Andy.T
Active Member
I, like so many others of you on here am in the market for a PAL Prog Scan DVD player. I feel the urge to spend some money and wanted to clarify a bunch of stuff with you guys first.
I have been researching the following players (in no particular order)...
Arcam DV88+
Denon 3800
Denon 2800 Mk II
Harmon Kardon DVD-25
Toshiba SD-900
Sony DVP-999ES
Firstly, are all those machines true PAL-PS, or are any of them converting to NTSC and doing it that way? The Tosh?
Am I right in thinking that out of the players I've listed the only one originally designed with PAL PS in mind is the Arcam? All the others have firmware or hacks applied after manufacture to enable PAL PS?
What concerns me about this is, is it a bit of a bodge job? Arcam have actually sat down with Macrovision and done it properly and thought about adding things like audio delay to compensate for the extra processing time etc. The other manufacturers are not really working to any kind of agreed standard?
I have read a lot of conflicting things about the Denon's, different firmware versions seem to bring different problems and it all seems rather pot luck what you get. So they are not really grabbing me.
The Sony isn't here yet and we still don't know it will be PAL PS out of the box. Reading reviews over at AVS they seem to say it is ok but quite cheaply built.
Other than price, there doesn't seem much wrong with the Arcam, my only concern is that it is perhaps a little over the top for my modest Panny projector. Will I be paying extra for performance I won't see when compared to one of the other cheaper players? What do you guys think?
I feel myself leaning towards the Arcam, so has anyone seen the DV88+ cheaper than £999 anywhere? I may go and audition one this afternoon, but I don't know what projector they will use.
Any comments or pointers would be greatly appreciated, but please be constructive if I have misunderstood anything.
I have been researching the following players (in no particular order)...
Arcam DV88+
Denon 3800
Denon 2800 Mk II
Harmon Kardon DVD-25
Toshiba SD-900
Sony DVP-999ES
Firstly, are all those machines true PAL-PS, or are any of them converting to NTSC and doing it that way? The Tosh?
Am I right in thinking that out of the players I've listed the only one originally designed with PAL PS in mind is the Arcam? All the others have firmware or hacks applied after manufacture to enable PAL PS?
What concerns me about this is, is it a bit of a bodge job? Arcam have actually sat down with Macrovision and done it properly and thought about adding things like audio delay to compensate for the extra processing time etc. The other manufacturers are not really working to any kind of agreed standard?
I have read a lot of conflicting things about the Denon's, different firmware versions seem to bring different problems and it all seems rather pot luck what you get. So they are not really grabbing me.
The Sony isn't here yet and we still don't know it will be PAL PS out of the box. Reading reviews over at AVS they seem to say it is ok but quite cheaply built.
Other than price, there doesn't seem much wrong with the Arcam, my only concern is that it is perhaps a little over the top for my modest Panny projector. Will I be paying extra for performance I won't see when compared to one of the other cheaper players? What do you guys think?
I feel myself leaning towards the Arcam, so has anyone seen the DV88+ cheaper than £999 anywhere? I may go and audition one this afternoon, but I don't know what projector they will use.
Any comments or pointers would be greatly appreciated, but please be constructive if I have misunderstood anything.