The picture quality brings out the best in a DVD too. I've been used to the
top-notch looks delivered by a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM pumped through to a
32" widescreen Panasonic TV and if there's any glitches shown up through the
DVP-CX860 then it's down to the disc with mild glitches showing up often in
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
and the overall age of
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
showing when it shouldn't. The best discs that shone through during the brief
time I had with the unit were
I'm Alan Partridge -
which you'd expect to be first-rate given it being so recent - and
Ravenous.
For NTSC DVDs that are region-free or Region 2 (as in many of the UK WWF DVDs),
these are shown in pure NTSC given that there's no on-board NTSC-to-PAL
conversion, so hook up with either a SCART or an s-video lead and you'll be
fine.
Note that the rear of the unit contains two SCART sockets, an s-video out -
which was my choice - phono video out and component video out sockets, as well
as co-axial and optical digital sound outputs and the aforementioned "Mega
Control" connection.
I wanted to know why when using this DVD player does widescreen auto-switching
occur on the Region 2 DVDs, Seven SE and
Terminator 2,
but not
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace,
Bedazzled and
Ravenous, or
have only a handful of discs actually got the autoswitching enabled?
The disc itself contains flags describing the aspect ratio of the
coded frame plus the active area within it. For an anamorphic disc
this would indicate a 16:9 coded frame and the DVD player itself
would, depending on the level of support in its firmware, generate
signals on the SCART or S-Video leads and may construct appropriate
line 23 (or line 21 for NTSC) signalling to tell your TV what to do.
Meanwhile, the encoded frame on a DVD includes the first half of the
first line and the last half of the last line of the visible
display. If you look closely at a TV you'll see that the visible
scan actually starts and ends half way along - the first line you
see is in fact line 23, but the first half of it is *not* meant to
be visible. Thus, a DVD player (and indeed DTV receivers and so-on)
should mask out the first half of line 23 decoded from the actual
MPEG stream, and possibly write their own information in there as
described. Some don't, though, so if you actually MPEG encode a
wide screen signal burnt into the picture in the first half of line
23 you have a fighting chance of it making it to the TV unscathed
and the TV then switching accordingly.
This is, of course, very bad. The disc itself should NEVER contain
the line 23 signal, because the DVD player may be told to output a
16:9 letterbox image for a 4:3 TV. However the TV may be 16:9 shape
or 4:3 with a true 16:9 mode, and an attempt by the disc to override
what the player is doing could lead to nasty results, such as a 4:3
or 16:9 letterbox picture being output by the DVD player, with the
TV switched into 16:9 anamorphic mode because of burnt-in line 23
signals being "leaked" from the disc. The same sort of argument
exists for digital TV receivers since they also can be told what
sort of TV you have, but the majority of those (unfortunately) do
leak the first part of line 23 as the designers simply did not
realise they weren't meant to...
Quite a few DVDs, by the way, have incorrect encoding flags so you
can find some 16:9 anamorphic discs do not switch your TV into the
correct mode whilst others do. This can be caused by any number of
things, not least including dodgy encoder software or an operator
who isn't as clued up as he/she ought to be. I reckon it was a
specific combination of confused flags settings that provoked older
versions of the Samsung 709 firmware to display the "anamorphic
bug", where it did a forced downconversion to 16:9 letterbox despite
the setup menu being told the TV supported 16:9 anamorphic, BICBW."
A closer look at the remote control -->
I was only able to get a picture of the remote which accompanied the
DVP-CX850, the 200-disc equivalent of this machine, but there's little differenec
bar a rearrangement of a few keys.
Again, apart from the usual you'd find, there's the addition of folder keys
to replicate that found on the unit, and a "picture memory" function. Press
this at any time and it'll save that image as the screensaver when you
first switch on the machine. I had to learn that function pretty quickly as I
accidentally made Alan Partridge eating a scotch egg the picture and the breath
that stank afterwards... :)
Finally - any downsides? Well, those DVD boxes will have to be stored somewhere
if you insist on filling the beast, but that's tough. It's the price you pay
for the luxurious extravagance and damn fine convenience. Also, I could be
flippant and say that I cannot take screengrabs as I can with my PC DVD-ROM
but that wasn't what this machine was designed to do, so it's simple enough
to make a note of what you want, then put the disc in your PC and run a program
like PowerDVD in which to do the honours.
Seriously though, the jog dial is a pain and I'd add a couple more buttons to
take the effort away from moving the dial when instead it's better and more
natural to press a button to shuttle back and forth through a scene.
Also, when it comes to bookmarks, while adding a bookmark is easy peasy, viewing
them afterwards isn't as that option is buried within a couple of sub-menus.
Still, when you do view the bookmarks, they are displayed as frames from the
film as can the chapters also be seen should that be desired. I'm sure though
that any decent universal remote should be able to get round both of these
problems quite easily were you to use those as well. Might be a bit of a kludge
using more than one remote, but if you're surrounded by a number reaching
double figures as I am then one more won't matter.
Overall, the Sony DVP-CX860 comes highly recommended by me and I would
love one that plays all regions. Add to this the ease of use and excellent
clarity of picture and sound and your friends will be mightily impressed.
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
I wanted to know why when using this DVD player does widescreen auto-switching
occur on the Region 2 DVDs, Seven SE and
Meanwhile, the encoded frame on a DVD includes the first half of the
first line and the last half of the last line of the visible
display. If you look closely at a TV you'll see that the visible
scan actually starts and ends half way along - the first line you
see is in fact line 23, but the first half of it is *not* meant to
be visible. Thus, a DVD player (and indeed DTV receivers and so-on)
should mask out the first half of line 23 decoded from the actual
MPEG stream, and possibly write their own information in there as
described. Some don't, though, so if you actually MPEG encode a
wide screen signal burnt into the picture in the first half of line
23 you have a fighting chance of it making it to the TV unscathed
and the TV then switching accordingly.
