I need some of your help folks! I have a 1080i HDTV from LG, a flat screen CRT, and I need a new dvd player. Right now I have a cheap toshiba that isnt even progressive scan!
My goal is to get a dvd player that will upconvert for me with good picture quality to my HD set. Also important is the sound/sonic capablity of the player as I use it for CD audio playback as well. Here are some models I have looked at to get us started, but I'm open to suggestions. I'd like to not spend over 500 to 600 bucks. The cheapest option I've found is at circuit city and best buy-a Sony 5-Disc DVD/CD Changer (DVPNC85HB).
I've also looked online at some marantz players @ accessories for less. The dv6001, dv6600, and dv7600 all look like quite capable players from the specs. Then I've heard that Denon is a the best picture quality for upconverting/scaling standard def dvds. What would really get me excited is to also have cd changer capablity. I see marantz has the VC6001 dvd/cd changer for 699 msrp, but I haven't seen it online. Is a changer going to not give as good a picture compared to a single disc unit and I would be better off buying a seperate CD changer to use just for my music needs?
And also how much of a difference in picture quality is there with the units that up convert? I see things like Faroudja chips and this and that, but I'm not sure what or how those things will help. Thanks for your help folks!
If you're looking to spend that much, I'd be looking at the Toshiba HD-A2 HD-DVD player. Upconversion is supposed to be the best out there. If you buy it before sometime in July, not sure when, you get 5 free HD-DVDs by mail. I've seen it for $250 at Amazon. There's someone in the discussions there who got one for $190. The price typically goes up on the weekdays and down on the weekends. Last weekend it was $250. This weekend it's almost $300.
Reviews on the player are easy to find, you'll have to check on audio. I don't know on SD-DVDs, but it's supposed to be very good on HD-DVDs. I'm a lot more picky about video than audio myself.
part of me just wants to get the sony I've seen at best buy and circuit city as a cheap "in the mean time" solution so I don't have to get involved in the whole blue ray vs hd dvd debate and end up with a player that was expensive and is now obsolete two years down the road. Then I could always upgrade later and use the cheap sony as just a music changer. I'm going to do some research though on it and see what reviews and specs I can find on it online.
Even if it is obselete for HD-DVDs, you can get the Toshiba for the same price or less than the Oppo 981, and with the 5 free HD-DVDs, it definitely beats the Oppo. Those two are supposedly the two best players for upconversion.
Finally had some time to do some real time listening and viewing at my circuit city. Really liked the Denon dvd557 and 757 models they had there. Didn't notice a huge a difference between them and the aforementioned sony while we were switching back in forth in the video room, but the denon did have a slightly better picture. What surpised me was the how much better the audio playback sounded on regular cd material in the denon compared to the sony. It was slow so there were a lot of the CC guys eavesdropping and out of 7 of us total 6 of us thought the denon went deeper and sounded "cleaner" than the other players on the same monitors. Unfortunately this does not help me with my decision as it throws another option in my mix.
I did a lot of reading on the oppo 981 today at work and the benchmark tests from avs seem to rate that player highly on video performance. My only caveat is that I really like the calling of the carousel 5 disc option for my music sessions. I see that acc4less has a marantz vc6001 for 450 bucks and they seem to tout that it does it all.
Now I'm left wondering if the marantz has the audio quality of the denons i just experienced today. Video specs seem the same as far as upsampling to the denon.