Awesome progressive scan, clear picture and excellent sound decoders, high-end look

Manual, menu

Last February I bought my Toshiba 40H80 tv and the remark I remembered from the sales guy was "Buy a progressive scan DVD player to get this tv's worth!" I couldn't afford to buy one that time and also was sceptic about the first generation of PS dvd players. So I waited until I couldn't wait more.

I came into the market to look at the new players. After reading the PS shoot-out in hometheaterhifi.com, I was being extra careful. Bought the Sony 700P first and took it home, didn't find any difference between my TV's line-doubler and the sony's much hyped 12bit video DAC processor. Returned it and picked the JVC s65. Same thing, no improvement noticed. So this also went back to store.

Then I went to Laserland who had the few black Panasonic RP91. In net the price was much cheaper, but nobody had stock as it was a hot item to buy. Picked it up and got home and fired it with my TV. Did I get amazed? Man! I just sat there and looked at the picture. Sharp and clear with well defined edges. It was much much better than my Tv's line doubler and also the resolution was high.

Then I went into the set up to do the settings.. got really pissed with the manual and the way menu is set up. Not a very good way to setup the things. Manual does not give you any clue about what things each menu is going to do etc. Anyway, using Avia, I set it up up to my satisfaction.

Put in the Gladiator and used the built-in DTS decoder. I didn't know how time passed. Just watched the movie without any feeling that I am at home, not in the theater. It was so awsome and so good. Watched "Eagles:Hell Freezes over".. crystalc lear music with DTS.

I don't know whether anybody could get a better player in this price range. If one can buy it from net at 500$, it's really worth it. A very highly recomended one. Don't ever buy any of the other PS dvd player, they are nothing in compared to this one. last note, it plays MP3, DVD-RAM too!

Similar Products Used:

Toshiba SD-3109, Sony NS-700P, JVC s65gd

Features and price.

None.

I was waiting for Denon to fix the problems with the DVD2800,(I am a Denon fan) when I came across this Panasonic RP91K. It's features and it’s pricing persuaded me to check it out. From there, I haven’t looked back with my immediate purchase of the Panasonic RP91K.

The RP91K have lots of excellent features. The pictures are crisp, clear and very sharp, while the colors are being displayed close to real life like. Whether playing movie sound tracks with digital coaxial output or playing the CD with two channels with analog output, they both sound extremely accurate.

Base on the many brands and pricing that I have researched and compared with, I would have to say the RP91K is one of the best value buy that is hard to beat. It’s an incredibly well built DVD player. Before you buy a DVD , you should give your eyes and ears a pleasant surprise. Try out the RP91K first. FIVE STARS ALL THE WAY!!

My setup :
Denon’s AVR4800, POA5200, LA3350 Karaoke, DRM710 Tape deck.
Panasonic DVD RP91K.
Paradigm’s Studio Monitors, Studio CC, Studio ADP, PW2200. Triangle Titus xs
All interconnects, speaker cables and power cord are ULTRALINK.( BEST VALUE )

True 3:2 pulldown progressive scan with 4:4:4 signal processing... Amazing picture and sound quality!
MP3 playback, reads CD-RW and CD-R!

operating instructions too brief, slight image shift to the left?

Damn!
The picture and audio quality is amazing! I have been waiting a long time for an affordable high end like DVD player to complement my Mitsu 55" HDTV.

The image is extremely crisp with very vibrant colors and no motion artifacting. There is a huge difference between the image from this thing and the line doubled image that my hdtv gives me. I mean, this was the image nirvana I was looking for when I bought my tv!

I first threw in The Matrix (lobby shooting spree of course!). Wow! No jaggies, very clean film like image. I see detail that just wasn’t there before. This was the way it is supposed to look! Then came A Bugs Life… The incredible picture blew me away! Basically, it looked perfect! I don’t see how you can get much better than this with standard DVD’s.

The operating manual is not real informative when it comes to the many settings and options you have with this player. I basically reviewed all the settings one by one and changed them to the settings for my setup. (16:9, black level darker, projection tv, DTS to bistream...) There are still a quite a few settings to which I would like a more information on.

The bright blue progressive light can be dimmed when set to auto mode. It will dim itself after about 10 seconds…

For features and quality and performance I think there is no other player under $1000 that can touch this DVD player.

Similar Products Used:

DVD-A110, PC based DVD, sampled various other middle/low end DVD units

Picture and amazingly the sound

Remote "Joystick"

I just had to let people know that this unit is wonderful just as a CD player!.
My system is mid range Energy C-8 mains, Denon 5700 feeding a modifed Hafler DH500. I was using a Pioneer PD-65 Cd player and a Pioneer DV-434 DVD player. Well, after hearing this Panasonic RP-91, I removed both the Pioneer unit from my rack.

