Panasonic DVD-S47S Progressive Scan DVD Player
High Quality - Low Cost !
Only two years ago a player like this would cost $300. Especially with features like DVD Audio & Progressive scan. Now it sells for less than $100.00. For the price you can not beat this player. It has more features and better overall quality than most players in this price range. Believe it or not, at $100, this DVD Player is currently the PANASONIC \\"top of the line\\" single disc player. That alone says it all about how far DVD players have come!     The new Panasonic DVD S47s features Advanced Progressive Scan. With a compatible TV, this really makes the video quality much better. I really like the sleek slim profile ,and the clear display. It gives a choice of time elapsed , or time remaining.  The DVD players on screen display gives all the information needed for sound and picture settings. For those who don't like letterboxing ,the Panasonic S47 has several zoom features to eliminate the black bars. It worked very well. But it is not a feature I like to use. I tested the S47 on a big screen TV. I compared it to the new $200 JVC 510 DVD player. I tried several different types of dvd movies.The Panasonic had clearly the best quality picture and best features.     The S47 had a very sharp , clear picture using the 'dynamic\\" picture setting. If you are the type who likes to \\"tweak\\" your picture and sound. The S-47 has many choices to choose from.  There are individual picture settings for color, sharpness, gamma ,brightness and contrast,noise reduction. They all work well. Once you have the patience to see what settings work best for each DVD. There also also several automatic presets for the picture quality. The one that worked best for me is the Dynamic setting. This setting automatically gives just the right amount of boost to the brightness,contrast,& sharpness.I found that setting worked best with my 35\\" RCA Television using the S-VIDEO output. Some picture and sounds settings work better than the others. It really depends how you have the DVD Player connected.If you are not the type to play with the advanced features. You could just set the player to the Dynamic setting and sit back and enjoy. Based on Quality and features, this is by far the best DVD player available at this price.     In the back, the DVD-S47S has optical and coaxial digital outputs for Dolby Digital/DTS/PCM ,One set of A/V outputs (composite video, S-video, and 480i/480p component video).    The Advanced Virtual surround sound for enhanced 2-speaker sound worked well using just the televisons speakers.There are also  audio remaster settings that really make audio CD's sound better.    Disk compatibility was perfect.It played DVD-Rs,-RWs,+Rs,+RWs, DVD-RAM, DVD-Audio ,CD-R/RWs. It is only one of two DVD players available that plays DVD-RAM disks. It also has the HiMat file compatibility feature, which makes reading digital photo and music files easier. The Panasonic worked fine with all of my digital image files and cd music disks. There's even a very convenient thumbnail browser for viewing JPEG images. The Panasonic DVD S 47 is totally compatible with nearly every recordable disk format and media type. If you want a high quality,low priced player that can play any type of disc.   Then the PANASONIC DVD-S47S is your best choice!