Layer Changes

[quarry2006]

I've recently replaced my five-year old Toshiba SD-220E with a Hitachi DV-P745E, simply because the Tosh had stopped playing multi-region discs and I couldn't get hold of a hack.

What a mistake-a-da-make-a!

I've never bought Hitachi before and the purchase was purely based on cheapness (never a good reason to buy something, especially in the area of home cinema). There were no reviews of the Hitachi model on these boards (again, a warning sign I should have heeded) but I went ahead anyway as Richer's had the model for sixty notes.

Compared to the much older Toshiba model it's very average in terms of spec but the one area which has really irked me is in dual layer changing.

When the layer changes on this player, you've got time to get up, make a cup of tea and phone at least four friends to tell them how cr*p your new DVD player is.

Revenge Of The Sith, where my SD220-E glanced over the layer change without a moment's pause (in fact, I had to ask around about where the layer change was on that film, because I just could never see it with the Toshiba), has a very noticeable layer change with the DV-P745E. Very disappointing.

Now, I know that, like death and taxes, layer changes are just something that we have to put up with on DVDs but I think that, like response times on LCD tvs, we should really be told on the advertised spec how well a player can handle them. It's astonishing that in this area a player that is at least five years old can outperform a more recent model.

Therefore, is it simply a question of make rather than the player? Is Toshiba just generally better in this than Hitachi?

What make is considered to be the best where layer change is concerned?

[quarry2006]

Bump.

Anyone know anything about layer changes?!

[Tokoloshe]

My Denon 1930 has the most pronounced layer change of any anything I've owned

It's running via 10m hdmi cable to a Pj. I assumed it was just one of those unfortunate things to put up with using that length and type of connection. Only spotted it once, very briefly, on hddvd with the same length of component leads

It certainly was unexpected at first , but I've almost got used to it now.

Toko

[FuzzyJJ]

I am definitely not an expert on this, but my guess is that the only way a DVD player can "hide" the layer change is by reading ahead and buffering data. And if that is true then the players with more memory (up to a certain amount of course) will probably do a better job hiding the layer change than players with less or no memory. I have a Sony DVP-NS305 and it is awful when changing layers. I am planning to buy the Denon DP-2930 which has 8 MB of memory to do the layer change....I think that's sufficient ...if even a €900 dvd player can't handle layer changes.....but you can probably calculate from the bit rate of a DVD film and the memory size in the player how much seconds of buffer the player has available.

In this thread on HT forums it shows that for example the Xbox and the Denon 3800 do not show the layer change when playing. It's probably a matter of price: higher pricing allows the manufacturer to put these features in.

The Denon 1930 has 2 MB of buffer memory and apparently that's not sufficient according to Tokoloshe's post.

[quarry2006]

Thanks for that. So, really, when checking the spec of a player before buying, I need to look at the player's memory (if, indeed, it has one).

Somewhat naively, I presumed that the newer the player, the better it would be at handling the layer change.

Also, I think when you find a brand you're happy with, the trick is to stay with that brand. I don't believe I've ever owned anything by Hitachi before - although, obviously, I'm aware of the name - and I definitley won't be owning anything by them again.