I purchased the RP91 for it's DVD-Audio capability:
List $799 Cost $499 at OneCall.Com

When I first hooked it up last night, I first tried a DVD video and was blown away by the picture. (It's progressive scan with component outputs), but I expected that.

I then put in Loreena McKennit's The Visitor just to make sure the audio pplayback was okay.

WOW! I'm sorry but WOW!!!!. My family actually came running to see what I had done. It sounded so much better than the Pioneer PD-65 I couldn't believe it! And thats just straight digital out to the Denon, I haven't even had a chance to try any DVD-Audio yet.

Check out this unit!!

Similar Products Used:

Pioneer DV-434
Pioneer PD-65

Feature Set, speed speed and more speed

Single Disk, if you count that .... nah not really there are none!

All I can say is WOW! This player has it all dvd-audio / ram / video. Mp3 playback, cd playback. I'm not sure if it does HDCD it does say but I think it might, since it doe everything else! And it does it well. No chroma bug like the denon 2800, not buggy like the HK-DVD50.

This has got to be one of the best sub $1k dvd-player on the market right now with 3:2 pulldown the picture quality rivals $4000 - 10000 players! The audio quality is wicked.

It's easy as pie to use, all the audio outputs and video are on all the time, so there is no need to fiddle with settings just plug and play.

Built in DD and DTS decoder if you need it.

And Fast! Wow it skips to chapters in a heartbeat. And most of the layer changes are so quick you don't notice!
I can't beleive the speed, the RCA I had was pathetic, go to scene select you would wait at least 5 seconds for the 4 or 6 boxes to come up. On this one it's there the instant you hit enter no waiting.

The remote is easy to use and pretty cool with the little joystick, but I have a touch screen so I programmed it and don't use the remote.

RUN RUN RUN to the store to pick it up, if you can find it, every store in my city was sold out almost instantly it's much awaited!

And at $550USD or $850CDN what I paid you can't beat it!

Similar Products Used:

RCA dvd-player, HK-DVD50 Denon 2800

Picture and audio

Manual

I can only say reading some of the other reviews that either Panasonic let some bad machines slip out or some other reviewers are hooking it up to bad equipment.

This machine absolutely rocks. The picture quality is far superior to anything else out there and I've seen every one.
The new NAD DVD which I sent back and don't even remember the model number was a joke- the audio and video wouldn't even snyc. Anyway getting back to the RP91K, the AUDIO of this unit is even better than the video. It easily beats the famed Pioneer ELite PD-65 hands down. I sold my Pioneer after hearing this.

If you aren't blown away by the RP91K then either you've got a bad unit or a bad system.

Similar Products Used:

PD-65, DV-37, DV-434, NAD

Awesome picture quality, great sound, plays MP3 CD-R's and DVD Audio player for under $500.00.

The disc loading mechanism is a bit noisy. Thought the build quality wasn't very heavy duty.

I bought this unit not just because of all the glowing reviews, but for the price, I could not find any DVD player that offered all the features the Panasonic RP91 offers for the price. The features I wanted included:

DVD Audio
Progressive Scan
The capability to play CD-RW, MP3 and DVD-RAM
digital audio out
12 bit video DAC

The Panasonic offers all this for a great price. The Sony NS700P offers Progressive scan, but no DVD Audio.

When I got the unit it was so light. I though it would be heavier and seems a bit chintzy in build, but then again I just got an Outlaw Audio 1050 Receiver and its built like a tank, fantastic quality.

Other things that bug me about the unit a bit is the noise the disc mechanism makes when loading a disc etc.
All those complaints slowly faded, however, after hooking this baby up to my TV and the audio through my 1050. Schwing! Wow. The picture quality was absolutely fantastic, and the audio was awesome (a lot attributed to my 1050 and great Energy speakers)

I noticed some folks compalined about not hearing audio on some disc. I had the same thing happen when viewing the DVD Dinosaur. I didnt here voices at first, but then I realized I had audio only mode on. With a flick the voices were back nice and crisp. Also check to make sure the headphone isnt set to on. This thing has some neat features, so check your settings before blaming the unit. Lots of options with this RP91.

Overall, I'm happy so far with the purchase. Its amazing how much color and detail isnt seen when viewing a movie on VHS or even at the movie theatre. The Dinosuar DVD was absolutely beautiful on this player.

I'm not rating this player with five stars, however, because of the slight little issues with the noise, and I think the build quality could be better, but then again, the other players I've seen in this price range are of similar build quality.

