Sony Dvpns76h

[Submariner1503559614]

Decided to order the newly released Sony DVPNS76H DVD player at Good Guys. Asked them if they could order it in and next thing I know I get asked if I would buy it for $209 (retail $249), I said yes. Hopefully it will arrive later in the week and I will post impressions then.

Seems to be a popular, inexpensive player over here:

http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread....247&page=37

HDMI Output

720p/1080i Upscaling

DVD / CD / VCD Playback

DivX Playback

Precision Drive 3

Twin laser Pick-up

Dynamic Tilt Compensation

Precision Cinema Progressive

12bit/108MHz Video DAC

Video Equalizer

Custom Picture Mode

High Speed Search

Instant Replay

Instant Advance

192kHz/24bit Digital Output

DD DTS 5.1ch Output

Digital Cinema Surround

Multi Channel Surround

Individual Speaker Setting

Background Graphics

Child Lock (Tray Lock)

Custom Parental Control (40 Disc)

Quick Set-up

Multi Disc Resume (40Disc)

Title/Chapter Viewer

Playback Memory (40Disc)

Media Compatibility

DIVX: Yes

MP3: Yes

JPEG: Yes

CD-R/RW: Yes

DVD+R/RW: Yes

DVD-RW/R (Video mode): Yes

DVD-RW (VR Mode): Yes

Interfaces

HDMI Output: x 1

Composite Video Output: x 1

S-Video Output: x 1

Component Video Output: x 1

SCART: x 1

Analogue Audio 2ch Output: x 1

Coaxial Digital Output: x 1

Digital Optical Output: x 1

Analogue Audio 5.1ch Output: x 1

http://www.sony.com.au/homecinema/catalog/...tegoryId=22814#

[Alfred Smee]

Submariner don't take this personally, but despite this sub-forum being called "Reviews Of Products", posts like this one above continue to appear. I'm becoming a little annoyed over this. This is obvioulsy not a review. C'mon guys can we please stick to the forum subject.

I look forward to the real review.

[Submariner1503559614]

Submariner don't take this personally, but despite this sub-forum being called "Reviews Of Products", posts like this one above continue to appear. I'm becoming a little annoyed over this. This is obvioulsy not a review. C'mon guys can we please stick to the forum subject.

I look forward to the real review.

Take it easy, no need to be annoyed. This is a preview, while I await delivery and I did point out I would give a review, when I received the unit. The Sony is a new release in Australia and I would have to have a pre-release unit to give a real review. Many professional sites and magazines have previews before their review. Unlike professiional reviews, any review done here is not done to receive any rewards, only to share information with others that have a similar interest. Do you realise that posts like this make people want to forget posting any review here and leave it to someone else, nothing personal.

BTW nice review:

Oppo Dv971h - New Firmware Release Today

For latest firmware please visit: here

http://www.dtvforum.info/index.php?showtopic=39328

Happy Halloween :ph34r:

[Alfred Smee]

Take it easy, no need to be annoyed. This is a preview, while I await delivery and I did point out I would give a review, when I received the unit. The Sony is a new release in Australia and I would have to have a pre-release unit to give a real review. Many professional sites and magazines have previews before their review. Unlike professiional reviews, any review done here is not done to receive any rewards, only to share information with others that have a similar interest. Do you realise that posts like this make people want to forget posting any review here and leave it to someone else, nothing personal.

BTW nice review:

http://www.dtvforum.info/index.php?showtopic=39328

Happy Halloween :ph34r:

I believe this matter has been brought up recently and since that time I have adhered to the policy suggested.

[spoco2]

I have just stumbled across this player on my search for a nice, cheap, progressive scan HDMI (upscaling really optional but nice) player.

Have you got yours yet? Anyone else got one, what price?

I'm seriously considering this one now after previously looking at the Samsung HD860, the Panasonic s97 (yeah, like I can find one anywhere), the Panasonic s52 and a couple of others.

If this performs as well as it would seem to, I'm in!

[Submariner1503559614]

The Sony NS76H DVD player, initial impressions.

