Sorry about this....(another DVD question) (1 Viewer)

[LawrenceZ]

I hate to post another one of these "which one would you buy" questions, but here goes. I've narrowed down my search for an entry level DVD player to two: the Sony DVP-NS300 and the Panasonic DVD-RV31. I'm torn mostly because of the great reviews the RV91 is getting here and am thinking that some of that 91 goodness trickles down to the lower end models.
I've had a Sony for a little over 2 years now (550s) and was happy with the picture quality until recently when I found out about the chroma bug and now I notice every time I see it. I'm also concerned with down-conversion artifacts on the Panasonic since I know the Sony softens the picture a bit to disguise actifacts and I've never watched another player, I'm not sure which would bug me more, a soft picture of artifacts. Any help would be appriciated. Thanks.

 

[David Susilo]

I used to have the older Sony 500 player. I personally don't like Sony's softness. I still own the Panasonic first generation A300 that still works flawlessly.
Based on that experience, I personally am thinking about buying the RV31 for the family room. Not only as a DVD plaayer, but also as an MP3 player so I can convert all of my favorite Jazz pieces into MP3 and run it all day long as background music.

 

[Jeremy Anderson]

I got the Panasonic RV31 two days ago, and I couldn't be happier with it. As far as artifacts on downconversion, it's a nice compromise. It isn't so sharp that the artifacts are glaring, but it is sharper than the Sonys that I looked at. I ran through every disc I could think of that usually has stair-stepping on diagonal lines or that has checkerboard patterns, and while the artifacts are visible, they didn't distract me. The picture quality is excellent.
The RV31 is the first player I've seen that didn't have the chroma bug, and WOW... What a difference it makes! ARMAGEDDON was always the disc that made chroma problems most evident for me, as it uses high red levels on the digital numbers and high blue levels on the crew when they're in the shuttles. Before, it just looked HORRIBLE. With the RV31, the picture is totally different. I do recommend that you recalibrate your monitor with Avia if you get the RV31, because you'll get different values on the red push tests (since the Panny's MPEG decoder doesn't exaggerate red). The nice thing about the RV31 is that you can change color, tint, black level, etc. on the unit itself, which makes it easy to have one color setting for television viewing and one for DVD.
If I had any complaints about the RV31, it's the lack of any kind of directory navigation or random play mode for MP3 discs. The Panny simply plays them in numerical and alphabetical order (and by directory, so at least your albums will stay grouped). I was a bit daunted when I saw "TRACK 1/172" on the screen, but it does do a damn fine job of playing MP3's. I highly suggest using 192k or higher encoding on your MP3's though, because 128k has noticable noise to it.

 

[LawrenceZ]

That's great guys, thanks for the help. Jeremy, you cleared up my biggest concern (softness vs. artifacts). I'll be buying the RV31 sometime this week.