Hi

Can someone tell me something about this DVD player?

I just recently bought the Yamaha RX-V650 receiver, and am now searching for a DVD player to match it, and reproduce into a Sanyo Z1 projector.

I'm thinking about this one because not only is the same brand and line (I like this), but is also a recent model, and with most of the things I'm searching for about 160€ (more or less 110£ - at today exchange rates).

My question is, if is this a good choice, or do I have other alternatives offering more, for this price level?

What's your opinions?

Thank you for any answer


AB

[MS-Yam]

I reckon a lot of people will point you to the Pioneer 575. The reason for this being they have had good reviews, and many have already got themselves one of these machines... and like it.
Myself I would go for the Yamaha. Heres why:
1. Had a Pioneer in the past and it was cheap and flimsy, also broke down on me twice.
2. The previous Yamaha DVD player (S540) got excellent reviews. The replacement will be just as good, probably better.
3. I would put money on the build quality being far ahead of the Pioneer (I say this because I have a Yamaha amp and it is built like a tank).
4. The Yamahas are known for their good sound quality as well as picture quality.
5. The customer support of Yamaha is excellent whereas trying to get sense out of Pioneer is like pulling teeth.

What you must bare in mind is the Yamaha is brand new and has not yet been reviewed, which is why you wont have heard much about the machine. But if you look at the spec, it is pretty much the same as the Pioneer (including Prog. Scan) except from SACD and DVD-A.

I was in the same boat as you but ended up getting a Denon DVD1400 for £200 (absolute bargain from Superfi), which is normally £400. I was torn between the two even though the Denon was more expensive.

Let us know what you decide on and your opinion of it. Good luck

Thank you MS-Yam, for such a quick answer.

Good to hear that quind of opinion.

The truth is that I didn't make my homework, and didn't search enough in this forum, but I'm lacking free time to navigate as I like, to the bottom of things, and get some answers.

That's why I'm asking what other alternatives are in the market today for that price.

I do see a lot of fuss about Pio and Denon.

I do have an old Philips dvd player, but with the Sanyo Z1, obviously I see all the artifacts, mostly in the contours of objects in motion. In animation is still more obvious.
I don't know if is this only the dvd player fault. But I think it could help a better one...

Coments?


AB

[MS-Yam]

No probs,
You can pay £100 today for a DVD player which would have cost you £250-£300 a year ago, maybe even more. An example is my Denon 1400 I mentioned.. not even a year old and half price! It's six and two threes really, meaning you can either get a brand new model £100 ish DVD player (Yamaha S550 etc), or you can do what I did and get a model around a year old which has been heavily discounted as new models are being released.
I went for the Denon as it got good reviews, and the fact that I wanted the player when it came out but couldnt afford it. Glad I waited now! Half price!

Depending on how old your Philips is, the chances are you will get a much better picture from even the new £80 Toshiba - even with Prog Scan! I know it sounds ridiculous but technology does change at a ridiculous rate. I would not go this low personally, I would rather go for the Yamaha.

Any newish DVD player with Progressive scan will improve pictures when in motion. Images will move a lot smoother.

For the sake of £120 ish, take the risk mate, as you said it'll go nice with your amp too.

[Pegleg2001]

I have a Yammy 630RDS Receiver and bought the S520 DVD player to match it cosmetically about 1.5 years ago. The DVD player is fine but I was comparing to my previous early generation Panny DVD so it may not be state of art. Their DVD players are based on a Philips machine I believe from searching this forum (I had to program Philips code into my universal remote control which confirms this, I guess).

Thank you both

I think I'll give it a try, then.

As you said, Pegleg2001, in my case too, it must be a 'giant leap', from my old philips, in comparison. So I'll probably be a very happy camper, anyway!

MS-Yam - I searched for the Denon, in my usual on-line stores, and yes, it's around 320€. My question is: is this good? Let me refrase this. I know, for what you just said, that in this case (your case) this is a great discount. But what about other machines? The Yamaha just arrived and, still, is cheaper than the Denon (well they allways use to be, right!?). What is, probably, missing? And, of course, this happens in other cases, this was just an example to ilustrate my point.