The Sony box has been opened by Sony Australia and taped up again.The tape is marked:

This product has been opened by Sony Australia Quality Assurance

I thought, did they open it to set the player to region free? There is a Region 4 sticker covering the originally printed R2 on the cardboard box. Once the box was opened, I immediately noticed the power plug had been changed to an Australian 3-pin, see through, plug. The Earth pin on the plug was not connected. This is without doubt, a modified Region 2 Sony player.

The Sony NS76H DVD player comes with the standard 1 year warranty. I cannot see too many people opting for the 4 year warranty that costs another $145. With high definition players starting to appear on the market and the warranty costing as much as another brand new DVD player, it is hardly worth purchasing the 4 year warranty.

I better mention that the drive mechanism is slightly noisier than my old Sony 730p DVD player, when ejecting discs. During DVD playback, I did not notice any stand out noises. Compared to my 730p, the NS76H is slightly slower to read discs, probably because it can play more types of disc. Layer change is a lot faster, I have only noticed the briefest of pauses so far.

The remote looks trendy and at first I thought the the small buttons would be hard to operate with my large stubby fingers. I was wrong. The buttons have a nice feel to them and are quite responsive. The buttons on the Sony remote are well layed out and there is plenty of space between the buttons. Sony use the same remote codes and that meant I did not have to put new codes in my MX-500 learning remote.

It was a little worrying to read in the manual, under "Examples of discs that the player cannot play," that it could not play a DVD with a different region code. I put that down to it being the the region 2 manual and moved on. First disc I tried was a region 1 disc and it played it without a problem. It is region free out of the box. Sony might have modified the player to region free, when they changed the 240volt plug.

I have to admit that I am not familiar with the DivX format. The manual states that the resolution is restricted to 720 (width) x 576 (height)/2GB? I have read on another forum that there is no Xvid playback and that the Pioneer 696 is better at playing DivX.

There are many connection options, HDMI, SCART (up to RGB), component, s-video, composite, plus audio - stereo RCA, COAX digital and optical digital. Unfortunately I do not have the appropriate HDMI cable. My NEC plasma has a DVI connection with HDCP compliance. Looks like I will need to send away for a new cable. In the mean time I am using a Kordz component cable to the plasma and also the s-video to a nearby Metz Atlantis TV. I had a similar setup with my old Sony 730p. The Metz did not need any change to the colour or other settings, but the NEC plasma colours were too stong. I had to change the plasma colours from 26 to 18 (default is 36) to get a decent look to the display. For some reason the component colours are a lot stronger than the other video outputs. Not a big deal, as I think the picture quality looks better than my old Sony 730p DVD player. The new Sony is definitely sharper with less ringing around objects.

I wish I could get a black version of the player, shiny reflective silver makes the player stand out too much, especially among my other black components. Overall I like the player and it has been a good upgrade and well worth the $209.

[T800]

My sony NS95 hdmi player had excellent pic through hdmi upconverted, but had the shifting problem. im guessing they fixed this?

[spoco2]

Thankyou very much for the mini review, it's answered a question I had about the unit, which was whether it was region free here (the process for making it region free seems painful).

It's right up there now for me for purchasing.

[Submariner1503559614]

My sony NS95 hdmi player had excellent pic through hdmi upconverted, but had the shifting problem. im guessing they fixed this?

I don't have the HDMI to DVI cable yet, so I cannot confirm or deny a shift problem. I have read through 46 pages of the dedicated Sony thread at AV forum UK and we have the same player as them, only modified. The forum consensus is that it is a solid DVD player. The picture was good with good sound with no judder, picture shift, lip sync or freezing-up, but do not buy if you want a good DivX player. From what I read, the Denon 1730 is the best DivX player, but some people report lip sync errors when playing DVDs with the Denon.

[spoco2]

I'm assuming it didn't come with a HDMI cable in the box? (The Samsung HD860 does, which makes it a cheap option all things considered).

[spoco2]

I just queried JB HiFi in Melbourne on the price they'd do it for and $200.

