Sony DVP-S570D DVD Player -- What You NEED to Know
Written: May 16 '01 (Updated May 16 '01)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Sound: |
 |
|
| Ease of Use: |
 |
|
| Picture Quality: |
 |
|
| Durability: |
|
|
|
Pros: Jog-shuttle dial, integral DD/DTS decoder, matches silver color of Wega TV's.
Cons: Expensive for this level of features and performance.
The Bottom Line: A well-designed basic DVD player, and its color matches the Sony Wega TV's (silver). But this Y2K model has been passed in the march of price/performance, even by other Sony's.
|
|
|
| radioguy's Full Review: Sony DVP-S570D DVD Player |
The Sony DVP-S570D DVD player is unique among Year-2000 Sony DVD players. While all the other DVD players are Consumer-Electronics Black, the 570 is silver, Wega Silver, meaning it will match the TV sets and other products from Sony's new Wega (pronounced "vega") line of video gear. Sony is expanding the range of video products available in the Wega Silver and will feature it on their new moderately-priced progressive-scan model, the DVP-NS700P which is set to hit store shelves this June at a price of about $400.
This Silver Will Cost You Lots of Silver
As the 570 is just a standard interlaced model, and has a street price of about $350, anybody who really needs their DVD player to match a Wega Silver TV or other piece of video gear will probably prefer to just wait for the NS700P to hit the market. For the same price, or perhaps a few dollars more, you'll get both the Wega-matching color and progressive-scan capability. On the other hand, unless your Wega TV is one of the H/DTV-ready XBR models, the progressive-scan capability won't make any difference to you as all the other Wegas, and any other NTSC-standard TV, can only accept a standard interlaced output signal (the NS700P also has interlaced output).
Alternate Players Offer Better Value
If decor-matching is not an issue for you, there are other DVD players which match the features of the 570 while selling for substantially less. In fact, you can even stick with the Sony brand name and get fairly similar features, for $100 less, with their new DVP-NS400D with its street price of $250. Panasonic's DVD-RV65, with its internal Dolby Digital decoder, now has a street price of $230 and Panasonic currently offers a $50 rebate on this model. If the internal Dolby Digital decoder isn't a necessity for you, but Wega Silver is, you can pick up Sony's new DVP-NS300S for $200. Please note, none of these new models are yet listed on Epinions (the NS700P, NS400D, and NS300S).
Integral Dolby Digital/ Digital Theater Sound Decoder
The main feature which differentiates the 570 with the lower-level models in this line of Sony DVD players (i.e., the year-2000 models), besides its color scheme, is its integral Dolby Digital (DD)/ Digital Theater Sound (DTS) decoder. This decoder takes the DD or DTS datastream from a DVD disc and transforms it to six analog audio output channels which will feed the analog inputs on a 5.1-channel-ready surround-sound amplifier or A/V receiver.
The paradox about the DD/DTS decoder is that, while it's only found on more expensive DVD players, it's only needed for the very least expensive A/V receivers. Once you get over the $200 level with A/V receivers, they all have their own integral DD (and usually also DTS) decoders. All DVD players have a digital surround-sound output, either a coaxial connection, an optical connection, or both, which will feed the digital surround-sound input jack on any over-$200 A/V receiver. Thus, the integral DD/DTS decoder is not the most useful feature and will only be a necessity for folks who own one of the least-costly A/V 5.1-channel-ready receivers.
Woo Hoo! A Jog-Shuttle Dial!
The next most important feature, and this is one which will benefit everybody, is the jog-shuttle control included on the 570's remote control. The jog-shuttle dial lets you quickly and easily control the player's fast-forward and rewind commands. Combined with the unit's ability to view a DVD as your fast-forwarding or rewinding it (a.k.a. "SmoothScan search"), turning the jog-shuttle dial to the right causes the player to fast forward. It's a progressive control -- the farther to the right, clockwise, you turn it, the faster it moves the DVD forward. You have the same effect with rewind when you turn the dial to the left, anti-clockwise. The jog-shuttle dial is duplicated on the player's front panel, though dedicated video lovers will be far happier with the control on the remote.
To facilitate quick navigation, there's also a bookmark feature. This allows you, with up to 200 discs, to set up to nine specific points on each disc which you can instantly access.
