Harman Kardon harman/kardon DVD 22

Author's product rating:   

Picture Playback	Excellent
Sound Level	Excellent
Range of Features	Excellent
Durability	Satisfactory
Value for Money	Poor

Advantages:	looks fantastic, beautiful picture (depending on connection),
Disadvantages:	expensive, reliability problems with brand

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

Having owned a Harman Kardon DVD22 since June 2005 I think that I am well placed to write a review on the unit; but before I talk about the DVD22 I feel that I must give a little background and therefore must go back 1 year, when I had the DVD21 (by the same company). I bought the DVD21 as an ex-demo model in-store for £150.00, within 6 months I had returned the unit as it was making excessive noise when playing disks, the shop that I purchased from took the unit back and it went away for repair, when I received the unit back, the only thing that was left of the unit I purchased was the case, all the innards had been replaced, essentially it was an old case with a brand new interior. That unit lasted another 6 months before going wrong, this time the company swapped it out for the newer DVD22 (although I had to pay another £100).

So armed with my brand new (in 2005) DVD22 I was hoping for a long and happy life with a brand that is famed for its build quality.

### LOOKS ###

The Harman Kardon DVD22 is a very attractive looking DVD player; being Silver and Black with a small but bright neon blue power light on the left hand side (which turns orange when on standby) a central DVD Drawer and the display (which shows a counter) on the right hand side. The various DVD control buttons reside along the centre of the unit, on the border between the silver and the black colour coding on the unit. The colour scheme of the unit matches the AV Amps that Harman Kardon produce (of which I have the AVR7300)

### FUNCTIONS ###

Obviously being DVD player the unit will play DVDs, it is also a multi region player (after a firmware upgrade via CD by the guys in the shop at no charge) so will play any of the worlds DVD regions without any problems at all, it can also play DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW, CD, CD-R, CD-RW, VCD and S-VCD and therefore will accommodate pretty much every format that you are likely to ever need, although obviously the quality of the disks used may well affect playback.

### CONNECTIONS ###

As with anything of this nature, your picture is only going to be as good as the weakest link so using the best connection possible is a must. Also in the day and age that HD or High Definition is being stuffed down our throats I have to say that this DVD does not have a HDMI (High Definition) connection. But don't let that put you off. I will explain the connection type from BEST to WORST. These connections are for the video (picture) there are separate connections for audio.

Component: These are the Red, Green and Blue phono connection on the back of the unit. This is the best connection available in this unit and it is the way I connect my unit to my TV and I have to say that the picture is stunning; this again is down to the source material. IF you are for example playing a really old movie, where the picture has not been cleaned up then the picture will still look grainy, but put something like Toy Story, Finding Nemo etc and the picture is gorgeous. You may sometimes see them labelled as Y-Pb-Pr, but essentially each lead breaks the picture down into its respective colours, ie red, blue and green, and therefore by dedicating a cable per colour you get outstanding results.

RGB Scart: Again you will need a decent RGB Scart connector, before I purchased by component cables this is the way I connected my player, bear in mind that you may have to set the Scart to RGB Scart within the OSD (On Screen Display) (not all Scart leads are capable of RGB connections, so make sure that you get a RGB Scart should you wish to connect via this method) additionally if you TV has multiple Scart sockets, not all of them may accept an RGB signal so you need to do a little investigating.

These last connections I would avoid like the plague unless you have no other method (ie the ones above) of connecting the player.

S-Video: this lead basically split the video into 2 signals, therefore giving a slightly clearer picture than the connection worse than it, which is component, which is composite, the composite video connection is the yellow phono jack avoid this form of connection if humanly possible.

The connections above will put the picture on the screen, but what about audio. There are three methods of audio from this player. The best being the coaxial (orange phono) or the optical connection. I personally have gone for the coaxial connection, but I don't think there is much in it. The optical connection is literally a fibre optic and when you plug in the cable you can see a red light, it is this light that carries the signal. The other method is using the red and white audio options; again I would avoid these if possible.

A last point about connections is that you can spend silly money on them, but at the same time, if you buy really cheap then you will get that level of picture in return, my component connection cost £35 for a 1 metre cable and the SCART was £30

### OTHER ###

The player will play back MP3 and WMA audio disks.

