I have just about settled on a Denon 3910 (region free), but I have lingering doubts about its ability to play anything other than disks in perfect condition. I have these doubts because a friend of mine owns a 3910, and he says it's, quote, "finicky". A lot of the DVDs I watch are from NetFlix, and some are pretty scratched up when I get them. Fingerprints I can clean off, but not scratches.

Also, I watch a lot of CD-Rs that my brother is kind enough to record for me (I have no possibility of cable, and can't get to satellite because I live on the wrong side of a mountain). They aren't the best recordings, and my current player (which is admittedly a cheap piece of junk) has trouble with them. I have concerns about the 3910 being able to handle them as well.

What experiences have others had with players being forgiving about scratches, fingerprints, home recordings, etc.? And do any of those players rival the 3910 in terms of features (great video, DVD-Audio, bass management, analog out, etc. etc. etc.), and can they be gotten region-free?

I appreciate any and all help you can give on this!

[nutrut]

hi,

I own a 2910 which is similar in many respects to the 3910. I have had few problems, but i must admit sometimes due to irregularitys on a disc it does sometimes have problems if the disc is not 'perfect' .No problems playing so far dvdr it plays them all fine. Check out the post about kingdom of heaven , my yamada divx player which plays anything i chuck in it played this no problem but the denon just wouldn't bite.

[Kenmilton]

See my posting about the Denon DVD-A1XV. However, my DVD -A1 played everything I threw at it. Of course, they are pricy machines...

[Nic Rhodes]

The cheapest chinese players are the most tolerant, the worst I have seen is a Tag DVD32R!! But it did exactly what it said on the box and played discs to spec, unforunately many discs were not to spec including the first one I ever tried in it!!

[sparkz]

I haven't got a 3910 but a failing 3900. Even when it was new though it was very temperamental. Mostly with my kids R1 Disney discs but with others as well. If I persisted I could usually get them to play but it took a while.

The player's virtually on it's way out now so I don't know if the problems I have now are related.

The thing that used to annoy me was my brother in law who bought my old Arcam has never had any problems! Unless he's just trying to wind me up!

[Jules]

Having owned 8 DVD players from various brands, my opinion is that if you want a decent brand that plays anything, get a Pioneer.

Pioneer DVD players are rights tarts... they never say no!... even with the cheapest nastiest DVD-R burnt on poor burners.

My previous Pioneer 737 was amazing.... why did I sell it?! I have discs that won't play in my Denon DVDA1 that would play no problem on the Pioneer.
My brothers Pioneer is amazing too (not sure which model).
Even my mates recently acquired Pioneer 575 (£99!) appears to be refused to be beaten with anything.

Why a £2500 player can't do what a player 1/10th of its price CAN do is a mystery to me.

I've also owned a few Panasonics and a chinese cheapy from Asda (Pacific)

Of the brands I've owned, I rate them as follows for 'play anything'- ness:

1) Pioneer
2) Pacific (or other chinese cheapy)
3) Panasonic
4) Denon

[stevedster]

Pioneer 575 is a good player, plus it will play just about anything you throw into it (inc divx). at only £100 its a bargain IMO.

[Parmenion62]

I have had problems playing some music DVDs and several DVDA and SACD discs on the pioneer 575A. I e-mailed pioneer about this - they say their new firmware wouldnt fix it - it only adds DivX playback. This is a known issue with this player if you search the net you will find other people have had the same problems. I will be buying the denon 1920 - seems like a good player. Has anyone had problems playing anything on the 1920?

[PJTX100]

Every DVD, CD, SACD, DVD-A, and hybrid burnt piece of junk I've got plays OK in my Pioneer 575...PJ

[Parmenion62]

What firmware are you using? Mine is 1.7 - I have tried upgrading it - but guess what it wont play the disc!

I'm from the United States. Is the Pioneer 575 known by some other model number here? Also, I looked at Pioneers today after all of the raves about them in this thread, but they seem to fall into two categories: high-end versions that don't do PAL -> NTSC, and cheap ones that do. That seems weird. Does anybody know why that is the case? Also, does anybody know of a high-end Pioneer that does do PAL -> NTSC, isn't finicky, and is (or can be made to be) region free?

[AndrewB]

Don't get a Sony (not a cheap one anyway). My experience has been that these are really fussy about playing DVDs with scratches or fingerprint marks.

[Knyght_byte]

hmm...my 3910 doesnt seem to mind manky discs....altho obviously i try not to get my own discs manky...lol

my Ariston was the best for that tho, hell, that would read something with so many scratches it looked like a piece of modern art...lol

I really appreciate everybody's help with this. I have been looking at Pioneer players. This one (http://www.jvb.nl/jvb.asp?cur=1&leve...itle&title=206) doesn't do onboard PAL -> NTSC conversion, but a DVDO scaler can do that for me instead. Does anybody know if this player would be a good choice for reading sub-standard disks?

[Tony8377]

Why do you need to convert to NTSC that's just likely to introduce jitter, most TV's, LCD, Plasma will play PAL these days even in the US.

That doesn't make sense to me. My understanding is that a display device has a single native resolution. If it is optimal for NTSC, it won't display PAL as well, and vice-versa. There will always be a compromise. The compromise can be accepted in the player, or a scaler, or in a display device, but it has to happen somewhere.

I don't understand the previous post. My understanding is that displays (except for CRTs) have a single native resolution, because they have a fixed number of cells. Unless the source exactly matches the display's native resolution, scaling is performed. It can be performed in the source, a separate scaler, or the display, but it must be performed. So unless I have a display with a native resolution of PAL, then I have to convert PAL to NTSC somewhere. It's always a compromise, and the compromise has to be accepted somewhere in the chain.

[Tony8377]

Originally Posted by tetragon4000

I don't understand the previous post. My understanding is that displays (except for CRTs) have a single native resolution, because they have a fixed number of cells. Unless the source exactly matches the display's native resolution, scaling is performed. It can be performed in the source, a separate scaler, or the display, but it must be performed. So unless I have a display with a native resolution of PAL, then I have to convert PAL to NTSC somewhere. It's always a compromise, and the compromise has to be accepted somewhere in the chain.

Whilst I will attempt to respond this area cetainly isn't my forte. Standard NTSC is 525 lines @ 50 htz. Pal is 526 @ 60 htz (they're something like this, the exact numbers are irrelevant). A standard plasma will be 852 lines whilst a hi-def will be 1024. So either PAL and NTSC don't match the displays native resolution and will have to be scaled to 852 or 1024 lines. The main thing here is that they can accept both 50 & 60hz signals. If you convert PAL to NTSC because the refresh rate (50/60) is different you can introduce stutter (where the background doesn't move smothly) into the picture where if you keep the native format (PAL or NTSC) all the display has to do is convert the number of lines.

Basically, if you buy a dvd player that converts the format to NTSC you are not helping out the display as it introduces a further stage in the process but the display still has to scale the image.

If you need a better explanation post in the scaler forum as they know what they are talking about in there

Thank you very much--I did not know that. That's very useful information to have, and it increases flexibility in what players I can think of getting (because my TV will accept NTSC and PAL).