The remote is lame in addition to not being backlit; component outs are locked on 480p and cannot be switched to 480i (no your sony wega is not 480p capable); does not read CDRs; wish the screen saver had a castle on it, or something besides the panasonic logo.

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audio quality. the price can be justifed by being a CD player alone!

the biggest weakness would be the remote: too small, too many buttons, no backlight (when will mfrs realize we like to view movies with lights out?), zone hacking requires the player to be turned off again compared to the Japense players which are generally automatic

I have been searching/struggling with SACD, DVD-A formats and have decided to wait: meanwhile I wanted to upgrade my CD performance and perhaps get a better DVD player....I had used the Mark Levinson 37 transport hooked to a my multi-processor/pre-amp using its internal DAC and a Pioneer 747 DVD player...thought about dcs but waaay to expensive and requires me to buy a DVD player, Nuvista 3D, Accuphase, etc all great but no dvd...I could have just kept the Pioneer but I also wanted to reduce the number of ever proliferating boxes....saw a review of the Camelot but found out no distributor in HK...wrote an e-mail to Caemlot and get a response from the CEO Mel! Distrbutor newly appointed, I had at home testing and now a onwer of the Roundtable 2 which is an improvement over the first version...including now upsampling to 24/192 as opposed to 24/96. (note the facade, box shell shows no indication of it being 192 or it being the improved version etc...Mel! You are hurting yourself!) Anyway for performance. I had expected and found incredibly good audio. Upsmapling, when properly done, really does work. In short, 2 channel now sounds more like vinyl...texture is more realistic, highs are more extended, bass has tightened up etc etc...just wonderful. What I was surprised about was the DVD video performance via component cable: previously I had also used a Silicom Image 3"2 pull down "line doubler" with the Pioneer: Camelot which incorporates an improved version of the chipset beat the Pioneer/Silicon Image hands down: (I have a plasma)...screen a bit brighter, better definition when required, blacks are blacker external appearance ain't great, but clearly they have spent money where it counts and shaved money on the packaging to get to this price pt which puts a lot of others to shame

More features than I can use (currently); a/v output quality is higher than my system can reveal.

The remote is lame in addition to not being backlit; component outs are locked on 480p and cannot be switched to 480i (no your sony wega is not 480p capable); does not read CDRs; wish the screen saver had a castle on it, or something besides the panasonic logo.

I agree with the previous reviews in all respects, the R/T is a great player. I bought the R/T hoping it to be the all in one no-compromise DVD/CD player. It is.

Video:
The video quality of the R/T is superb. I have watched about 50 movies on this player and so far, it has handled every one without issue. So long as the disk is clean (it is not forgiving here) the picture is silky smooth. No blemishes, artifacts or any other debris in the picture. The video presentation is not as edgy and 3-d looking as the Arcam DV88 I owned previously, but in retrospect, I think that player's presentaion looked weird compared to the R/T. Generally, the R/T's video is soft compared to a lot of DVD players available, but really really good. For lack of a better term we'll go with "filmlike." The Arcam almost pokes your eyes out, in contrast.

Audio:
The audio side of this player is also outstanding. I am not going to go stereophile on you trying to put into words the R/T's audio qualities, but the R/T does a super-nice job with both 2 ch. and DTS/DD playback. In truth, I have not yet had a chance to fiddle with the 24/96 upsampling capabilities (this is a long story, to summarize: My pre/pro is the Proceed AVP. Proceed has been way delayed in issuing the AVP 24/96 software upgrade. Meanwhile, in my town, Tweeter is now the only Proceed factory-authorized dealer, and as we all know, they are not competant to do the upgrade (unbelievably, they recommend sending it back to Proceed for this 6 minute software upgrade). Finally, I have been too lazy to go out and get a decent pair of interconnects to run the 24/96 signal through AVP's 2 ch. bypass feature).

In any case, the 2ch. playback of the R/T does not have as much "pop" as my old Arcam 8se CDP. Instead, the R/T presents a full sound, highs and lows, generally uncolored (good or bad, depending on what you're into), good definition, but more mellow compared to the Arcam.

Customer Service:
This deserves its own category. You will simply not find better. Mel goes above and beyond any call of duty in providing support and answering your questions, and I did not even purchase new. Easy to contact, prompt, and super-helpful (unlike....). Best I've ever found, without a doubt.

Gripes:
The remote's buttons are small, and therefore difficult to find, given that it is not backlit. I wish it played CDRs. Lordy, I wish it played CDRs.

As far as value, I have to give it five stars. Maybe I would feel different if I paid the full price, instead, I gave the above amount, paid the shipping and threw in a Kimber powercord. I recommend it highly, though, either way.

