This is the third DVD player that I have owned. The first a Samsung, was purchased when most people said a DV what?. This player has brought back the excitement that I felt when I played my first disc, and found out how much better than video DVD was. At a bargain price too, I paid £39.99 from Richer Sounds.
The first thing that really hit me when I loaded up the first disc in the Sony was how sharp the picture was. I don't have a huge HD ready TV, just a 28" widescreen at the cheaper end of the market, but the picture looks very impressive. To me it looks like the contrast & sharpness are naturally set quite high but I must point out this is an assumption on my part. You can alter the picture quality using either 5 pre set options, or your own custom pre sets, altough there is only one available pre set for this, so you cannot save different settings for different DVD's. As far as I'm concerned this is no real problem.
The sound quality is acceptable, not exceptional. I live in a flat, so cannot really have the sound too high without really annoying the neighbours. You can play through the TV, and again, there is a selection of different settings for virtual sorround settings to make your 2 speaker tv sound like it has surround sound. To be honest it's not that effective. I have a seperate Dolby Digital surround system, which is considerably better, which is connected up by the digital coaxial jack in the back of the player. One good option for the built in sound options, is a night mode, which theoretically reduces loud sounds, without effecting quiter sounds, so you can hear what the actors are saying in quieter moments without waking up the neighbourhood when the loud explosions come.
Connectivity is fairly basic, there is one RGB scart socket or alternatively 3 pin audio, video output. In addition as mentioned earlier a coaxial audio output jack. There is no optical audio output, or S Video, so if these are important to you look elsewhere. At this point I will also mention that there are no audio or video cables supplied, so these will need to be purchased seperately.
There is a whole range of video and sound settings available, parental control, all accessed via the large remote control. Although the remote is large, there are a lot of buttons on it, which are on the small size, but I have had no problem with that. The up/down left/right buttons on the remote, do seem very sensitive, and a few times I have skipped past the chapter I wanted, and had to work back to it again, but that may be down to my clumsiness. Everything is well explained in the 70 page A5 size manual that comes with the product.
Finally this player has played all my DVD discs that I have tried so far faultlessly. My first player, a Samsung struggled with so many discs, that was why I got rid of it. The second, by Limit, was considerably better, but still sometimes took a couple of seconds when changing levels. No such problems what so ever with the Sony. One thing that may be important to some is that there is no DIV X compatability. Which may be a problem if you are trying to play items downloaded from the net. Personally this is not something I do, so doesn't bother me. It has played my home videos that I have recorded onto DVD-R without any problems though.
In conclusion, I am very happy with this DVD player, and would not hesitate to recomend it to anybody else who is looking for a quality product at a very reasonable price.
More details
Ease of Use
Average
Ease of Installation
Simple
Remote Control
Good Quality
Instructions
Very Helpful / Very Easy to Understand
Evaluate this review
How helpful would this review be to someone making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
