Entry level up-convert DVD players shootout

[number17]

I'm considering replacing my old Panny DVD player soon ... and I plan to get an up-convert DVD player which seems to be the new toy in the market. And I've heard good things about a few models so I just wanna see what's everybody's take on them.

I have a Toshiba 57HX83 CRT RPTV, which has a DVI input and I can take advantage of the DVI output available on these DVD players. It is not a must to use the DVI output if I can get the same, or even better PQ out of the component outputs. That said, since my TV only has 2 component in's, and my amp (Marantz SR5300) doesn't support component switching, it is an incentive to use the DVI output.

And here're the candidates:

Zenith 318 / LG 7382 (Futureshop retailing for Cdn$299)
Momitsu V880 (~ Cdn$400 shipped to my door after tax)
Bravo D2 (~ same price as V880)
Samsung 841 (MSRP Cdn$299)

I also heard good things about upcoming Sony's and Denon's ... but for now these are the DVD players I am considering.

Which DVD player will you pick given my TV? I've heard good things about the Momitsu but I'm not 100% sure about its reliability and support. Also, I gotta pay shipping and custom on Momitsu (and Bravo) being shipped from the states, thus inflating their price a bit when compared to the LG and Samsung.

[SpOoNmAn]

Im waiting for the Denon 1910, supposed to be out very shortly. Itll fill the DVI gap for me for a while. Just wait 2 to 4 weeks for the Denon, I bet its better then any of those listed.

Longterm, Im waiting to see what Rotel and Parasound have up their sleeves as far as Universal players and so on. My new Infocus projector has DVI out so I want to start taking advantage of it, while my Xbox uses the Component outs.

I guess I didnt help much did I? sowwy :E

[David Meek]

Hey Wendel, here's a thread started by Jon on the Zenith. It should be helpful - I hope.

[ThomasW]

Buy the Zenith and buy it quickly before the 'crippled' versions (non-upscaling) are in the product pipe line.

It's well built and has the Faroudja chipset.

[Elmac]

I Will Second That Thomas

[DrJRapp]

I have been using my Samsung HD 841 since they were introduced a few months ago without any hiccups. The PQ is great thru my Hitachi 65" RPTV.

One thing about the 841 that I find endearing is it's superb audio DACs. Two channel and Multi-channel SACD through the multi inputs in my RSP1066 is stellar. The satin silver finish of the front of the 841 compliments my silver Rotel gear also.

I replaced a very problematical Bravo D1 with the 841, and after having three defective Bravos, the D2 is one unit I would personally avoid.

[number17]

Hi DrJRapp, did you ever have a chance to compare the Samsung 931/841 to the Zenith 831 / LG 7832?

From what I heard the PQ of the Zenith / LG is better than that of the Samsung. Meanwhile the audio DACS on the Zenith / LG is only average+ from what I've heard ... meanwhile you are saying the Samsung has better audio DACS?

The Samsung 931 and LG 7832 are selling for the same price at audio2001 (Cdn$249). Maybe I can drop by and do a side by side comparison of the 2 DVD players.

[aud19]

Denon's always been good to me. I say wait for their new players

Jason

[number17]

Denon make good product, but their upcoming 1910 isn't exactly in the same price range as the LG 7382 or Samsung 931/841 ... the 1910 is expected to have an MSRP of Cdn$399, which is still a reasonable price, but 50% pricier than the Samsung and LG.

Personally I've never been a super fan of Denon neither ... their receivers tend to be on the bright side for me and though I haven't tried their DVD players I wouldn't be surprised if they're the same.

With my speakers already a tad on the bright side (JMLabs Chrous) personallyh I'd stay away from Denon's ... but that's just me. There are lots of denon fans out there and I can understand why.

