Best new Progressive DVD Player
Written: Jul 10 '01 (Updated Jul 13 '01)
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Pros: Automatic aspect scaling, DVD-A, MP3, DVD-RAM, CD Remastering mode, no chroma bug
Cons: Operating instructions too brief
The Bottom Line: The Panasonic is the BEST new Progressive Scan DVD Player. It has everything (except SACD) DVD Audio/Video, CD-R, CDRW, VCD, and DVD-RAM.
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| bnlitin's Full Review: Panasonic DVD-RP91 DVD Player |
The Panasonic RP-91N is a a new Progressive Scan player with the follwing features:
- automatic anamorphic resizing in Progressive Scan mode
(movies recorded in the old 1.33 format will be resized to fit the entire 16x9 HDTV screen without loss of resolution)
- plays MP3 files
- CD Remastering mode
(audio data from CDs is interpolated at 88 KHz and is output digitally and through player's analog outputs)
- reads CD-R and CD-RW discs
- plays DVD-Audio discs
- no chroma bug
(almost all DVD players have a bug in their MPEG Decoder such that certain colors are improperly displayed. See Secrets of Home Theater at http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/main.html to learn more about the chroma bug.)
I have owned two other DVD Players - a Pioneer DVD-414 and a Toshiba SD-6200. The Panasonic DVD-RP91 is superior to both of these players in video quality, audio quality, disk loading speed, and the number of features.
The Panasonic is much faster then the Toshiba - pressing play or stop is instantaneous on the Panasonic. Consequently, movies load and start playing much faster.
The Panasonic has *much* more options for optimally configuring audio and video. The video can be tweeked so many different ways that you could spend hours setting it up. I used the standard Video Essentials DVD to configure the video display. The negative side of this is that it requires more time in learning how to set it up.
There is one small bug in the player - on some TVs the progressive image is shifted left slightly. This can be easily fixed by pushing the joystick on the remote right or left and pressing the STOP button on the player. Once I adjusted the horizontal position on my HDTV, the image was perfectly aligned.
The Progressive output on the Panasonic is excellent and the MPEG Decoder is free of the Chroma bug. Only DVD players with Panasonic MPEG Decoder and Mediamatics decoder are free of the bug. It's quite visible *and very annoying* in movies like Toy Story I and II. It's especially noticeable with red colors.
Some movies are recorded with an aspect ration of 1.33 to 1 (a ratio of width to height), others at 2.33 to 1, and yet others 1.76 to 1.
If you like watching older movies, such as Casablanca, that were recorded in 1.33 format (also known as standard) - this player has a special feature that makes all classic movies look great. It's called anamorphic resizing and it basically resizes the movie to fit your TV. On a 16x9 aspect ratio HDTV, most DVD players with show a movie like Casablanca with black bars on the side. If they have a zoom, then the image is far less sharper because resolution is lost in the zoom process. With the Panasonic, the player does the aspect ratio conversion for you, which makes the movie fit the 16x9 screen with minimal resolution loss. This is fantastic feature. I wouldn't buy a DVD player without it.
Although this player uses the older Genesis de-interlacer, as opposed to, the new Faroudja chips in the upcoming Kenwood Sovereign line, it doesn't comb a whole lot. De-interlacing is important when converting from a source like video which doesn't perfectly match the frequency of the TV.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 440
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Epinions.com ID:
bnlitin
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Location: San Jose, CA
Reviews written: 28
Trusted by: 3 members
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