The bottom line is, that I never quite understand, the great price diferences betwen dvd players. I know all about progressive scan, dvi conections, faroudja processing, sacd, mp3, divx, etc...

But everyday we're seeing low price players offering almost every item of the above. It's tempting not waste extra money and get a good machine.

And then I think that I'm probably missing something!


AB

[MS-Yam]

What happens is, with budget players, manufacturers are so competitive with their prices, they cram as much technology as they can into the smallest unit possible. This is because there seems to be a lot of people wanting their DVD player to do everything! Dont know why this is! At the end of the day, it is a "DVD" player. I can honestly say if I could find a machine with no SACD, DVDA, MP3, JPG, CDR CDRW, etc etc, just a player with damn good picture and sound quality, and is well built, I would buy this machine. Say for example if you buy a £200 DVD player, a lot of this price goes into all the "gimmicks". I dont know about you but I would rather spend my £200 on goes DVD playback! Even my Denon, which cost me £200, is all singing and dancing with SACD, DVDA etc. - stuff i'm not even bothered about. I'd much rather they ditched all the gimmicks and spent the money concentrating on the build quality of the machine, and of course the picture and sound.
But you cant have everything. I've tried looking for this kind of machine, but gave up. They're all at it. Which I why I went for a reasonably cheap model.
Don't get me wrong, I am happy with my Denon, it has excellent picture, good sound, and is nicely built.
The beauty of getting a fairly cheap DVD, is that if you would ever like to upgrade CD playback (which I often think about), you can pick a great CD player up for £100 these days. And a CD player worth £100 will outperform a £500 DVD player's sound quality! Because it concentrates on what it's supposed to do!
To be honest, whether you spend £100 or £300, you probably wont notice a great difference in picture quality - they're all good. Another thing which appeals about the Yamaha is it's 'lack' of SACD and DVDA. Therefore they have saved your money there. If you know what I mean??

I recently demo'd this new Yammy model on a Panasonic HD Plasma and its superb in many ways!! The picture quality from it is fantastic via component PS, colour depth is especially good, and I was also very suprised how good cd audio playback was on it, this must be due to the cd upsampling that it does maybe?!? Anyway its an awesome new player that beats some £500-800 players that I demo'd at the same time. Highly Recommended. Mines on order!!

Thank you for the feedback Wazy.

That's great news.

So I think I'll probably make my move, know!


AB

[MS-Yam]

Wazy, did you get chance to see what the S550 was like in terms of build quality and looks? Have you took delivery of the player yet? It's gotta be better than the Pioneer 575 from what I have read (and experienced from a previous Pioneer model).

[deman77]

MS-Yam

Very good point about useless features, which drive up the price. I think we should blame the AV Magazines and manufacturers marketing departments for this as they place a huge emphasis on SACD/DVDa copabilities, of course they fail to mention that you need a 150quid worth cables to use those functions and if you are buying 100quid player your speaker system will probably not show the improvement in CD palyback.
Completely wrong focus. Although it is much more appealing to the marketing department to spend 10mil on new technology and put it on the list of new features than spend the same money on improving the picture quality and just say 'improved picture quality'. Also it's very hard to achieve economies of scale if you concentrate on build quality, whereas with extra features it's very easy.

The manufacturers which understand what 'separates' means are very small and it takes them hundreds of pounds per unit more to deliver the improvements which are important, consequently they are very expensive.

Hello.

I purchased recently one Yamaha S550 and it produces some clicking noises reading CDs, specially burned ones.

[Wasabi]

Areadvd's big budget dvd master test is out - http://www.areadvd.de/hardware/dvd_mastertest.shtml

Winner is Pioneer DV-470, followed by Yamaha DVD-S550

Any of those should be excellent buys

Wasabi

Thanks Wasabi

It's a shame I don't know any German!


AB