DVD 5 Rumours

The DVD5 is vastly superior sounding to either of the Arcams (but they're both very good).
Picture's about the same - don't rely on the 1080p scaling to do anything startling with 480p/576p material. You can't get off the disc what ain't there...

Any shortcomings in your picture will be the fault of the Sony.

All

Last I heard the scaler was dead and buried, can't say I blame Naim for this the cost of it compard to say a lumgen, it didn't look like value for money.

Never heard anything about a DVD5i, I would say though there has been no new DVD player for any of the big companies lately. Exept Arcam. For me the the Naim blows all the Arcam players out the water.

The DVD5 for me still seems the best value DVD player at any price.

Although my only complaint was mine seemed to take any age to run in. More than happy now though

Neill

Nick

I would be interested in your views on the Sony LCD - I guess its the 46w or x2000. I am thinking of the same to replace an aging Panasonic plasma, but am struggling to reconcile the differences between plasma and lcd HD. Why did you choose LCD over plasma for instance.

Thanks

Jonathan

LCD is still a pile of doo-doo in my opinion, just not as big a pile as it used to be. Large LCD is worse. It's got a lot better than it was but contrast is still not particularly good, motion still suffers trailing (although it's MUCH better than it was) and side-on viewing remains a pig.

Plasma still suffers from being a touch noisy (physically, the sets can buzz a bit) but wallops the LCDs in all the above scenarios. The latest Pioneers are really very good indeed.

One caveat - I'm talking about standard definition material. All the LCD panels seem to be optimised for HD and are far better on that than they are with standard def DVD or broadcast. Even upscaled DVD doesn't work particularly well with the LCDs (better with the plasmas).

I strongly recommend that when you go out to buy a panel, insist on seeing a standard def feed as well as the HD feed they almost invariably have on these displays. This way you will see what your DVD collection will look like as well as the less prevalent HD content.

Having just been to CEDIA USA I had a chance to check out all the latest displays....with the caveat that very few had moving pictures. The Fujitsu plasmas in particular were rather well demonstrated. The Sharp and Sony LCD's looked pretty nice ... but no moving pictures!

For me the biggest issue with LCD is off axis viewing. Wouldn't be suitable in my living room.
Also plasma has a sense of CRT about it that I find appealing.

Having said that, in the US, I see that large LCD panels have tipped the balance in sales versus plasma ... as in many cases they are cheaper for the same screen size. Plasma is still very much in the reckoning though, with Pioneer and Panasonic getting recommended the most currently.

Thanks for the perspective. I have been REALLY happy with my 5 year old Panasonic Plasma, so am taking the step to LCD very carefully. What is currently tipping me towards LCD is the fact that LCD can do 1080 vertical lines, whereas my current plasma is 480 (I think) and even the best plasmas now are only 768 (approx).

Maybe I should wait for 1080 plasma.

Jonathan

They're here already–one of the low-end Hitachi panels already handles 1080 lines (though it scales horizontally across 1024 pixels, rather than 1920).

David

Thanks - I just checked and TH-50PZ600 from Panasonic is coming soonish... Maybe worth waiting"!!!

J