Sony DVP-S9000ES DVD Player -- Top Quality & Top Price
Written: Dec 14 '00 (Updated Mar 17 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Progressive-Scan (480p), Can Optimize for Movie-Source and Video-Source DVD's
Cons: Expensive
The Bottom Line: Image quality is about the best for a mass-market player. Plays SACD's.
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| radioguy's Full Review: Sony DVP-S9000 ES DVD Player |
Progressive-scan players are the latest, and highest-quality, permutation of the DVD player format, and Sony's going to milk it for every dollar they can get. With its street price of $1,400, this Sony entry into the progressive-scan DVD sweepstakes, the DVP-S9000ES, sells for over three times as much as the least expensive progressive-scan player now available, the $400 Pioneer DVD-434.
Like Panasonic, with their premium-quality and premium-priced DVD-H1000 progressive-scan player, Sony has made the decision to enter the market with a player that combines a very high degree of quality and features with a very high price. In addition to the progressive-scan feature, the S9000ES also plays back SACD's, one of the new higher-quality audio formats now available through DVD players. Currently, there are only about 40 SACD titles available and their sonic quality represents a noticeable improvement over CD's. With increased quality comes increased price, and the SACD's generally sell for about $25.
Some people would probably argue that dropping $1,400 on a DVD player is a waste of money no matter what, but if you don't own an H/DTV-ready set (with at least 480-progressive horizontal resolution), there's no question that the video improvements of the S9000ES will provide you with no benefit at all.
Most people in the United States still own NTSC-standard color TV's, which have a resolution that's about equal to 480-interlaced. With an interlaced video feed, each 1/30th-of-second frame is divided into two 1/60th-of-second fields, the first containing the odd-numbered lines of the frame (that would be 240 lines in the case of a 480i signal, such as the signal from a regular, interlaced-output DVD player) and the second containing the even-numbered lines (again, 240 lines in the case of a 480i signal). The persistence of vision phenomenon, created by your eye and brain, make the two fields appear as a single frame. With a 480-progressive (480p) signal, all the lines of the frame are projected once each 1/60th of a second, meaning the picture has twice the resolution quality of a 480i signal (in scanning frequency terms, the 480i signal is at 15kHz and the 480p signal is at 31.5kHz).
Since the S9000ES, in progressive-scan mode, puts out a 480-progressive (480p) signal, you'll only be able to use this mode if you have a TV that can display at the 480p resolution level, meaning one of the new H/DTV-ready TV's, which sell for at least $1,500 and often quite a bit more. As you can see, the total cost of assembling a system to view DVD's at 480p horizontal resolution can be quite high. If you're interested in buying an H/DTV-ready set, see my reviews of the Toshiba TW-40X81, the Panasonic CT-34WX50, CT-32HX40 or CT-32XF56, and the Hitachi 43FDX01B or 53FDX01B.
Getting a 480p signal from a DVD player is not a simple matter. Not all progressive-scan players were created equal, and it's in taking the most uncompromising approach in the working out of the technical challenges that a player like the S9000ES somewhat compensates for its extremely high price.
The essential problem occurs with getting film material, which is projected at the rate of 24 frames per second (fps), onto DVD, which is either 60 fields per second, in the case of a 480i DVD signal, or 60 full frames per second, in the case of a 480p DVD signal. To make the math work out, a scheme known as 3:2 pulldown is employed where alternate frames are applied to three frames, then two frames, then three frames, etc. In this way, the 24 film frames end up evenly filling out the 60 video fields or frames.
The problem is in getting those odd numbers to work out right when extracting the video from a film-source DVD. A machine like the S9000ES has an advantage, in that the datastream from its MPEG-2 decoder is kept in the digital form as its fed into the reverse-pulldown circuitry, thus reducing the level of distortion. To maximize progressive-scan image quality, the S9000ES has separate algorithms (the programming that brings the image from the MPEG decoder to 480p output) for film- and video-source DVD's. It also has what Sony calls "full 3-2 reverse conversion for film," though any progressive-scan DVD player is going to have to have that, one way or another, to decode film-source material.
The S9000ES has a number of features designed to overcome the potential image artifacts inherent in the DVD decoding process. These include "motion adaptive field noise reduction" and "motion adaptive block noise reduction." Ultimately, the quality of the image a progressive-scan DVD player can get from a film-source DVD will depend on the functioning of its de-interlacer.
Ironically, all DVD's are recorded in 480p resolution. It's a shame they can't build a DVD player which could directly feed the native-480p signal to a monitor. However, all MPEG-2 decoders transform the 480p to 480i, creating the NTSC-standard, interlaced output one finds with the vast majority of DVD players. The ideal way to transform the 480i back to 480p is with a circuit that is part of the MPEG-2 decoder. The second-best route is an off-board chip. The problem with a separate chip is that it can't read as many of the "hints" (digital pointers which give information that helps with the progressive-to-interlaced-to-progressive transformation) as an integral circuit. In any case, Sony doesn't reveal the exact nature of the circuit they use and I haven't had a chance to take this DVD player apart and take a peek at its circuit board.
Besides progressive-scan video output (480p), one of the big selling points of the S9000ES is its SACD audio performance. While the library of SACD's is currently less-than 100, the filtering and audio processing circuitry in the S9000ES will let you get superior audio performance, even with a regular CD (as compared to performance of a standard CD player). The SACD output is from the player's regular L/R stereo analog audio outputs.
To fully benefit from the SACD technology, it would have to output its SACD signal via a digital jack, thus allowing you uncompromised quality in making a connection to your A/V receiver when playing SACD's. Unfortunately, Sony is an entertainment as well as consumer electronics company, and they want to reduce the possibilities for the copying of their copyrighted material, even if it means giving you a lower-fidelity product. It's not that the sound will be lousy with the SACD signal being output via an analog connection, but it's not going to be as good as it could be if you had a digital connection, such as most current A/V receivers are capable of making.
The S9000ES has all the usual video outputs: composite, S-Video, and component, so you can go for the maximum-quality hookup that's available on your TV. For audio, there's the aforementioned L/R analog outputs, plus Dolby Digital/DTS via either an optical or a coaxial digital audio jack.
Weighing in at over 20 pounds, the S9000ES is solidly-built for a DVD player (the increased weight is partly due to the player's extensive use of discrete circuitry for the various sub-sections). Further adding to the unit's illusion of solidity, it has a black, brushed-aluminum front face.
This is a substantial DVD player with a substantial price tag to match. If having a top-of-the-line Sony product, with the added enticement of the SACD audio playback capability, captures your fancy, you might want to consider the S9000ES. If you're just looking to get a progressive-scan player at a moderate price, the Toshiba SD6200, with very similar progressive-scan DVD image quality, can be had for about half the price of this Sony. The next generation of progressive-scan DVD players, hitting the stores this summer, will have even lower prices, starting around $250.
Recommended:
Yes
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