Critique my Future Set-Up

[teddymeow]

The Sony W2000 is an amesome TV! I have the 46" and I'm so glad I bought it for all of it's 1080p loveliness

DVD Player wise I have a Samsung HD-850 which upscales via HDMI to 1080i. Nice player if prone to tempremental bouts of forgetting where I was in a film when I stop the disc to do something else. Every other player I've had has managed to remember, even after the power has been switched off.

[Paradigm]

The 360 HD DVD player is crap, avoid like the plague. Buy a Toshiba HD EP-30 (£199 from Amazon and with 7 free movies).

[Lyris]

What didn't you like about the 360 player, Paradigm? I use one as my main HD DVD player (through a 360 Elite).

[Gruce]

A Toshiba HD Player would be a good option if the thing played multi region DVDs. I have read about a hack on google buy everywhere seems to be saying no hack exists.

It would save money aswell getting it all in one package. Plus I have an elite and don't fancy a white drive/media remote.

Payday this Friday so better keep searching.

[rossman]

sorry to slightly derail this thread but I was looking to buy an oppo and wondered what the difference between the 980h and the 981hd is. I've checked out the comparison on the site and their are a few changes but which one is better?

I'd assumed the 981hd was the one to go for...

If you're not willing to spend about 130-150 pounds on a progressive scan/upscaling DVD player, then there's really no point in buying one at all unless all you plan to watch is NTSC movies. The cheaper ones don't do a better job than the TV's own internal processing and don't lock onto the PAL 2:2 cadence properly, so in other words, movement looks jaggy when it shouldn't - just like it probably would if you connected directly to the TV.

OppoShop (the European Oppo branch) have sent me their latest player (the DV-980H) and they're in the process of implementing the bug fixes and corrections I mentioned to them. I'll keep you posted on how that works out - if they can fix the last few issues then it'll be a total must have. It should come in at around ?130.

[djjimbob]

As mentioned above, the Sony KDL-W series are fantastic. And the 40" is reasonable money given that there are always new models round the corner.

Don't know about the 5.1 kit. Demo first or you may be disappointed.

DVD Player. I love it when people spend close to a grand on a TV, then marry it with the worst, cheapest upscaling DVD player. Why don't people pay more attention to their DVD players! It's like buying an Audi, then sticking a Skoda body kit on it.

Cheapo DVD players have the following problems:

Poor Build Quality
****ty Remote Control
Poor connectivity
Slow read times for JPGs / MP3s
Crap software
Some are unable to process branching in DVDs. Try watching the Alien boxset!
All sorts of picture artefacts, blocking, smearing, tearing, juddering.

If I was you I'd go for a decent Pioneer, Toshiba, or if you are flush a Denon.

www.hificonfidential.co.uk have a good range.

[Lyris]

Cheapo DVD players have the following problems:

Poor Build Quality
****ty Remote Control
Poor connectivity
Slow read times for JPGs / MP3s
Crap software
Some are unable to process branching in DVDs. Try watching the Alien boxset!
All sorts of picture artefacts, blocking, smearing, tearing, juddering.

And almost always:
* Lack of 2:2 pulldown detection to get the maximum resolution and smooth movement from PAL DVDs (that goes for a LOT of DVD players sold in Europe sadly).

[Gruce]

Oh you guys are gonna hate me, changed my mind again.

Went to some local Hifi shops (Richer Sounds and Super Hifi) and now have a new plan on what to buy.

The DVD Player I will get is a Marantz upscaling model, didn't get the number but its about ?109 and is ment to be pretty nice, will get them to demo it on Payday though, looked really really nice.

At home I have a Marantz Amp already, about 3 years old. I decided the Amp would look great with the DVD Player so am now looking for a decent set of speakers to pair with my old Amp. Works out cheaper for me aswell

Will still be buying the Tosh HD Player, only concern is that the Amp only has one fibre optic in, I will need to check. I can connect the DVD player with a coaxial, the HD Player and the 360 will have to go into a switch then to the amp, bit annoying but ah well.

I saw a few sets of speakers in the stores but they were either too ugly or too pricey. They got some alright ones in Richer Sounds but I dunno, I will place a wanted ad on AV Forums maybe get a good deal there.

Will let you know whats going on soon, and pics when it's all done.

[Paradigm]

What didn't you like about the 360 player, Paradigm? I use one as my main HD DVD player (through a 360 Elite).

Slow, noisy, awful build quality, doesn't play all discs (throws up random errors and flat-out refuses to play movies - and I've seen it on multiple machines).

It's cheap for a reason: because it's a cut-down unit. A standalone HD DVD player pisses all over it, especially the new Toshibas.

The Toshiba players upscale quite well I hear, wouldn't spend ?109 on an upscaling DVD player unless you thought you really wanted it after viewing the EP30's performance.

[Gruce]

Well I think the Toshiba will be fine for my Region 2 movies and all HD's but it isn't a multi-region DVD player so I will need to buy a seperate DVD player that is multi-region, the player is nice though, plays Divx and all that stuff, not sure if the Toshiba HD does, haven't really looked.

[Lyris]

Slow, noisy, awful build quality, doesn't play all discs (throws up random errors and flat-out refuses to play movies - and I've seen it on multiple machines).

It's cheap for a reason: because it's a cut-down unit. A standalone HD DVD player pisses all over it, especially the new Toshibas.

Yeah, it's noisy and a little cheap-feeling all right. But out of the 50-60 HD DVDs I have sitting here, it's played all of them - I remember hearing about problems with some Weinstein titles though.

The drive itself is actually the same one they use in some HD DVD players, I believe. Not had a chance to try any of the new HD DVD standalone players... but I hope they've improved the SD DVD playback since the HD-E1.

[Paradigm]

My unit refused to play World Trade Center (halfway through and threw a fit), my friend's got 8/10ths of the way through Miami Vice and, again, had a fit. Yet Miami Vice worked perfectly on mine, I watched it about 5 times. Discs were perfect. Plain shonky as far as I'm concerned and I was shocked at how noisy it was. Totally ambience ruining as far as I'm concerned.

[kuro]

instead of the 40m go for the 40f8 range, its the only lcd that i would ever choose over a plasma.has 100hz which can be turned off on whenever, and produces the most lively pic ive seen even over a pio lx508

The Samsung is not even in the same league as the pioneer. The 96 range with the LED back lighting is better than the 40f8 and thats not even in the same league. The black levels may be good but you lose all the details in the dark area, and you get something which is known as black crush.