Upgradable DVD? Darn good Idea if you ask me!
Written: Jun 19 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Upgradable, 5.1 output, still picture, YUV, parental lock
Cons: No DTS decoding
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| flindingo's Full Review: Philips DVD950AT Player |
DVD technology is relatively new, it's ever changing with new sound systems and the video format being tweaked. Not to say any DVD player will ever be obsolete, because they wont. However as new features and formats start to arise, (such as HDTV) it's good to know that there are players ready for that. The Philips DVD 950-AT, is one of Philips top of the line home DVD players, and like all their other models they support CD-R and CD-RW discs, (most DVD players do not support this!). This particular player has two separate lasers, one for DVD and one for CD, CD-R, and CD-RW, which makes playing any disc totally flawless!
This allows you to create your own music or VCD discs and play them directly on your DVD player. The other features on this model that make it much above the bar of performance include a 80 disc parental lockout. This means if I have a DVD (Such as Robocop, which is NC-17 for violence), and I don't want my child to watch it, instead of hiding the disc, I can program the DVD player to not play that particular disc. This is a great feature for parents.
This model also contains 6 channel output, (5.1 for DTS or Dobly Digital), if you have a good sound system or home theatre (Such as Aiwa) you can plug your 5.1 channels directly into your theatre, or receiver to get the full 5.1 digital audio experience. (It's much much better than the mixed Dobly Surround that comes on 2 outputs). For video output it has Composite (standard), S-Video (Better quality than Composite, highly recommended for DVD), and then YUV, (3 channel output for HDTV and high-end TV's, for best possible picture).
Now the exclusive features on this player include, still picture support. This DVD uses special anti-aliasing which makes stills look super-sharp and clear, with no jittering. The coolest feature however is the ability to upgrade the player internally. This DVD can be re-programmed using a special DVD disc (from the manufacturer) to upgrade the system, and add new features. If DVD takes a turn and adds some new processing technique, this DVD player would only require a new disc to get the features. So far this is one of the only DVD players I have reviewed that offers such an awesome forward-thinking feature, my hat (if I wore one) to Philips.
For a high end DVD player, with not that high-end of a cost, upgradable and tons of other features, this makes a Top quality, highly recommended DVD player. (For reviews of other models and brands check out my other DVD reviews, I'm doing a series of reviews for my company and posting my findings on Epinions.)
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
flindingo
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Location: Atlanta, GA
Reviews written: 120
Trusted by: 35 members
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