I'm seriously considering this thing, but would like to know if I'm going to really notice a difference with this running over HDMI to my 32" Teac LCD (At 720p I would imagine would be best) compare to my current Pioneer DV466 running 576i only.

If I'm not going to notice a marked difference, I should spend my money on something else... but if it's going to make DVD watching more pleasurable, I'm definitely wanting to jump into the upscaling ring.

[Submariner1503559614]

I'm seriously considering this thing, but would like to know if I'm going to really notice a difference with this running over HDMI to my 32" Teac LCD (At 720p I would imagine would be best) compare to my current Pioneer DV466 running 576i only.

Cannot really answer that, but you may find that no standard definition player will greatly improve the picture on an 80cm screen. There is a limit to standard definition and what it can do. On smaller screens it may be harder to see an improvement. The upscaler in your LCD screen could be better than the one in any upscaling player. Do you have any specific problems with your Pioneer? I bought the Sony as I wait for the High Definition formats to sort themselves out.

[spoco2]

Cannot really answer that, but you may find that no standard definition player will greatly improve the picture on an 80cm screen. There is a limit to standard definition and what it can do. On smaller screens it may be harder to see an improvement. The upscaler in your LCD screen could be better than the one in any upscaling player. Do you have any specific problems with your Pioneer? I bought the Sony as I wait for the High Definition formats to sort themselves out.

My issue with my Pioneer is that it only does NTSC progressive. So all I'm getting out of this is 576i. As such it's not even so much for the upscaling ability that I'm interested in this player but more

• Digital connections via HDMI
  
• At least 576p, with a view to seeing if 720p looks any better
  

That's about it really... my issue is that I notice a juddering or stepping or something on pans and the like (not 3:2 pulldown from NTSC material, but a little similar) and am assuming that it's to do with the tv not being great with interlaced material... but it is a guess really. As such this purchase may give me very little in overall benefit when it comes down to it, but I'm willing to give it a go!

[Submariner1503559614]

More review info:

No HDMI cable is included. Only standard RCA AV cable included.

After further testing Xvid playback is supported.

I don't like the small buttons on the base of the remote, they don't always respond when pushed. The transport buttons are good.

I like the auto dimmer option for the front display. The display auto dims, and only brightens up when a remote button is pushed.

The extra options of slow and fast motion playback with sound is well implemented. 0.6 slowest, 1.0 normal and 1.4 fastest with 0.1 incremental changes. The Star Trek crew sounded like that had been smoking weed, when using slow motion, so layed back during an emergency with exploding consoles

There are jump buttons for a quick move forward or back while playing a video. Nice one button option for seeing a replay, if you miss some of the on screen action.

[Submariner1503559614]

After further testing Xvid playback is supported.

But does not support 16:9 playback of Xvid

[Submariner1503559614]

I finally have my 3m Kordz HDMI to DVI cable. What an improvement! The HDMI output is noticeably better than component. Colours seem brighter and the picture looks crisper and it cleared up some minor artefacts in the Sony's component video. I can confirm that there is no picture shift with this player on my plasma.

Even though there is an option in the menu to adjust sound delay, I have not had a problem with lip sync. I am running the player at it's highest upscaling video setting to test it out.

As soon as HDMI is used, Progressive is permanently turned on. If you press the Progressive button, it will toggle between Auto Progressive and Video Progressive. There are a couple of annoying things about the HDMI on the Sony and that is the two LED lights that turn on and cannot be turned off. The ultra bright blue HDMI LED is the worst. The orange Progressive button LED is not as bad. I ended up grabbing a black permanent marker pen and carefully drawing over the LEDs, this dimmed them down.

Very nice upscaling playing for the price and I feel like I need to watch many more movies to test it out further The one drawback of this player, is the limited DivX support. It will do me until the High Definition players sort themselves out.

[spoco2]

I finally have my 3m Kordz HDMI to DVI cable. What an improvement! The HDMI output is noticeably better than component. Colours seem brighter and the picture looks crisper and it cleared up some minor artefacts in the Sony's component video. I can confirm that there is no picture shift with this player on my plasma.

