Panasonic DVD-S33

...If that player is the Panasonic S-33, then the answer is yes. Barring the HD formats above and SACD, it will play just about any format you throw at it. Its DivX playback is probably one of the reason you are reading this. Of course, you can get most of these playback features with a cheapo, low-quality player, but read on...

The DVD picture quality on a standard TV is, quite simply, stunning for a DVD player at any price. However, ...
...sister product the S-53, so this player is perhaps not the first choice if you have an HD TV. But on my CRT telly, the picture is above broadcast quality in my view, with no visible compression artifacts or edge effects at all, even on fade-ins/outs where you would normally see a certain degree of posterisation/dithering with other players.

The audio output is clean, sharp, and pretty noiseless; orchestral music is particularly well ... more

With the plethora of DVD recorders out there, and now the availability of Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, does it still make sense to buy a plain old DVD player?

If that player is the Panasonic S-33, then the answer is yes. Barring the HD formats above and SACD, it will play just about any format you throw at it. Its DivX playback is probably one of the reason you are reading this. Of course, you can get most of these playback features with a cheapo, low-quality player, but read on...

The DVD picture quality on a standard TV is, quite simply, stunning for a DVD player at any price. However, it lacks the HDMI output and upscaling of of its sister product the S-53, so this player is perhaps not the first choice if you have an HD TV. But on my CRT telly, the picture is above broadcast quality in my view, with no visible compression artifacts or edge effects at all, even on fade-ins/outs where you would normally see a certain degree of posterisation/dithering with other players.

The audio output is clean, sharp, and pretty noiseless; orchestral music is particularly well served here (Alien and Bladerunner - useful benchmark films in my view - sound and look incredible on this player).

The intuitive remote provides access to a plethora of output options: you can set aspect ratio; tune the output for CRT, LCD, plasma or projection TVs; video, S-video or RGB modes; set interlace or progressive scan.

Audio output is well catered for too, you can set PCM sample rate; and independently set bitstream or PCM encoding for Dolby, DTS and MPEG.

While playing a disc, you can further optimise video output for animation (this works a treat), soft-skin (good perhaps for, ahem, adult movies), dynamic (high contrast), and 2 cinema emulation modes (tends to give the image a slightly darker, more analog feel).

If you just a simple stereo setup, you can emulate surround sound with 3 virtual surround modes. There's also useful dialog enhancer function, but this tends to add too much compression overall, and can make the audio little harsh when background music is playing.

The package is completed by a well-organised manual that explains all these options in reasonable detail.

Of course, you also want to know if the S-33 can be coaxed into playing Region 1 discs. The bad news is that there are no easy remote-control hacks for this player; however a company called DVD Chips do a multi-region 'upgrade', which I have used myself and can thoroughly recommend. 

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