Quote:
Originally Posted by
Westly-C 
Hey, don't leave us on a cliffhanger!
Five days later, what are your impressions?
To be hyper-critical for a moment:
Well on my computer screen HDMI it has nice output (2 feet in front of me).
But the component output to my TV (old CRT but large) is obviously worse quality than my 5+ year old $25 Coby DVD player. Perhaps this is because of the noted poor scaler on this unit.
It forgets the resolution mode (480i) and aspect (4:3 letterbox) every time I turn it off. So every time I turn it on, I have to first change the resolution before I can use it. Since it starts in 1080p, I guess it's not a problem for those with real 16:9 HDTV panels that default at 1080p.
The menus are slow and the fonts are entirely too small (no way to adjust, zoom does not work in menus).
There is no way to change real aspect from a single button on the remote, you can change resolution but not cropping framed vs anamorphic. You have to go a few levels deep in the setup menu. This is especially a pain because since it forgets it every time it's powered off, if I forget to change it before going into a movie/netflix/etc. I have to stop everything to change it and then re-start the playback.
DVD zoom level only works in whole numbers, so unlike the $25 coby, there is not a 1.5x zoom to reduce a little of the cropping on very wide films.
Netflix streaming works very nicely, but the frame rate and sound sync seems a little strange in a way I can't quite put my finger on. When the film pans across the scene/room, any vertical lines in the picture "glisten" and pulse in a weird way that hurts my eyes/brain. This might also be from 480i mode and using the component outputs instead of HDMI.
Since I am using a replacement remote, I am NOT having any of the troubles other people have reported, I can control it from across the room, even off walls (not line-of-sight) with this $10 RCA universal remote.
And I mentioned the DVD drive noise, opening and closing and when it's changing chapters is a very loud grind. USB input is silent though of course.
For what little I paid, I can deal with all that.
But I can't imagine people who paid $100+ being perfectly satisfied with all the quirks though. Maybe that's why they have hundreds (thousands?) of refurb units.
Those with VERY large HDTV panels that default to 1080p will probably not complain about many of the problems I listed above. Maybe I can find a deal this black friday on a large panel but since my car is having major problems I doubt I'll be able to afford it this year.
