cannot find a review of the 405 anywhere. only costing me about £10 more than the 305 at techtronics. Anyone come across one somewhere ?

405 has extra connectivity at the back
but also has " Digital video enhancer " which he 305 does not. any idea what this is?

[simon1]

At the end of the day, I'd just get the 405 when its only a tenner more. I think the user manual included with either player covers both models - It always annoys the hell out of me to read a user manual which tells you about features that aren't included on your machine.

The 'Digital Video Enhancer' sharpens the edges of images, it has 2 or 3 settings I think.

is this picture enhancement on the dvd player something i can use to enhance my cable and video if i patch them to the tv VIA the DVD ?

[simon1]

No, afraid not.

The feature did seem worth having though, according to a review on an older Sony model that had it.

PS I personally would not buy a chipped version of this player. You can buy the player multi region without it having been chipped. The retailer use their own remote hack, which of course means that the unit's never been opened up and soldered. This will also allow you to use Sony's warranty. Chipped, and you would invalidate said warranty and have to rely on the retailer solely. May be OK, maybe not!

I was not keen on buying a player this way. Plus, you will find you're paying less for the multi-region player un-chipped.

I recently got my Sony DVP NS700 player from www.hifibitz.co.uk
which was multi-regioned this way. They do the 405 as well. Infact, I was going to buy that, but got fed up of waiting as it was a new model.

Hope this helps

Well I bought the NS400 because of it's extra features over the NS300. So presumably the same would be true of the 305 & 405, with the 405 being the more feature packed. For an extra tenna' I'd definately opt for the 405, as the 400 is excellent, so the 405 can only improve on an already great platform.

has anyone seen a review of the 405 anywhere though ?

[simon1]

No, not yet - it has only 'just' become available!

Give it a few months.

[Enfen]

Originally posted by max101
cannot find a review of the 405 anywhere. only costing me about £10 more than the 305 at techtronics. Anyone come across one somewhere ?

405 has extra connectivity at the back
but also has " Digital video enhancer " which he 305 does not. any idea what this is?

I just bought the NS405 last wednesday.

For now, all I can say is that I love it

The picture quality is very good. If you dont like it, you can always tweak the appearence of the picture, using the settings in the menu.

Another good thing about the NS405 is that it supports mp3.

One of the things, that got me to buy the NS405 over the NS305, was the extra optical digital connector, instead of just a coaxial digital connector.

[Simon Batchelor]

Simon1 - Do you know all of hifibitz multiregion players are 'handset hacked' in this way?

[simon1]

Simon Batchelor

Yes, HifiBitz make all their Sony players multi region this way. In addition, I was told by them it came with their local Sony rep's blessing.

Someone else told me that when the multi region is carried out this way on these players, it even displays a "Congratulations" message onscreen. Obviously, the players have been deliberately designed for this to be done!

it actually displays "Success" the same as when you use the upgrade remote to upgrade your own NS305 or 405 from dvdchips.co.uk

[devastator]

Try..

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...934802-5765429

Go for the 405...it has all features of the 305 plus the following extras:
S-Video Connector, 6 disc resume, optical out, digital video enhancer.

For an extra £10-20...you know which is the right one to go for.

[Simon Batchelor]

Cheers Simon1. have gone for a Sony NS405 with them (dunno if they are in stock yet, my order status hasn't been updated. I have a proline 1000 to (just about) keep me going even if it isn't!)

Incidently this months What Video & TV (august 2002, uk) has a single page 'budget dvd player review ' including the 405 - which came top of the test (against samsung s224, toshiba sd120e, jvc vx-s302, sanyo sl20 and a cyberhome ch-dvd 302)

I've got a 405 coming in a couple of days - do you guys that have the multi region remote hack know if it plays RCE discs??

I'm gonna use the hack here:
http://www.vcdhelp.com/dvdhacks.php?...405&DVDselect=

with a Palm Pilot.

I'm worried that it may then not allow me to play some region 2's that are RCE and the hack is irreversible.

[Enfen]

Works fine with RCE encoded movies.

Cheers, enfen, I'll go for it then.

MadManAxe, let us know if the hack worked.
I got mine 405 for Xmas, no complains at all,
except it's not multi-regions.
ta.

[shoestring25]

does the 305 or the 405 have any problems playing discs with seamless braching? as many of the cheaper brands of dvd player skip sctions of the film with such discs as the matrix.

cheers

No problems at all with seamless branching on the NS-300 so I doubt there will be any with the 305 or 405. I have tried quite a few of them, including the tricky Robocop one that seemed to give quite a few people some trouble (it isn't really seamless anyway as there's an ever so slight pause when it branches) and T2, and they've all played perfectly. When mastered well, seamless branching really is seamless (e.g. with T2, you cannot detect the branches at all).

BTW, the Matrix isn't seamless branching; just let's you jump about between 'making of' and actual movie - regular branching. That one also works fine too