Picture Quality
With its 10-bit video digital-to-analog converter (DAC), the 570 provides the usual excellent image quality we've all come to expect from the format, though the output won't quite match that of a player with a 12-bit/54 Mhz DAC. As previously mentioned, the output from the 570 is interlaced, meaning that, while its horizontal resolution is 480 lines, only half that number are on the screen at any given moment. Like any interlaced-output device, the 570, in the first half of the video frame, the first 1/60th-of-a-second, outputs the 240 odd-numbered lines of the frame, while in the second 1/60th-of-a-second it outputs the 240 even-numbered lines of the frame.
While progressive-scan output, which, with a DVD player, outputs a full, 480-line frame every 1/60th-of-a-second, provides a superior picture, many high-def TV's have internal line doublers which bring the output from an interlaced DVD player like the 570 up to the point where it's almost as good as progressive-scan output. In other words, even though this player doesn't do progressive scan, it will work quite well with most high-def TV's.
The 570 only plays regular DVD's and CD's. It doesn't work with CD-R or CD-RW discs. The 570 also works with DVD and CD text, displaying this information on discs encoded with it.
The parental control allows you to control the playback of certain scenes (you set the level of salaciousness, between 1 and 7). It has a memory for up to 50 DVD's.
There's a "Digital Cinema Sound" mode which enhances the perceived spaciousness (the three-dimensional quality) when playing back analog, L/R audio. The effectiveness of this feature is quite limited, especially when compared to real six-speaker surround sound.
Front Panel Configuration
The front panel on this player is nicely laid out. On the far left, there's a headphone jack. There's even a small volume control, which is very convenient when you want to just use headphones to listen to a CD on the player. The disc drawer and LED readout are in the center of the front panel. Transport controls are to the right, with the jog-shuttle dial on the far right. There's also a menu button on the front panel, and navigation rocker in the center of the jog-shuttle dial, so you can operate most of the functions of the player even without the remote.
Back Panel Configuration
The back panel has an extensive set of output jacks. For output from the DD/DTS decoder, there are six analog audio outputs (front-right, center, front-left, rear-right, rear-left, and subwoofer). There are two L/R audio analog output sets. To feed A/V receivers, amps, and pre-amps with their own DD/DTS decoder, there is both a coaxial jack (an RCA jack) and an optical jack (takes the plug from a fiber-optic cable). It's nice to have this versatility. Some players have only either a coaxial or an optical output, but not both.
Video output is well covered. In order of ascending signal quality, there are composite, S-Video, and component outputs. You should use the highest-quality connection available on your TV. The 570 has two composite outputs and two S-Video outputs. There is only one component output set. The component output is actually a set of three RCA jacks to connect to the three cables used with a component-video connection (Y-Pb-Pr, or luminance, yellow-red chrominance, and yellow-blue chrominance).
Finally, there's an S-Link jack to use with Sony's proprietary S-Link control system. When you connect Sony video components with S-Link, their operations are automatically coordinated. For example, pressing play on a Sony S-Link DVD player will automatically power-up your Sony S-Link-equipped TV and switch it to the DVD input (provided that they are connected via their S-Link jacks with the proper cable).
Excellent Remote
The remote is one of the better ones I've seen on a DVD player. Although, like just about all Sony remotes, it suffers slightly from gigantism, it has an extensive set of controls. It can also control Sony model TV's, but to put it in this mode you must move a slide switch at the top of the remote, so this function is inconvenient to access. The best part of the remote, as I mentioned before, is the jog-shuttle dial. The second best part is that it's glow-in-the-dark.
Not the Greatest Deal, But Not Bad Either
Although the 570 is not the best value around, it does offer a nice array of the little niceties that make operation of a DVD player enjoyable. If you enjoy zooming back and forth to various points in a DVD movie, the jog-shuttle control on the remote will greatly enhance your viewing pleasure. There are cheaper models with a jog-shuttle control, such as the Panasonic RV65, but the RV65 only has this control on the player itself and, as any dedicated couch potato will attest, if a control isn't on the remote, you might as well not have it.
The DVP-S570 is covered by a one-year warranty.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 350
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
radioguy
|
 - Top 100 |
|
Member: R.U. Experienced
Location: New York, NY
Reviews written: 228
Trusted by: 252 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.