Newbie needs help on DVD Player Selection (1 Viewer)

[Don McCune]

I am a newbie to this site. I am currently searching for a Progressive Scan DVD Player to play on my Mits. 65809 TV. Given limited space, I thought a multi-disc machine would be perfect to double as my CD player. I found the Philips DVD972CH at Good Guys($299)which is a Mediamatics player with the Faroudja FLI2200 Chip which I understand is one of the best deinterlacers available right now. But while the other two Philips DVD products features include 3:2 and 2:2 pull down, this unit does not state that. Is that a problem? Does anyone have any experience with this unit or could I get some advice on what the pros and cons of this unit to help me decide? Any alternatives that are better for $300 or less? I see alot of threads discussing the Panasonic and JVC products but little discussion of the Philips. Are there problems with the Philips products I should avoid?
Thanks,
Don

 

[Craig W]

Don,

Philips has multiple problems with their Q50 player which also has the Sage/Faroudja deinterlacer. The most annoying problem has been the random freeze during playback. The freeze is not to be confused with the layer change.

Other problems include a severe chroma bug on the interlaced output which was fixed through a firmware upgrade. There is a download available for the new firmware, but it is coming from a Philips affliate in the far east and most CS reps in the states are unaware of it.

It is was not for the freeze bug I may have considered this player, but so far Philips has been pretty clueless here on fixing it.

I went with the RP56 right now, but that has some minor annoyances also like the flicker bug and it is a relative bare bones player. It also contains the Sage/Faroudja chip and was $200 less than the Philips.

Craig

 

[Drake]

Don, I'm not much of a Philips fan. Good product research, not so good products.
There are three manufacturers I would recommend when it comes to progressive scan DVD players: Denon, Pioneer Elite, and Toshiba. All three manufacturers have received very good reviews on some of their mid- to hi-end models.
I'm not sure where you reside, but today, Tweeter just started it's annual clearance of last year's A/V equipment. (And, NO I'm not a Tweeter employee pluggin the store!) In one CT store, I saw two Pioneer Elite AV-37 (list price $999 selling for $550), two Denon DVD-2800 (list price $899 selling for $499), and one Toshiba SD9200 (list price $1500 selling for $266).
If you don't want a "clearance" item, consider the Toshiba SD5700 (list $399). It has progreessive scan and DVD-Audio. It was recently reviewed in Home Theater magazine, February 2002 issue I think. Go to http://www.hometheatermag.com and search for an archive.
Personally, I own a Pioneer Elite DV-37 (paid $620). I love it. It doesn't have DVD-Audio capability, but DVD-A is such a limited format in terms of availability, I'm not really concerned. I have a Mits 55809 and it's picture is beautiful.

 

[Scott-C]

Until recently I owned a Pioneer Elite DV-37, and I thought very highly of it. However, it does have some shortcomings that bothered me. For one, it has the chroma bug, and if you are one of the people that notice this it can be very bothersome. Its deinterlacing performance is not the best, either, though I think it's better than some give it credit.
I've always thought the DV-37 produced a very sharp, colorful picture and the unit itself feels very well-built and substantial.
I have since upgraded to the Panasonic RP-91, and like many others, can't believe the improvement (and at a lower price too). Colors simply "pop" on this machine - rich, lush colors I never noticed on the DV-37. The picture on this player has a depth and richness to it that I'm very fond of, and it's very filmlike (BTW, I also have a Mits display (WS-65907).
I also really like the scaling capabilities of this player. It has really made an improvement in the picture quality of some of the non-anamorphic DVDs in my collection.
Knowing what I know now, if I had to make the choice I'd pick the RP-91. Just my $0.02. Both players have their positives and negatives, and it would be a good idea to take a look at both of them as well as any other players prior to buying so you can see for yourself. I know the Tweeter in my area had both the DV-37 and the RP-91 as of a few months ago.

 

[David X]

In addition to what Scott said ...
I'm not sure if your mitsu tv behaves the same as my mitsu 65905, but the 65905 locks up in 'expand' mode when fed a progressive scan signal. That means that the 'format' button can't be used to switch the tv's aspect ratio when I feed it a progressive scan signal.
For this reason, I needed a progressive scan player that has the aspect control built-in to the player. I ended up going with the Panasonic RP91. It's a great player, and there's lots of posts here and on avsforum about it.
RP91 FAQ
Unfortunately, the RP91 is a single disk player. I don't know if they make a multi-disk version of the RP91.
-David