Similar Products Used:

Pioneer up-end; Toshiba 3800?; Arcam DV88.

Best 480p picture. Great AC3 an PCM sound

does not play CDRs

The player is IT if you have a large screen 480p display, and you want EVERY DVD to look and sound great. I am using a Mits 65" diamond series, which only makes a good picture with a good signal, especially because the screen is really close in my current room. The RT has the cleanest, most detatiled, satisfying, artifact-free picture I have seen. Minimal ringing, No combing, NO edginess, NO chroma bug, no instability or jaggies. Complex fabrics and paterns are rendered beautifully and smoothly with no line shifting or wandering. Colors are intense and correct.

Very pleasing after other "progressive" players. The Camelot roundtable is consistently reviewed as having the best picture in almost any roundup, and I have found this to be true at home. I have learned though lots of research and wasted money, the the MOST important thing in a DVD player is the deinterlacing chipset. Most consumer DVD players gain too much praise, including some well regarded ones like the Pioneer Elite DV37 and DV38A, which have lousy, flag-based deinterlacers. Magazines like Stereophile Guide to Home Theater will tell you how great certain players look on perfectly flagged movies. This is essentially true but misleading. MANY DVD's (including anything pre-1997, and plenty of new titles like Titanic) are flagged poorly, and it requires a nimble and advanced deinterlacer to produce an artifact free picture by recognizing cadence switches in the source material. The roundtable is one of very few that has the Silicon Image Sil 503 chipset which outperforms the Sage Faroudja platform in some ways, and outperforms almost any home-grown deinterlacer. See hometheaterhifi.com for this. The RT is also in the <1% of DVD players that addresses the chroma bug, which is almost universally present even in players like the Meridian DVD 800. Camelot uses a Panasonic transport which has a properly designed MPEG-2 decoder which renders deeply saturated colors as they were recorded, rather than giving them a corduroy appearance like ALL Pioneer players. Not that I have any great love for Titanic, but it looks like an Emailed MPEG1 on well-rated, expensive Pioneer Elite players. On the RT, it looks perfect, and so does almost EVERY title I have tried. Not that this counts, but 5th Element Superbit also looks stellar!

The RT picture almost never combs, and when it does, it is for no more than a frame or 2. I would be surprised if spending more would solve that.

The other nice features of this player are too numerous to list, but suffice it to say, it has great versatility. It also has excellent sound. As a stand alone CD player, it has earned great respect for its 24/96 upsamping, and DACs. I plug the 24/96 dejittered PCM output directly into my Meridian DSP5000's, which produces noticeably better sound than any transport I have used previously. The detail is rich and smooth, with forward vocals and tight, palpable, energetic bass. I am told that the analog output is top-notch as well. The RT is also one of very few players which dejitter 5.1 bitstreams. I only wish the transport would read CDRs. In general, the internals are hot rodded with multiple separate power supplies, and some great perk with every output and switch, including the S-Video.

Overall, this is a great player for a critical videophile, audiophile. If you are bugged by the fact that only the best DVD transfers look good on your 480p system and you want to come as close as is possible to curing that, I enthusiastically recommend the Camelot Roundtable. If you have any questions about the product, the president answers the phone. This is a small company with a handful of great products which deserve more recognition. They really hit the nail on the head at a reasonable price-point, all in one box. Great technology!!

Similar Products Used:

Pioneer DV37, DV38a, Toshiba

Pristine reproduction of DVD movies. Superaltive reproduction of standard CD's, SACD's and DTS DVD Audio Discs.

DVD's - none, won't play DVD Audio discs though.

For projection on a large screen, the Camelot Roundtable DVD player is flawless. I have never observed any player related artifacts using this player. No 'jaggies', no 'banding, fringing' etc. that is so common with most other players that I have seen or used. If the source DVD is good then the image delivered by the Camelot will be equally as good with no degradation.

The audio is also outstanding and even though I'm no audio purist, I could immediately discern the improvement in movie audio as well as CD audio as soon as I switched in the Camelot and switched out the RCA that I had been using.

It is my opinion that anyone wanting top quality reproduction of DVD's should consider this product especially if they have a reasonably large screen and similarly high quality projection system.

My Home Theater consists of the following equipment:
Camelot Roundtable DVD player
Denon AVR-3300 receiver/amplifier
Seleco HT-200 front projector with ISCO II lens attached
100" Stewart Grayhawk screen
Polk RM7500 speaker system
Polk PSW650 subwoofer
Polk PSW1200 subwoofer

Similar Products Used:

Entry level RCA DVD.