It's a huge difference isn't it? I was a little 'meh' about the player when I was just running component to it, thinking I'd wasted my money on something that was doing nothing more than my old Pioneer... but no, with HDMI it's a beautiful image, and the upscaling really does make things that much crisper. (yes, not HD quality any of you HD fanbois reading, just nicer than standard SD... alright? )

Have you tried dimming the display on the Sony? Does that dim the led too? I've not had issue with the brightness myself... but it's out of eye line for me when I'm watching anyway.

[Submariner1503559614]

Have you tried dimming the display on the Sony? Does that dim the led too? I've not had issue with the brightness myself... but it's out of eye line for me when I'm watching anyway.

I have the auto dimmer option on, and it does dim the players lights, but the bright blue light stands out too much when watching with the room lights off. I have dimmed all the lights for all the parts of my home theatre. IMO there is no need for the blue LED light. I do not need a light to tell me the player is using HDMI. They might as well have different coloured lights for each display option - component, s-video, rgb, etc. IMO the light for HDMI has more to do with the Sony marketing department

[dogsrus]

The Sony website says NTSC progressive only, is this true, also what about divx at widescreen??? I'm considering this for my Sony KF-42E200A TV, also, does it playback 4:3 DVD's correctly thru HDMI, i.e. correct aspect ratio??

Thanks

[spoco2]

The Sony website says NTSC progressive only, is this true, also what about divx at widescreen??? I'm considering this for my Sony KF-42E200A TV, also, does it playback 4:3 DVD's correctly thru HDMI, i.e. correct aspect ratio??

Thanks

I saw this too in regards to progressive, but my tv reports that it's providing 576p and 720p to it, so there's your proof there. DivX plays perfectly well widescreen, tis very nice to watch. As for 4:3 DVDs over HDMI, it's the same for any of the outputs, you have a choice. You can either leave it outputting it as it is on the disc, and so with a widescreen display you have to adjust it to show it 4:3, or you can tell the DVD player to do the reformatting for you.

The reformatting by the DVD player is handy if you can't be bothered buggering around with the tv display settings every time you put in a 4:3 dvd, but you do loose resolution, especially if it's something like the horrendous original Star Wars transfers that are 4:3 transfers of a letterboxed widescreen film. If you have the DVD player set to auto format, then it'll look correct, but in the case of the Star wars movie you can't zoom in to get it correctly fill the widescreen. You can only do that by leaving the DVD player to output the image as per normal and adjust via the tv.

But... yes, it has that ability.

[Submariner1503559614]

What spoco2 said I have found the Sony has some problems with Xvid's 16:9 playback. Still a reasonable DivX player.

For those poor overseas people that do not have region free players, here are a couple of useful links (Aussies no need to look )

http://www.dvd.reviewer.co.uk/info/multire...ull/Sony500.asp

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/tg/feature/-/1000013633

[tcalvert7]

But does not support 16:9 playback of Xvid

I have run this dvd player on a 4:3 and 16:9 television. On the 4:3 television the aspect ratio is automatically aligned to the television. On the 16:9 display there is an aspect ratio button with the options 4:3, 16:9 or panorama and if i select 16:9 then the aspect ratio of divx playback is correct.

[Kurt Rambis]

Any suggestions on where I can pick up one of these close to Melbourne CBD? HN are out of stock and JB don't have this model.

Otherwise I guess I'll go for the Philips 5965k from HN.

[Cooper]

I have run this dvd player on a 4:3 and 16:9 television. On the 4:3 television the aspect ratio is automatically aligned to the television. On the 16:9 display there is an aspect ratio button with the options 4:3, 16:9 or panorama and if i select 16:9 then the aspect ratio of divx playback is correct.

What button is that one on the remote? I am having big problems with widescreen DivX on my TV.

[colvs]

Have just ordered one of these units from JB for $190. Just wondering if anyone has had any trouble playing any disks yet, or will it play just about everything you can throw at it?