Looks nice, and it darn well better...
Written: Jan 23 '01 (Updated Feb 03 '02)
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Pros: solid (heavy? yup), looks nice, great video
Cons: cost
The Bottom Line: Excellent player, but check out some of the other progressive DVD players first--this is one of the most expensive choices out there.
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| xlugxmiop's Full Review: Sony DVP-S9000 ES DVD Player |
$1500 for a DVD player is a lot of money. A *lot* of money. That's about as much as I paid for my TV. Is it worth it? That's the real questi on.
The video output is very nice. It's *slightly* better than the output from a Toshiba 5109 or 6200--I can find specific things to point at in freeze-frame images. It's significantly better than a non-progressive player; reduced jaggies, more image details.
I think that unless you're rolling in dough, it's a tough choice between it and one of the Toshibas at 1/3 the cost. If you care about SACD (I don't; I can't hear any difference between it and regular CDs) then it's a slightly easier decision.
I'm a big Sony fan, so giving the S9000ES a shot was a natural choice for me. (I wish their wide-screen HD sets were out when I was looking for one back in May, tho my Mitsubishi has been a good choice.)
I previously used a Pioneer DV-434, a Toshiba 5109 and 6200, and while the image quality of the Sony is better, it's not $1000 better. Unless you feel you're paying for weight--the Sony weighs about 25lbs.
The reason I am keeping the Sony is because of the image scaler. My Mitsubishi TV will only display one format of progressive HD, and with most DVD players non-anamorphic DVDs look squished or stretched. The Sony will happily scale the image to match, and does a good job at it.
One thing worth mentioning: occasionally non-anamorphic "widescreen" DVDs end up with a large black border around the entire image, instead of the image being scaled to fit the TV. My guess is that these are DVDs that were improperly made, and the player assumes they're animorphic when they're not. (It's always been older DVDs that exhibit this problem.) A real problem? No, not especially, just a minor annoyance.
Other random features of the Sony include adjustments for image brightness/contrast (gamma) and color adjustments--these are very helpful if your TV doesn't have quite enough control over this stuff. It can also be programmed with disc titles and automatically display them on the front panel (it'll also display text title info if there is any on the DVD/CD/SACD), as well as remembering specific settings on a per-disc basis (tho I don't see where it says how many discs it'll keep track of..., actually, it's 300 discs).
I find it easy to use, but my typical use is to jam the disc into the player and push play. The remote is decent (it has a jog dial and the remote feels good in the hand) but it isn't quite up to the standard I expected--for $1500 they should've included a RM-AV2100 or their other universal (the one with hard buttons) as the provided remote will only control two devices (DVD player and TV).
The setup interface is very similar to their low-end players, tho it has a few additional features to deal with the disc memory.
I'd seriously suggest looking at a Toshiba 6200 before purchasing this one, unless you have some specific need for SACD or the other features that the Sony provides. I have no complaints about the player, other than the high cost, and I suspect that it'll be selling for less than $1000 in a year. It is an excellent player, it looks nice (tho some might debate this--it's a "unique" style), and does just about everything anyone might want in a DVD player.
Addendum (Dec 23, 01): I unfortunately have some miserable things to say about Sony, and my recent repair experiences with my S9000 have made me decide against buying one of their widescreen plasma displays.
Around the end of October '01 my S9000's DVD tray got jammed inside the player. (I was lucky; the tray was empty.) A quick call to Sony confirmed that I needed to send it in for service.
I've used Sony repair before (I own a couple of their laptops) and usually they give a repair number, and even offer to send a box. Possibly they deal with consumer electronics differently than laptops or computers, but this time they did neither...which made me a little uncomfortable just sending the player in for repair "in the blind", with no tracking info other than UPS' receipt.
Three weeks went by, and I started getting a little antsy--no calls or email from Sony, and though I knew it had arrived at the service center I was justifiably concerned. I called them, and verified that they had received the unit (this took about 15 minutes because I didn't have a repair number). I was then informed they had recently closed several of their service centers, and typical turnaround is now 3-4 weeks!
Three weeks is a pretty long time, especially as that's three weeks plus the shipping time. It's a doubly long time given what I paid for the player.
I got the unit back two days later (this makes me a little suspicious that my call had done something, because the ship date was the day after I called). It worked fine for about a day, then all the video outputs stopped working.
Sure, maybe they had failed to reassemble it properly or something got damaged. (I doubt the player just decided to break a different way one day after I got it back.) And they paid for the return shipping. But the current turnaround time is now 5-6 weeks!
I can't in all honesty recommend any Sony products until they address this issue. I don't believe the original problems with the tray were my fault--I've always treated the player very carefully. (The tray has always seemed cheezy to me, and now it's obvious my feelings were justified.) Not having the player for almost 3 months is a serious inconvenience, and I worry about what happens when the warranty expires...
Given this experience, I am unlikely to buy any more high-end electronic gear from Sony. Granted that this has been an isolated incident for me (the many other Sony items I own have held up well) but I'm not willing to take the chance, because this has been a major hassle. Suppose a plasma display went out of whack--its being out of service for three months would be really unacceptable. (The lack of a DVD player has only been tolerable because I can use my PS/2 to play DVDs.)
Another update (Feb 3, 2002): Yep, I haven't gotten the player back yet. "The parts arrived" on Jan 21, but the subsequent repair work was going to take *another* three weeks or so. It's clear they're doing component-level repair on the unit, which I'd normally applaud them for, but only if the parts are actually available. Given this long a delay, it would have been far more reasonable to just swap the bad board.
After a few reasonable complaints (and how I managed to stay reasonable this long I'll never know), Sony has agreed to send me a new player in exchange, with a full year's warranty. (The warranty on my old one expired in early January.)
Sony dealt with my complaints really well. Once I made it clear that another three-week delay would be totally unacceptable, a representative called me the next day, and I made my position (on the current problem and my decision to no longer purchase high-end electronics from Sony) clear. The decision to send me a new player happened a couple of days after that.
Kudos for sending me a new player, but two strikes for taking two months to decide to do this. The new player's supposed to be here next week; we'll see.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 1500
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Epinions.com ID:
xlugxmiop
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Member: Xlug Xmiop
Location: Berkeley, CA
Reviews written: 50
Trusted by: 6 members
About Me:
Eep, opp, oop, ah-ah!
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