Customer Reviews

Panasonic DVD-S29S DVD Player , Silver

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I was in the market for a new progressive scan DVD player to match with my new 32" Aquos and the S29 fits the bill. I'm waiting for HD-DVD or Blue-Ray to hit the market before investing in a really expensive player. In the mean time, you can't beat the S29 for the price. I was debating between this and the Sony DVP-NS50PS but for the price I figured the Panasonic was a bargain. I've had it for less than a week but so far its performance has been great. Of course, I highly recommend changing the settings to match your TV. I watched Blade Trinity and thought the picture was okay, then I realized I hadn't customized the settings to 16x9, LCD and 480p. After that the picture was much sharper. There's also a few audio and video modes to choose from which makes it easy to go from 4:3 to 16:9 or you can just choose Auto. It's design is sleek and unpretentious. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for an affordable progressive scan DVD player with a few extra bells and whistles.

Now I've only had the unit for a couple weeks, but this piece performs. Never bought a Panasonic anything before so I was a little weary. Great price though and it works like a charm. Good picture, good sound. Starts up very fast and doesn't skip a beat. I've watched a number of old and new dvds (our own and netflix) and it's read every disk like a champ.

Background
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* Please read this section so you can adjust the weight of my impressions
* This is my first modern-era DVD player. My previous one was from 1998. I am not familiar with the other modern DVD players, so I can't compare them.
* All the recordable DVDs that I tried on this were recorded on a Panasonic ES20 dvd recorder, which I have reviewed separately. I have not tested any DVDs created by other DVD recorders.
* With VCRs, I am okay with the 6 hour mode. I am not very demanding/picky on image quality
* I have an old analog TV
* I am not an expert
* Some problems may be masked because I am using entry-level components so please keep that in mind!
* I am not brave enough to open this to see what's inside

What's In the Box
-----------------
* Panasonic S29 DVD player, date on the back says November 2005, Made in China
* Red/White/Yellow cable
* Remote control and two AA batteries
* User manual (half-page size)

Features I found useful/interesting
-----------------------------------
* Quick Replay is a great feature (takes you back 12-15 seconds)
* A lot of the functions are available as stand-alone buttons on the remote. The remote control is fine by me. Not perfect, but usable. I am not picky on remotes.
* Time Slip (can advance time by pressing the up and down arrow keys; press-and-hold advances in increments of 10 minutes. Down arrow key does -10 minutes)
* Time Search (available in the same menu as Time Slip) you can enter the exact time you want to start playback from using the number keys instead of the arrow keys
* Remaining time can be displayed but you have to toggle the option in a menu
* Customizable Zoom (Just Fit or manual along with preconfigured ratios (eg cinemascope) )
* Customizable Playback Speed 0.6x - 1.4x with sound (with restrictions)
* CM Skip (commercial skip) - jumps about 1 minute ahead
* Dynamic Range compression ON/OFF: great for late-night so you don't wake up the neighborhood when someone screams in the middle of a quiet movie
* AV Enchancer mode attempts to optimize the picture. You can turn it OFF/ON. When it is turned ON, you cannot adjust things like "Picture Quality"
* Choice of TV aspect ratio: 4:3 PanScan or 4:3 Letterbox
* Choice of what happens when showing 4:3 on a 16:9 TV (normal, zoom, shrink, auto)
* You can mark up to 5 positions on a disc and revisit them during a session. If you turn off the machine, or open/close the tray, the positions are reset.
* Black level control: Lighter or Darker options
* Customizable Time Delay for Plasma and A/V receiver setups
* Two choices for displaying STILLs: better picture -vs- less blurring
* A-B repeat
* Customizable Subtitle position?
* Adjustable GUI brightness (!)
* Adjustable brightness (!) of the front panel display
* Direct Navigator is different for DVD-RAMs (VR mode). It shows all recordings as a List without thumbnails, but it starts playing the highlighted title full-screen behind the menus. For DVD-Video disks (eg finalized +/-R and -RW(Video mode) it shows a screen of thumbnail pictures - as created by the DVD recorder)
* Sleek slimline design, thin and lightweight box
* If you are familiar with electronics, you can figure it all out by playing with it. But reading the manual doesn't hurt - it's a short manual anyway :-)

Features Available but I have not tested them
---------------------------------------------
* Progressive (480p) video output, component output
* Playing DVDs created by non-Panasonic DVD recorders
* PlayLists on DVD-RAM
* Playback of DVD+RW, DVD-RW(VR mode)
* digital audio
* Playing HighMAT discs
* MP3 playback
* JPEG playback

Restrictions
----------------------------------
* You cannot use these features with DVD+Rs: Quick Replay, Time Slip, Time Search, CM Skip, Advanced Disc Review
* Limited number of outputs: 1 S-Video, 1 Component, 1 Video (yellow composite), 1 red/white Audio
* No RF out, so if you have an old TV you have to get an RF Modulator or use an A/V receiver, or use an old VCR as an RF Modulator (but that will reduce the picture quality and it is not recommended in the user manual)
* No outputs on the front.
* No Inputs
* If you have other modern-era Panasonics, you may want to change the remote control code on those devices if they all respond to it. See annoyance above if you have multiple modern Panasonics within reach of the remote.

