Panasonic DVD-S97S Progressive Scan DVD Player Silver
Great performance for a great price.
To anyone interested in this product, I received my Panasonic S97S DVD player a little over a week ago in anticipation of my new HDTV purchase. I was lined up to buy the Sony KDP-57WS655 RP CRT HDTV and wanted a DVD player with HDMI upconversion. From all the research I did, many reviews pointed positively to this item so I took a chance and purchased online from Vann's. For $270 with shipping inc, how could I lose? The player arrived a day early and well packaged. Kudos to Vanns. My TV arrived 3 days later and the hookup was complete in less than 5 minutes with the HDMI connection. I was impressed with the appearance of the player. Felt solid and looked very sharp out of the box. The player is lightening fast to any prompts from either the included remote or the front panel controls. I also had a Sharp DVD recorder hooked up to the TV via component cables with progressive scan output. The Sharp player could not touch this Panasonic. The quick setup feature was a great way to get up and running in a hurry. The 480p output was not bad. Better than the Sharp. It took some fooling around to find the upconversion controls, but once reset to 1080i output, WOW. The pic quality on some DVD's rivaled that of some of my HD broadcasts. Particularly, the animated features. Just watched Robots with my kids yesterday. The color rendering and seamless transition of the picture even had my wife saying WOW. She is not easily impressed by electronic toys. This player also has a multitude of adjustments for customizing picture settings. This can be of help for anybody who does't want to mess with their TV's settings. The 720p output, in my opinion, does not look as good to me as the 1080i. My set's native resolution is 1080i, which may account for this. I also liked the fact that you could select HDMI audio and video separately. For example, I was most excited to view the picture quality of this device at first and ran both video AND audio via the included HDMI to my set. Of course,following a quick eval of the picture quality, I proceeded to connect my optical out of my player to my Yamaha AV receiver. The audio output via both stereo from CD's and Dolby Digital/DTS from DVD's is very impressive. To me, the sound created by this player seems much more immersive. Ambient sounds and bass reproduction, in particular. I have been playing around with the settings for the past 4 days and still continue to be wowed as I make my way through my DVD collection. As all the readers here know, there have been some minor gripes. The blue light on the front of the display makes it look high tech. Some people like this sort of thing. For those who don't, it is very easy to disable in the user menu. It's not fair to dog this unit for such an annoyance. I chose to set mine to off. After all, it is supposed to be about the picture quality, right? As for the thin, transparent disk tray, yes it seems fragile, but a little TLC in it's handling should ensure longevity. I will agree with all the reviewers who criticized the player's manual. It can be difficult to navigate for a novice home theater enthusiast. Panasonic could certainly done better. Definitely a good combination for me with this Panasonic with my Sony HDTV. For the price paid, I have no regrets with this purchase. With so much technology abound, every consumer wants to get the best bang for his buck. Get one while you can because they are in short supply online. I could go on about this player, but I know you all have other reviews to get to so I will end my review on that note. Cheers to you all and good luck in your home theater endeavours.