11.26.08
Technology: my upscaling DVD player
I just recently bought a Sony DVP-NS700H/B 1080p Upscaling DVD Player to replace my Toshiba. The upscaling seemed like a good route to high resolution (much cheaper currently than Blu Ray). Toshiba also makes an upscaling player, but it has the same enormous drawback that my current Toshiba player has: it presents movies shot in 4:3 aspect ratio stretched out to 16:9 format, so everything is stretched somewhat sideways. Very irritating, especially since I enjoy classic movies and I want to see them in the original 4:3 ratio.
The Sony allows you to change settings so that the player will detect the aspect ratio and automatically switch to that ratio (the 4:3 movies thus have black bars at the side—my TV is an LED flat panel with a 16:9 screen). This feature is not, however, the default: you have to turn it on. Now that it’s on, I note that quite a few trailers are in 4:3, probably because they were shot for TV ads.
The player does do progressive display, but again that’s not the default and you have to turn the feature on.
Biggest drawback so far found: the remote is black, which can make it hard to find if it’s in shadow.
On the whole, I’m extremely pleased—and note the price: today it’s $70 with free shipping if you’re Amazon Prime.
UPDATE: I forgot the most impressive feature, which I totally didn’t expect. If you eject a DVD in the middle of watching it and watch instead another, when you load the first DVD (the interrupted viewing), it will resume from the point of interruption. And it works even if in the meantime you’ve played several other DVDs. Amazing. And useful.
