New DVD Player!

[caddyman]

One of the best things about having a brand new DVD Player -Samsung DVD-HD860- is the pleasing way that technology has moved on in the last 10 years (that's about how old the Wharfdale is) - not least as the new machine is cuteful small compared with the monster I was using before.

I have a couple of disks that I know are damaged; the problem is I couldn't tell how damaged. The Wharfdale would just grind to a halt in a sea of misplaced pixels, but the new Samsung just bounces the scene. Strangely enough, if you wind back, it so far has shown a propensity to play the damaged section quite adequately, so provided it isn't too large a piece of manky DVD, having to pause and start again shouldn't be too onerous.

I haven't tried the DivX playback yet - I had a look and it said something about registering, so I let it be for now. All in all seventy-nine sovs well spent I think. It's a middle price machine but it seems to play every DVD and CD format under the sun (excluding this new fangled Blu-Ray stuff, but since I have none of those, I don't care: too expensive and I have been wary of competing new formats since the ill-fated Betamax fiasco anyway).



Oh, and it has a bookmark facility!

Comments

[fractalgeek.livejournal.com]

Good choice ;-)

[fractalgeek.livejournal.com]

I've just found if I put in a disk that that has both CD-Audio and MPEG video, that it will play both.

Changing the MPEG output setting to PCM, and it even comes out throught the AV amp, leaving DVDs at DTS.

(Sending audio out through the TV is odder, as using a DTS output suppresses the HDMI audio link, and I haven't decided whether the more useful thing is use the Stereo phono link to the amp as a wired alternative, or to use those outputs to drive the TV via the alternative stereo jack for that HDMI port - but the TV setup change is deeply buried, and is not something that you'd want to do on the fly. I had to do something similar for 2-channel discs on the Wharfdale)

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

At the moment I am content to leave it attached to yon telly by naught but SCART. The telly is serviceable but relatively antiaunt with one of the stereo speakers only reliable if on wide sound. I have toyed with the idea of linking the DVD player to my spare hi-fi, but the combination of three remotes to watch one thing would probably prove fatal to the patience of the residents of the Athenaeum Club.

Once I have a better telly (not until digital broadcasting manages something better around here than multicoloured pixel storms), I may re-investigate the cleverer arcana of audiovisual set-ups!

[fractalgeek.livejournal.com]

DD/DTS sound makes a significant improvement to the enjoyment level of our DVDs.

We dabbled with a "Chameleon" All-in-one 6 way remote (which is so clever you can macro it to do several changes as one - assuming that the sensors are together...), but the Sky+ remote gets 95% of normal usage.

I will be interested to see how a better DVD experience (and a slightly moved DVD to improve accessibility) will change things.