Can anyone tell me if the new UK spec Panasonic DVD player is decent at "doing" progressive scan?

The top of the range US models get rave reviews, but the UK players are a totally different tech spec.

Can anyone comment on their picture quality?

Thanks for your time!

Does anyone here own one?

[mre15]

Got one being delivered tomorrow, I have read a few good reviews in this forum.

With component and ntsc progressive it is very cheap.

I bought from here http://www.digital-point.co.uk/

£134 delivered very cheap, for the spec level.

Do you know what kind of multi-region mod it is? Will it play RCE R1 disks?

Let me know what the prog scan performance is like, im itching for a decent prog scan player...

Cheers,

CC.

[Doll]

Here's a bump for you mate as I too am interested in hearing about this player.
It gets a glowing review in the new issue of What Video.

[avanzato]

I like mine.

Prog scan looks very good on my Z1 PJ and the mod on mine is fully RCE compatible (at least so far).

You can switch the De-interlace between Film and Video settings. Watching Children of Dune last night on video setting was smooth and colourful and I almost forgot that Steven Berkoff was in it.

I also find the Digital noise reduction features useful.

It was a little concerning with it not having PAL prog but I reasoned that £150 now was money well spent. In a years time if I want I can chop it in for a PAL prog player when they will be standard (and sorted out I hope) and it'll still cost no more than getting a HK or Philips player now.

I paid £159 so can you all stop finding it cheaper now

The Panasonic in question (multi-region too) can be had for £134 notes - including delivery from Digital Point.co.uk

[mre15]

I finally set mine up.
My only problem at present is that I find the interlaced output looking better than the progressive on some stuff.
Sounds excellent with music, and jpeg/ mp3 folder viewing is good.

Not sure what the problem with the interlaced vs progressive is yet, but there are so many digital noise settings that I probably have something set wrong, or my screen just doesnt like it all the time.

The matrix looks very grainy for example.

Other than that appears to be an excellent player.

[avanzato]

Interesting you pick the Matrix. I find that a very grainy film probably done deliberately.

I found that setting the 3D noise reduction to 2 or 3 smoothed out the grain.

When Neo is in his bosses office with the window cleaners. Look at the brown wall/door behind him as you change the setting.

Have you turned on prog scan in the Picture menu, you get to it by pressing 'display'. I missed that first time around. You can change the prog scan conversion method there too.

[mre15]

It was deliberate I chose the matrix for its grainy appearance.

I have had a play with the settings, and it is posibble to get the picture looking a lot better.

What settings are you using for all the different noise reduction/ dot crawl etc

And which method of ps are you using.

I did find the ps bit before but like you say, not in the easiest place to find. Enabling it in setup makes you think it is on.

[avanzato]

The settings I have are:

Depth enhancer 0
3D noise +2
Block noise +1
Mosquito +1

If you use the digital zoom to magnify the picture and pause it you can see the effect of the filters. Except for the 3D noise reduction which seems to need a moving picture.

My impressions were that depth removes dots from within larger areas of dark colours. 3D removes the fizzing pixel effect. Block noise is an anti-aliasing filter. Mosquito removes dots from around bright picture elements. Or that's how it looked to me.

I also upped the gamma setting because I'm using a Z1 PJ and wouldn't recommend doing that on a CRT.

Mainly I use the Auto 2 setting for Prog Scan and switch it to Video for something made for TV. Doesn't look to be a huge difference between them though.

Hope that helps

Basic question, does prog scan look good?

ie does it look better than non-prog scanned material?

[avanzato]

Originally posted by Captain chaos
Basic question, does prog scan look good?

ie does it look better than non-prog scanned material?

On my Z1 projector.

Yes it does.

I would not watch DVD's without prog scan on.

Have you got a local AV shop who is willing to give you a demo?

Actually im about to start work at my local John Lewis in their home cinema dept, so I may just ask them if I can hook up their A300 to the Panny 75 they have as their display units.

[lurcher]

Anyone help,
Trying to set up my S75 for ps but cant find how to do it in the picture menu as mentioned above. Have enabled in set up menu.
I can get into picture menu ok but it skips the video output mode (doin me head in )

[lurcher]

Ok,
Worked it out , I had to have the disc playing for the video output mode to access.

[Timh]

avanzato

In my Panasonic Magazine it states that the S75 has "NTSC output selectable" does this meen it can ouput pal discs as progressive NTSC? If so whats the picture quality like?

Cheers

[mre15]

No this is not the case. It has a selectable output for the ntsc disks you play either NTSC or PAL 60 but PAL will output as PAL.
Therefore NTSC progressive only.

Unless someone comes out with a firmware hack of course.

[Timh]

mre15

Cheers. I guess i will still have to wait for a decent cheap progressive pal player with no bugs