive Scan player. Also, I would like to get a DVD-Audio decoder with it if possible too.

What are my options currently among the many brands? I would like to stay at $300 or less. I have been interested in the Toshiba 4800, but it is only a single disc player. I am not too concerned about the Chroma bug.

I like the fact that the Toshiba 4800 has black side boxing on 4:3 material, if I understood it right. I guess it is between Toshiba, Panasonic, JVC, and Sony maybe.

What is the general concensus on this now?

 

[Brian O]

How is the Panasonic CP72? It looks like it has all the goodies I am looking for.

 

[Jon Duke]

The Panasonic CP-72 is the best part of my home theater.

I absolutely love it! The picture quality is excellent, no chroma bug, it plays mp3 and wma. The only negative is that the remote is perhaps the worst ever created.

Overlook the remote, and pick up the 72!

 

[Dean DeMass]

How is the Panasonic CP72? It looks like it has all the goodies I am looking for.

I just received mine today and I will have some comments on it after my Toshiba 50h82 arrives tomorrow morning.
I did a bunch of research on Progressive Scan DVD changers in the $200 - $350 range, and the Panasonic ended up being the best of the bunch. Plus, I now have DVD-Audio and SACD.
-Dean-

 

[Gary Hensley]

Another big thumbs of for the CP72. Got mine about 1.5 weeks ago and I am very impresses witht the Progress scan output and the MP3/WMA feature is awesome. The 5 disc changer made it a no brainer for 229.00. The picture output is significantly better then the JVC XVD-723GD that it replaced.

 

[Steve Schaffer]

Dean,
The CP72 does dvd-audio but not SACD.

Gary,
I just got a CP72 last weekend and am still checking it out. I put it in place of a JVC XV-F80BK, which uses the same chipset your JVC does.

So far I think I like the Panny picture a little better-I seem to be seeing more subtle little color variations and such.

I was wondering if you could recommend a few discs for me to try so I can better evaluate the panny vs jvc as far as de-interlacing.

I am starting to miss the scaling feature the JVC had, and realy need some good demo material to convince me the Panny is enough better to replace the JVC.

I've redone AVIA with the panny, didn't need to change much.

 

[Jon Cielo]

i am considering the panny as well. can anyone comment on the disc change time? my brother has their first dvd changer, and its pretty slow. thanks in advance.

 

[Dean DeMass]

The CP72 does dvd-audio but not SACD.

Yes, I know. I also have a stand alone SACD player.

-Dean-

 

[Dave Ringkor]

Another for the CP72. I even got mine in black, so it's not too goofy looking. I only wish they had included the progressive on/off switch on the remote. Other than that, great player!

 

[Gary Hensley]

You can turn the Prog on and off from the remote. You have to hit display and then select the Video menu. It will show 480P which you can toggle the value to 480i. Not a simple on/off but works well.

 

[Brian O]

Sounds like the CP72 is a good one. Explain to me the scaling issues. I have not had a RPTV to experiment with yet. Also, how would the picture quality compare to the Toshiba 4800, not taking into account the Chroma bug?

I understand the 4800 has black sidebars for 4:3 discs? Does the CP72?

Basically, what would I be missing out on going with the CP72 vs the 4800. I realize the 4800 is a single disc too.

Is there any additional benefit using a Toshiba DVD player with the latest Toshiba RPTVs?

 

[Dean DeMass]

So far I have watched two movies (LOTR and Changing Lanes), and one 4:3 disc (Buffy: Season 2), and I am very pleased with this player (CP72). The progressive image on my 50h82 is very film-like. It actually feels like I am watching a film in a theater now instead of watching a film on video.
I also listened to one DVD-Audio disc (Grateful Dead: American Beauty), and all I can say is, WOW!
-Dean-

 

[Neil Weinstock]

There should be no inherent advantage in using a Toshiba player with a Toshiba TV. In fact, when I started out 2 years ago, I bought both Toshiba, not due to any particular plan but because I happened to like those two components best in their class.

I was using an SD-6200 DVD with a 50HX70 TV. The TV lacks a squeeze mode for 480p, and the older Toshiba DVD players have a horrid 4:3 downconversion algorithm. So it turns out that in this case the combination of Toshiba and Toshiba was awful.

I am now pretty much set on the CP-72 as my new DVD player, though I really would love to have some bass management for DVD-A. Not a biggie, given that I don't place high importance on DVD-A to begin with.

As for the remote sucking: my god man, get a universal. There's no reason to suffer with stacks of crappy stock remotes. I got an MX-500 a year and a half ago and have never looked back.

 

[Jeff F.]

Does this player have 3:2 pulldown?

 

[Neil Weinstock]

Yes, and its de-interlacing performance is superb, due to the use of the Sage/Faroudja chipsets (should we now be calling it the Genesis/Sage/Faroudja?)

In general, the performance of the latest round of progressive players is pretty remarkable for the price (or at any price.) At 1/3 the price of my 2 year-old SD-6200, they are significantly better in virtually every conceivable way (with the possible exception of build quality.)

 

[John Hummel]

I have a CP72 and when I watch movies in progressive mode I see a very annoying problem. When there are fine textures in the image (usually someone's hair), there is no detail and it looks 'smeared' and usually reddish. One example is in the Hannibal disc in the scene where Pazzi is watching his wife get dressed before the opera. His mustache looks like a ketchup smear on his upper lip! If I switch to interlaced the problem seems to go away. I have a Panasonic 53WX42 television. The TV has not been ISF'd yet, could this be a greyscale issue? Any ideas?

 

[Lyle_JP]

It sounds like some sort of agressive noise reduction is being applied to the picture in progressive scan mode. I'm not familiar with the features of the CP72, but if there are settings for noise or block reduction, you should turn them off and see if the problem you're having goes away.

-Lyle J.P.

 

[Steve Schaffer]

John,
Read your post about Pazi's mustache yesterday and put the movie in my CP72 last night to check--I had the player on 480p, Auto 1, and Cinema 1. The mustache looked fine--each individual hair was visible and it was not discolored. My set is a Sony KP57HW40 57" widescreen rptv.

I've read about others having your problem on the Panny set over on the Displays forum, seems you need to change some settings on the set and the problem goes away.

 

[Matt Jesty]

DVDC920?

 

[John Hummel]

Steve,

Thanks for the input, I will try to see if I can find anymore information about this in the display devices forum. I'm hoping it's something that can be corrected when the set is calibrated, since I haven't seen much change with any of the user accessible settings.

Lyle,

There are 3 noise reduction settings on the CP72 - block, mosquito, and 3D. Right now all of these are set to zero and I get the image problems I described. It's not possible to go lower than zero on these settings, and turning them up didn't seem to help any either.

John