[number17]

Anyways, just to give an update on the upcoverting DVD player thing ... I went to Audio2001 to compare the LG7382 (Zenith 318) and the Samsung 841 side by side. The guy at the store was nice enough to let us play with the DVD players in 2 TV's side by side. Unfortunately, somehow we just couldn't get the Samsung DVD to work. We plugged the DVI cables in, and the LG works flawlessly. We even had a chance to try different upconvert modes. For the Samsung though, somehow we just couldn't get the TV to properly display any signal. The TV input seemed to be stuck at DVI 552 (??!) and we couldn't get any picture on the TV.

That, plus I was leaning towards the LG to begin with, plus the LG was on sale while the Samsung wasn't, made me pull the trigger on the LG and I'm a happy LG owner now.

Just can't wait to hook it up on my TV tonight.

Hey quick question here - anybody knows where I can find the code to crack the DVD player to play all-region DVD's?


Thanks,

[Leef DaLucky]

avs.

QofBanditz has put up a decent faq at AVS.
Its mostly on the first page of the thread.
this includes: the region free hack, the procedure for Firmware display, and (i think) the procedure for enabling SVCD's.
Haven't tried it yet (only 24 hours old)
still testing..

Wendel you have to try some DVD's on this, dude.
FOTR: EE (approx 16mins) Listen to the birds chirp as Gandalf talks to Bilbo at the front door.
Underworld - The shell casings hit the ground when Selene fires off in the subway in the opening.

I don't know whats different between this player and my Toshiba, but its seems a lot more bassy, but detailed as well. Wayyy better construction i assume.

OTOH, i did experience a problem with Gladiator last night, as it wouldn't lock on the signal in the opening menus. The Menu themes came out all garbled. My Onkyo is First Generation DD5.1, so it might be the cause (although, no problems with the Toshiba). Weird. Needless to say, i'll be testing it all week just to make sure all is well with the unit. Other than that, no problems so far.
Enjoy the new addition!

Mikey

[number17]

Thanks for the suggestions ... I will definitely try those, as well as a few of my favorite test DVD's ...

Driven - Chapter 8 (if I remember correctly) when Stallone is showing off his coin tricks. You hear the loud engine growl, the surround effects with the race car going through L-R, and F-R, at the same time you hear the crisp sounds from the coin. Boring movie, but this is my favorite track to test HT audio systems.

X-men 2 - Chapter 1 when you get a combination of gun shots, shells dropping on marble floor and the guy disappearing and re-appearing L-R, F-R.

Star Wars - the race track. 'Nuff said.

I'll definitely post my results once I get a chance to test this player.

[DrJRapp]

we just couldn't get the Samsung DVD to work. We plugged the DVI cables in, and the LG works flawlessly. Just can't wait to hook it up on my TV tonight.

Thanks,

The dealer obviously wasn't very familiar with the setup of the 841. It must be set up in composite or component to enable DVI. Then you must repeatedly push the aspect button on the remote till the monitor and the player sync. This is a one time setup. I'm glad you are happy with your LG and am curious to here some future feedback.

[number17]

My initial review of the LG 7382

I didn't have enough time to do a thorough test of the LG player (which will follow) but I did manage to hook it up and spend a bit of time with it last night.

I compared the LG player to my old Panny DRV-31 playing the same DVD. There was 1 DVD (LOR1) that I have 2 copies of so I could switch back and forth playing on 2 different players simultaneously. I even put them both on split screen side by side on my TV but that isn't a very fair comparison cos they're displaying on a reduced screen.

Anyways, I plugged in the LG via DVI, and it works, but I was surprised by how slow it loads the DVD and how slow the remote response is. Well maybe I shouldn't be surprised ... I've read all about it ... but it's no biggie.

First thing I did was calibrate my TV to the DVD player ... since I don't have the AVIA kit I went with the THX Optimizer, and immediately I noticed the white crush. I've read about it, but I never thought it'd be so bad. Initially I thought it's just 1 or 2 shades of white that'd be crushed. Well, the ENTIRE test screen is crushed and there's no differentiation between the 8 boxes of different whites. I skipped this test cos there's no way to calibrate the contrast. The others test, OTOH, worked fine. There's no black crush that I heard is on the Samsung 841.

