Picture Quality, Audio Quality, Price

Plain Looking

This is a excellent DVD player especially for the price. Both picture & Audio quality cannot be beat by any DVD within a plus $300 price range. Very happy with this player, I recommend it very highly. I can't wait to buy a HDTV and really take advantage of the Progressive Scan feature. Interlaced mode is still top notch, due to the High quality Chipset in this player. Don't be fooled by the Sony name, this is the player to purschase.

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Sony 700NP

Best price and picture, biggest strength is the Faroudja/Sage chip set. Can't beat it for the money!

Built quality, but hey it was inexpensive.

This unit for the money does a fantasitic job, hands down the best buy for Progressive Scan units. Detail is great, What Jim saw in dark parts of the film he was watching was most likely a bad film transfer or good old Macrovision. I have seen what he desribes on almost every DVD Play I have owned so far. 5 Stars on Price and preformance and much better than I could ever see come out of a bargin player.

Check out Secrets to Home Theater website, these guys are very good at reviewing the players currently out.

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volume_8_3/dvd-benchmark-progressive-shootout-2-8-2001.html

Similar Products Used:

RP-91/Sony S-7000/Elite 37

Progressive scan, Sage chip

few adjustments

What can you say bad about a $182 dollar progressive scan player? I am very impressed with the colors & sound from this player. I have tried some of the more expensive players, & the RP-56 seems to keep up with them, without the price tag. This dvd player is leaps ahead of my Toshiba 1600. I havent had any problems with playing dvds. Plus if your into it, you can play back CDR,CDRW,MP3,VCD,CD. The only minus if you want to call it that, is there are ot enough adjustments that you can make. There is only normal & Cinema mode, & black level. But again for the price, you can't have everything. I am very happy, going on 3 weeks now.

Similar Products Used:

Philips Q50, Panisonic RP-91,Toshiba nonprogressive 1600

Good price

Does not offer true 3:2 pulldown and so does not optimized film source material

According to Panasonic, their RP-56 offers inverse telecine rather than true 3:2 pulldown. According to home theatre magazine, the inverse 3:2 pulldown is the opposite of true 3:2 pulldown and is about equal to a good line doubler. Visit the following site which explains the whole subject in detail and with some very simple diagrams. http://www.hometheatermag.com/showarchives.cgi?69
The RP-56 is a good DVD player for the price, but if you are looking to optimize film source material, this is not the player that will do it for you. Also in my experience, the RP-56 does not have a very good error correction circuit and even slightly scratched Audio CDs (that play flawlessly on most other DVD players) results in the music stalling midway through the song and resuming after a few seconds and sometimes not resuming at all. Still, you get what you pay for and for the price of the RP-56 you are getting fairly good value.

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Pioneer DV-434

excellent dvd playback, fast read up time

Horrible MP3 playback

The unit works great except for its advertised MP3 playback. Its very picky about the type of MP3's I play. Some experience skipping and drop out, depending on data rate and other compression factors.
There is NO help concerning the MP3 stuff. What types of MP3 files are good?

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Various Sony and Harmon Kardon units

Just an update to my previous review.

1)Looks like AudioReview removed some of the previous reviews posted by people who don't even own the RP56 - good for them.

2) Build Quality - I have noticed some vibrations coming from the disc transport on some discs. This is obviously due to cost cutting on the mechanics in order to get a player with the Sage chipset below $250 retail. There's no such thing as a free lunch, and if you want top notch deinterlacing for $200 then you have to sacrifice something else.

3) If you're willing to pay more to get both the Sage chip and top quality mechanics, you may want to wait for the 2002 player line-up. There's sure to be a sage version of the excellent RP91 for $700 or so.

4) To end all confusion - the RP56 is true 3:2 pulldown, and the sage chip goes even further with DCDi. They even won an Emmy awards for this technology from the Hollywood film guru crowd.

Ease of operation, picture quality, silence of mechanism.

None found yet.

The unit was a cinch to hook up. Despite the fact that the instruction book statedI shouldn't do it, I was able to connect the unit through my Optimus Model 60 VCR. It worked fine. Then, I decided to use component video cables on my new JVC 32" TV to maximize picture quality, and the picture was quite remarkable. Details on animation are razor sharp, and the unit is exactly what I wanted. I have no complaints.

I opted for the 56 over the Panasonic RV31 because of the progressive scan technology. I am not using a set which can make use of progressive scan, but I bought the DVD prior to buying the JVC TV. The price of an HDTV is still too high for my budget. I had the DVD player hooked up to an 18 year old Sony Trinitron, and credits at the end of SPY KIDS were bars or white. This was all I needed to convince my A-unit (wife) of the need for a new TV.

The lack of a backlit remote is a valid complaint, but I tend to memorize remotes, and only use some functions anyway.

Bottom Line: If you are in the market for a $200 +/- DVD player, I stronly recommend the Panasonic RP56.

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This is my first DVD player

Picture, Cheap thrills for cheap price, easy setup.

Remote control, I wish it would show track listing for MP3s, burnt cds, etc.

I'm surprised that I use this more to play MP3s than watch movies(hooked on Civ 3 at the moment). It handles MP3s excellently, although I wish that I could see the current title of the track playing(or all tracks for that matter).

I've watched Phantom Menace and Gladiator and they are all visually stunning on my Panasonic 27". I do not have an HDTV yet, so I cannot comment on the Progressive Scan part.
I plan to purchase Pearl Harbor tonite and I'm expecting a total visual treat!!!

I especially like the video controls. I was not fond of the "cinema mode", so I just tweaked the brightness, contrast, and color controls on the machine.

So far so good, and with the price I paid, I am very happy that I got this one!



BTW, is there a "hack" to this machine by chance?

Similar Products Used:

Toshiba SD-2700, Panasonic RP91

Excellent picture, useful remote and ability to play scratched DVDs.

No screen saver, no zoom and unable to play mpg movies on CDR.

Excellent DVD player for the price I paid. Sharp picture, quality sound, usefull remote, great display, and able to play scratched disks with no problems. The cheap $79 APEX AD-1500 had a hard time playing scratched DVDs.

No screen saver, no big deal.
No zoom feature, it would have been nice.
Not able to play mpg videos on CDRs, if I am doing something wrong, could someone let me know? If not, this is a feature I would expect on this model.

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APEX AD1500 (a big disapointment even at the cheap $79 price)

Picture quality, MP3 playback capability, progressive output using Sage/Faroudja chipset.

Remote, no digital coax out, limited setup options.

I recently purchased a direct view HDTV-ready television and wanted to upgrade to a progressive scan DVD player. Upon searching the internet and the local audio shops I narrowed my search down to two choices, the Panny and the JVC SV-SA75GD. I decided to go with the Panny. The Panny does an excellent job on both video and film material. This was important in my decision since I'm a big Simpson's fan and their recently release on DVD warrants a player capable of providing a good video quality image. I'm sitting on the fence with DVD-Audio right now so that feature wasn't terribly important to me. I did hear about the subtitle issue in the JVC and that was a little disheartning. Compared to my older Pioneer though the Panny wins hands down. The picture quality from the progressive scan is phenominal. The level of detail and the color I hadn't previously seen is amazing. I could not be more satisified with my purchase.

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Pioneer DV-525