Similar Products Used:

Sony

Awesome picture, great price.

Snaping sound coming from right channel when watching DVD movies (see below).

As I was in the market for my first DVD player, I bought this player because of the great reviews and past experience with the quality of Panasonic products. Although this is my first player of this type, it has exceeded my expectations in all categories except...

There seems to be a sound problem with this particular unit when playing DVD movies. I hear a snaping sound coming from the right speaker every 30 seconds or so. I've tried all the sound settings in the menu (Analog and Digital) and also have tried several discs (The Matrix; Me, Myself & Irene, Eagles-Hell Freezes Over) and the problem persists. I connected the player directly to my TV to see if it was a problem with my receiver (Yamaha RX-V2090) and it does the same thing. Audio only discs (CD's & CDR's) work fine...and sound great through the Yamaha.

I've called Panasonic and since this is such a new unit, they have no info on my problem and suggest I return it. Anyone else experienceing this problem?? I hope it's something I'm doing wrong or not setting correctly. If anyone has any suggestions please e-mail me at deepone@hawaii.rr.com. Thanks!

Similar Products Used:

None

Picture quality seems very good, but I have an old TV. I hope to purchase a progressive scan TV next year. That is one of the two best reason for me to buy this product. I hope to burn some DVD-RAM videos with my DVD-Ram drive. That is the second reason for my choice. The CD audio sounds good to me.

My pet peeve is that most electronics do not have enough buttons to get at their features. I am tired of having to go thru so many menus. This is not just a fault with this unit. Most electronics are like this now. I want as many buttons on the unit as there are on the remote.

My unit has a problem with the audio when playing DVD movies. The movie will be playing fine for 10 minutes, then I lose all sound except the sub-woofer. If I pause the DVD-RP91 unit, then press play, the sound will come back. Out of the 4 DVD movies I have played, three had this problem. I called Panasonic and they said they are clueless and suggested that I attach it to another receiver to see if the problem occurs with a different receiver. I can not do this because I only have one. Therefore I will need to bring it into a dealer for repair. They also suggested to replace the optical cable. The cable is new, but I guess it could be faulty. After all, when I hoked up my new speakers and receiver, I bought a new roll of Monster speaker cable and the roll was bad. There was a one inch break inside the sheething that cause one speaker to not work. So much for spending money on expensive cable. Lamp cord would have worked better.

All-in-all, I think I would like this unit if it worked well. (that goes without saying) This unit was hard to get when I was looking for it, seems a bit pricey for me, and it does not work well. Therefore I have to rate it at a 2. Your mileage may vary. Maybe I got a lemon.

DVD-Audio; Progressive scan; On-board decoders; Very good sound on DVDs and better than most on music CDs; Picture quality on normal TV (non HDTV). Automatic aspect scaling.

Rather flimsy build quality compared to high end machines; Owner's manual is a challenge to figure out; Slow to play CDs.

This is the first piece of electronic I bought unseen and unheard. Overall, I am happy with the unit. For the price, it is a very good value considering all the features it has.

Sound: On DVDs encoded with Dolby digital and even better with DTS (decoders inside of a Yamaha receiver), the sound is very good, with powerful bass, and no harshness like many digital devices. Dialog is easy to follow. I haven't tried the onboard decoders yet. On music CDs, the sound is also very good for a machine of that price: the bass is deep, the high frequencies are not bright or harsh. However, compared to my CD player (Micromega Stage 3), it doesn't possess the harmonic richness or the musical involvement, which is typical of mid-fi components. But I wouln't be unhappy if it was my only source for music. The remaster function (reclocks the digital stream to a higher sampling frequency, e.g. up to 192kHz) doesn't improve the sound IMHO. Rather removes something. Just a gimmick.

Picture: The picture quality is a major step up compared to my VHS player, which comes as no surprise to anybody. I can't comment on the progressive output, my TV screen is an old model. I can't see the jaggies that seem to bother many. The pan and scan function is a great bonus.

Build quality: Better than most at that price, especially for the nice aluminium face plate. Panasonic doesn't charge a premium for the champagne colour, contrary to others (e.g. Sony). However, the unit is very light weight, and the legs are made of cheap plastic with rubber inserts. The legs on my machine are not levelled, only three touch the shelf below. When playing a disc, the whole unit vibrates. The tray is very flimsy, although it loads reasonably fast IMO.

Last thing: the manual tries to teach the owner using a lot of pictograms, and few sentences. Better be able to read between the lines to understand all the functions. Overall, a product loaded with features which doesn't cost an arm an a leg, thus a very good value.

Similar Products Used:

None (this is my first DVD player).