Philips DVD724AT anyone? (1 Viewer)

[Andrew_Ballew]

I was perusing Best Buy's website and saw this player- the Philips DVD724AT. The player only costs around $160, and according to the website, had the Sage/Faroudja chipset inside!! Unfortunately, I can find almost no information on this player, and to confuse matters more, the Philips info page on the player starts out by saying the player contains the mediamatics chip, then closes out by listing the Sage/Faroudja chip in the features list!! Can anyone confirm that this product does indeed have the Sage chip? If so, this is a killer bargain IMO as long as the chroma bug is in check and the unit has better quality control than the more expensive Q50.

Anyone had experience with this player?

Andrew B.

 

[Anthony F.]

I was wondering when this would come up.... I had this player briefly after seeing the same information. The philips and best buy information is very inconsistant. For example, it also mentions that the player as a built in decoder and 5.1 channel outputs, which it doesn't. On the face plate it doesn't even list the DTS logo, though it does pass it to the receiver. For HDCD there's no indicator on the player and nothing in the manual. I really can't confirm what's in the player as far as the deinterlacing chip--there's nothing on the box or in the manual, and it's not listed among the players with the chip in question. I also can't comment on chroma issues since I don't have HDTV. However, the image was quite good on a 36" screen and the analog audio for CDs was very good. The model looks like a poor-man's Q50, but it doesn't have the same build quality. In the end, the issue that did it for me was that for CDs that don't have the standard 2 second gap between tracks, the player would skip the last 2 seconds and go right to the next track. Annoying, but not tragic, I guess. I think the player is probably what it's worth, but I doubt you'll be getting a V8 under the hood of a Corolla.

 

[Wayne Bundrick]

Does anyone have any further information about this player? My sister is looking for a new DVD player and she asked me about this one.

 

[Matt DeVillier]

it does NOT have the Faroudja FLI2200 chip it in, it's a misprint. It uses the Mediamatics Pantera II 2 chip, similar to the current crop of JVC players. It's terribly soft, and doesn't have any redeeming qualities unfortunately

 

[michael.ong]

This player was just launched here two weeks ago. Havent had the chance to view the performance yet. Its really really cheap, the cheapest prog scan player in the msian market at below rm$800 !! i was shocked !!

Anyone with this unit care to give us his/her review ?

 

[Sean Moon]

BIG redeeming quality of the mediamatics chip is the scaling function, which turns properly flagged non anamorphic discs into quasi-anamorphic. I have a JVC and The Abyss comes through it like an anamorphic transfer, which helps since my TV locks into full mode on progressive mode. The scaling function does wonders with non anamorphic material.

 

[Sach]

The other day I saw this player in Walmart for $139 and I think thats the price on onecall.com too.

I had this player and returned it for poor video quality. Again the specs are totally wrong. This does not have the Faroudja chip. I called the philips customer service (based in Jamaica) and they had no clue about the Faroudja chip. Next I compared this player with the Q50 on the Philips website itself and the comparison rules out the Faroudja chip for this player.
Finally I also contacted Faroudja and asked about this player but they also couldn't confirm if it has their own chip. Lousy customer service everywhere.
The player itself is poorly built and does not have the 5.1 decoder as the spec says. Finally the poor picture quality made me return the player.

 

[Sean Moon]

The interlaced quality of the mediamatics chip is substandard, since it derives the interlaced from its progressive(reversed thinking). I find the progressive scan capabilities of the mediamatics to be quite nice. Granted, the JVCs might have a better Mpeg decoder.