Milli Vanilli have left the building
Written: Oct 28 '99
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Fast, hybrid disc playing beast.
Cons: Doesn't hold a candle to Milli Vanilli.
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| billservo's Full Review: Sony DVP-S530D DVD Player |
I admit, I jumped on the DVD bandwagon late. Not that I didn't want to get a DVD player, mind you, I just never saw a player that I thought was at a good enough price to justify buying one. Players I looked into were either over-priced, or something along the lines of a Fisher-Price "My First DVD Player."
Enter the Sony 530D. Disclaimer: I have bought a lot of Sony A/V products in the past. Disclaimer disclaimer: I bought a lot of Sony products in the past because the quality is unmatched. I could go on and on about all the features the 530D has, but then, they are all on the product description. I'll point out a few that are worth mentioning twice, though: parental lockout, VES (for simulating multiple speaker setups with 2 speakers), slick setup menus, VCD support (for all you Hong Kong movie freaks), screen saver. There's more. A lot more.
But how about the stuff not on the back of the box that the Best Buy guys read off to you? Load times. DVDs load fast. I even timed it for you. From the time I pushed play on my "2001: A Space Odyssey" CD to MGM splash I waited an entire 9 seconds. That includes tray closure.
How about drive sound? It's not 100% quiet, but negligible. If you've got your player in any type of enclosure, you'll be fine.
A nifty feature on this player is a jog feature. Even nicer, is that jog can be disengaged from the jog wheel. While disengaged, the jog wheel allows you to move instantly into step, slow, x2, play, FF1, FF2, and the respective backwards movements. While engaged, you can move to all of those except FF1 and FF2 and the respective backwards movements, but parking the wheel freezes the picture.
VCDs are played smartly, and quickly. The audio button on the remote allows you to switch between left and right channels, for VCDs recorded in 2 languages. The only thing that would have made VCD playback better is the ability to search your VCD by entering time values to skip to. At least the player remembers where you left off when you stop playback so that you can resume at the same spot next time.
Hybrid discs. Flawless playback on these, too. I have yet to find a DVD that has caused this player to stumble. Yes, I did follow the white rabbit in my Matrix DVD. And, of course, sound and picture quality are superb.
Oh, and about the title of my epinion? That has to do with the numerous complaints of lip synching with this player. I have not noticed any lip synch problems with my DVDs yet. It's been an on-going saga for quite a while, and, truthfully, I don't know if Sony officially acknowledged the alleged problem. I have seen a statement from Sony that claimed that the problem was due to a faulty batch of decoders and that it would soon be rectified. If this is indeed an official Sony statement, the new players may be coming out of the factory with the new decoders right now. At least in my experience, I haven't had the problem.
Overall, this is a great player featuring solid construction, and sleek design, too. As far as all the lip synch talk...blame it on the flames.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
billservo
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Member: Bill Saez
Location: Ft. Lauderdale, FL
Reviews written: 79
Trusted by: 98 members
About Me:
Lifelong game freak. Recently got to work with Sega and THQ in developing cellphone games.
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