You can get simultaneous playback of MP3 and JPEG (pictures) which would be good for photo albums with accompanying music.

Extensive on screen menu that allows you to set up all aspects of the machine (I will go into more details about this next).

### ON SCREEN DISPLAY (OSD) ###

The on screen display provides a lot of information, you can pull it up on the screen by pressing the OSD button on the remote control, I will list all the features, but explain only those which are not obvious.

When pressing OSD you get a screen with 2 options at the top, player and set-up, then down the left you have 4 square buttons, system, audio, video and video (yes video is there twice)
Player:

The player menu gives you a host of information about the disk that is playing at the moment, it will show you the name of the film, the audio type (ie 5.1 Dolby Digital), Playlist, Repeat, random and subtitle, it also shows the chapters, you can also check out the bit rate of the audio and the video, basically it contains a lot of information that the average viewer has little interest in.

### System: ###

Display language
Preferred subtitle language
Panel time-out (this is the time out for the panel on the front of the player)
Parental Control
PBC support - (this is for controlling VCD playback)
Screen Save
Show angle icon - (when scenes in DVDs are film in different angles)

### Audio Settings:###

Preferred audio language
Digital output - (keep at original unless your system only supports stereo or pro-logic)
PCM limit - not sure what this does, I've left it at none
Dynamic Range - leave as maximum

### Video Settings: ###

Aspect Ratio - (widescreen TV is 16.9, conventional square TVs are 4.3)
TV Standard - PAL (UK), NTSC (US) and Secam (French) or auto (which I leave mine on)
Scan Type - if tyou r TV is capable of progressive scan, use that (its better than Interlaced)
Video Output - Scart or Component - Mine is component, but if you don't have that option then your will forced to use Scart.
Scart Output - If you RGB using SCART, make sure this is RGB

### Video Adjustment: ###

This allows you to get to the test screen and alter brightness etc from the DVD level, I personally use a special DVD to set contrast and brightness levels, but you can do it here if you so wish.

### TECHNICAL INFORMATION ###

I won't bore you with oodles of tech information, the dimensions are below, the other tech stuff you can get by following the link, if that link ever expires let me know and ill write it up.

(Width-Height-Depth) - 440 x 49 x 330 mm
The Harmon Kardon website is: http://www.harmankardon.com/ this can be used to find out the contact details too, although it all seems to be US centric
Specifications for the DVD22 can be found by going to http://www.harmankardon.com/product_support/interstitial.aspx?Modeltype=her itage&sjump=&pagenumber=2&Region=EUROPE&Country=GB&Language=ENG&cat=DVD&sty pe=H and choosing DVD22 from the product finder (it is in the bottom of the two links)

### OVERALL ###

There is no doubt about it, the DVD22 is a premium DVD player, especially in terms of cost, even now 2 years after I bought it the cheapest I've seen it online is £190 ish, and Harman Kardon don't even make it anymore. When connected via the component connections it give and beautiful picture and with my audio going through my Harman Kardon AMP I am more than pleased with the sound. But, and it is a big but.

I had problems with the previous model, 2 problems in fact and although that is the previous model it make me rethink whether Harman Kardon was the premium brand that I thought it was, especially with all the AMP problems I've had, (but that is another review), and now ive started getting a few problems with this player, lately I have had to remove the power plug from the wall and plug it back in for the player to turn on, if I don't the light are on but nothing happens. Also whoever designed the remote control was an idiot, sure the remote is backlit, but there is no text on the buttons, the text is on the plastic unit, which means you cannot read what the buttons do when it is dark.

So would I recommend it, No I don't think I would, it looks great, the picture is fantastic, the audio (through my amp) is sublime, but at £190+ with 3 problems (albeit 2 on the previous model) and a lousy design on the remote I would say that there is better out there for the money, I'm only keeping it because it matches my AMP design. But I do have to say that the technical guys at Harman Kardon bent over backwards to try and make me happy with both this unit and the AMP when I was having problems. You can also get a new player the DVD 27 for £150 or less.

I would give 2.5 stars, for average.

This review is also posted on Dooyoo under stevepeto, this review is made up of my own personal experience with the player