The TV's now somewhat calibrated, I chose the upconvert mode to 1080i and my first test DVD was the "THX remastered" Indiana Jones Raider of the Lost Ark. Screen comes up, it looks nice and everything but to be perfectly honest, I don't see a night and day improvement over my old Panny with component. Colours seem a little more vivid, the motion seems a little smoother, and it looks a little more 3-D ... but hardly anything that'd justify the cost of a new DVD player (although it only costed me Cdn$250 after tax)

A little disappointed, I popped in my second test DVD - X2. And wow, do I see a huge difference or what?! Right from the intro to menu and first menu scene the CG with the blue plastic tubes look A LOT more 3-D, there's a lot more details, and I definitely saw the upconvert working ... it definitely looks a lot more HD than the Panny. The difference is as if I'm looking out of the window with the LG, and I'm looking through a screen door or something with the Panny. It is night and day.

I went on to watch a few tracks from the movie, and the red's are a lot more vivid, black's look blacker. The image looks more 3-D and has more depth and more details. Also, I hardly noticed the white crush problem with watching movies ... the only time I see that problem is on the test screen.

I went on to try a few DVD's including IceAge, Driven, Star Wars, Gladiator (Superbit) ... what I find out is - the upconvert doesn't make a HUGE difference in every DVD. For some DVD's, typically older ones, the difference is dismal. I can say the LG still looks a bit better, but definitely not noticeably better.

But when I was watching newer DVD's, especially the ones with a lot of CG, the difference is HUGE. My guess is newer DVD's are sampled better and offer more for the DCDi chip to play with so that it can do more with the upconvert, where the older movies, even after 'THX-remastered' still offer a subpar quality to begin with and in that case, new technologies can't help much. My analogy is if you have an old and poorly recorded soundtrack, regardless of the quality of your auido system it still won't sound very good.

Next I went on to play with its upconvert modes, and honestly, maybe because I don't have trained eyes, I don't see a whole lot of difference between 1080i and 480p ... my TV only natively supports 1080i and 540p, so neither 480p nor 720p should look good on my TV. I never spent a lot of time in those modes to tell if there's a big difference, but it didn't look like there is, which is kindda surprising. Maybe I didn't spend enough time with it.

I also spent a bit of time with the component out vs the DVI out. (and took me a while to figure out if a DVI cable is connected to the LG then its component outputs are DISABLED. I initially thought there's something wrong with the component out's) YES, the white crush problem went away with component out, but NO, I don't think the component output looks better than the DVI output. I watched a few movies and could hardly notice the difference. If anything, I noticed the red looks more vivid and accurate with DVI out. The biggest evidence was in the X2 menu screen, where the 'cursor' is a red circle on the screen. The red looks much sharper and has very clearly defined border in the DVI mode, while the red circle's border fades out and looks paler in component out. I think the DVI out looks better personally, not to mention, using DVI out saves me a badly needed component input port on the TV.

I did not have time to test the audio aspect of it (haven't even hooked it up to my receiver yet) but I will do that over the wkend.

And yeah, the unlocking CD that is on the web works ... I managed to unlock the DVD player to all-region (region 0) and I could watch the Superbit Gladiator (that's a japanese DVD) after I unlocked it.

Do I recommend this DVD player? For the price it is at, yes I would. Did it give me the WOW effect? Yes it did, but not for all movies. There's minimal difference playing 'remastered' older movies, but I suspect for all new and upcoming DVD's though, this DVD player will make your $$ worthy.

When I get time to do a more detailed review of the audio performance this wkend I'll post the findings. My expectation is not nearly as high for its audio performance, but I'll tell you.


PS - DrJRapp you are correct. The guy at the store just let us play with the 2 DVD players, which is a good and bad thing. The bad thing is we couldn't get the Samsung display to work. The good thing though, is we managed to try a number of different settings on the LG before we bought it. I never suspected the LG looks better than the Samsung, but I wanted to see by how much, and I also wanted to see how much better does the Samsung sound than the LG. I never had a chance to test that. Oh well.