Yamaha DVD-S550 DVD Player
Superb little player, with a couple of surprise dividends
I bought this on a closeout table at a local dealer after sending back a superbly disappointing Toshiba player. This unit matches my Yamaha HTR-5840 receiver in appearance, and (small consolation prize) the receiver's remote operates this player 100%. Play is good, 480p image is fine via component output to my 31\\" 16:9 HDTV, though you will want to set it up with a S-video cable, as the component output blinked annoyingly until I could put it in progressive mode.<br /><br />A surprise dividend to this player is a setup setting for the digital audio output (in my case, via the TOSlink fibre optic cable). Digital out can be set for PCM-only for a non-decoder receiver, and \\"All\\" for receivers with decoders (like mine, and probably yours, too). In \\"All,\\" my receiver identifies and presents discrete 5.1 channels! IOW, Dolby Digital 2.0 is shown as 2-channel input. Dolby Digital 5.1 is shown as 5 channels plus the LFE channel. DTS 96/24 is shown as 5.1 channels in the higher bitrate. Further, this DVD player has a \\"LPCM\\" mode which sends 96kHz signals unaltered, or converts to 48kHz. Regardless of how it's done, my receiver plays 5 channels in \\"straight\\" mode, which it can't do with other DVD players like the late, great Toshiba player and my PlayStation2 (both using optical digital out). Does it sound good? No, it sounds EXCELLENT. Consider a feature like this if you're shpping around. Happy hunting.... ;)