Features Not Available on this model
------------------------------------
* no user-controlled Noise Reduction
* no user-controlled picture quality adjustments of brightness, contrast, etc. You can only choose between five pre-configured Picture Quality modes (Cinema1, Cinema2, Animation, etc)
* no (HD) Upconversion
* no HDMI
* no Position Memory

Problems, Annoyances and Issues
----------------------------------
* Problem: Direct Navigator screen showing the thumbnails for DVD+R is problematic. The cursor keeps blinking on the first title. If you move the arrow keys to the other titles, it keeps returning to the first title. But there are a couple of workarounds: You can play a title by pressing its number in Direct Navigator, or play the first title and then change it by pressing Functions. Regardless of the workarounds, this is disappointing because these DVD+R were created by a Panasonic DVD recorder (ES20) and the Direct Navigator screen works properly on both the DVD recorder and my ancient Apex dvd player from 1998, but not on the S29! So it is disappointing that this brand new November 2005 DVD player does not display the screen correctly. The titles do play without a problem. The problem is getting to the title.
* Annoyance: If you have other Panasonic devices in the line of sight of the S29 remote control they will receive those signals. Even when you change the remote code on those devices, you get an annoying note on the other device's front panel display that a different remote code was received (this was on the ES20). This is not a problem of the S29, but it is a problem for multiple Panasonic devices in the same area.

Types of disks I was able to play
----------------------------------
* commercial DVDs (DVD-Video)
* DVD-RAM
* finalized DVD+R (see problem above), finalized DVD-R
* finalized DVD-RW(Video mode)
* All recordable discs mentioned in this review were recorded with a Panasonic ES20 (which I have reviewed separately)

Types of disks I was _NOT_ able to play
---------------------------------------
* unfinalized DVD+R, unfinalized DVD-R (not supposed to play them)
* unfinalized DVD-RW(Video mode) (not supposed to play them)

Types of disks I did not test
-----------------------------
* DVD-RW(VR mode)
* DVD+RW
* +R/-R Dual/Double layer
* Whether Layer-change is noticeable on commercial DVDs

Conclusion
----------
* For the current Amazon price as of this writing ($65 with Free Shipping ($64 if you have A9)), this is a good deal!
* If this cost $100 or more, I would give it four stars, as I would be expecting some more advanced features (see "Features Not available" above).
* I am giving it five stars because of its versatility and variety of media types that it is able to play and because there are at least two easy workarounds for the DVD+R Direct Navigator Thumbnail bug. Nevertheless Panasonic should fix that bug ASAP.

For any updates, corrections or questions, email is amznreviewsbsg2004 at gmail dot com

The overall performance is fine once you coordinate TV picture settings with DVD settings. The picture then becomes excellent. The instructions for basic functions are understandable, but you must take the time to follow them exactly.

I've used many, many brands of consumer electronics over the years, and I've had trouble with just about all of them... except Panasonic. I now buy only Panasonic (whenever I can) and so far I have not been disappointed.

This DVD player is no exception. I needed a unit that could play any brand of DVD-R disc out there, since I have a ton of burned Verbatim discs (which skip sometimes on cheaper players), as well as some Fujifilm, Sony, and bargain-bin brands like Khypermedia and Memorex.

I've tried Samsung, Memorex, Toshiba, Sony, and Apex DVD players (no, they weren't all mine) and none of them could play all brands of DVD-R without skipping. The best was (surprisingly) the cheap Apex, which didn't skip, but couldn't play one of the cheaper brands at all (Khypermedia if I recall). I've used two different Panasonic players, the DVD-S29S as well as an older model, and both handle anything I throw at them.

This player also plays MP3 and WMA discs. I ripped all of my "80s Hits" CDs into WMA files and put 185 songs (128kbps) onto a single CD-R. The on-screen song navigation takes a minute to get used to, but is much better than not having one at all. It also apparently can play video files, though I haven't looked into which formats it can play. Of course it displays photos on CD and can play VCDs and DVD+R and any other type of disc. Unfortunately there is no Random mode for MP3 and WMA discs, but this isn't a jukebox after all. It does offer playback of playlists (that would need to be burned onto the CD with your songs), though I didn't check what format the playlists need to be in.

If you have any kind of observation skills whatsoever, you know that the music on DVDs is always 10 times louder than the dialog. So it's difficult to maintain a suitable volume to hear the voices without getting blown away when the soundtrack kicks in. This player features a volume leveler that reduces the volume of loud music, while increasing the volume of dialog. I was a little skeptical at first, but it really works. This feature is excellent for those people who constantly change the TV volume (you know these people), or for watching movies when you need to keep the TV quiet. You'll be surprised how well it works. This feature, combined with many other audio and video tweaks, can be turned on with a single button on the remote (AV Enhancer), or you can fine tune everything separately in the advanced settings.

Another nice feature is the auto-zoom, which will crop the video so that the black bars on the top and bottom of widescreen movies are removed. Unlike other methods, the auto-zoom finds the edges of the video so that it only zooms enough to exactly fill the screen. This can be great for people without widescreen TVs, if you really hate those black bars.

It of course has progressive scan, with component and S video outs, as well as the RCA outs, and a coaxial digital audio out, but oddly lacks an optical audio out. It does not have HD upconversion, you'll need to pay more for that feature.

There are more unique features on this model, but you can read about them in other reviews or on the Panasonic website. If you just want a simple DVD player for playing pressed DVDs only (store-bought movies), then you may want a cheaper brand. If you're looking for a high quality workhorse DVD player with some valuable features that can play perfectly anything you throw at it, you won't be disappointed with the Panasonic DVD-S29S.

We purchased this for our bedroom TV. In spite of its low price, the product has a clean design and doesn't look like a cheap piece of plastic. The remote is well designed an easy to use. In short, its a no frills player that handles every format we've tried on it.

I purchased this Panasonic player to play DVD's I recorded at home with my Samsung recorder. The fact that the Panasonic played DVD-RAM was appealing, as was the price and the wonderful reviews on Amazon and elsewhere. Little did I know that the Panasonic cannot play homemade DVD's that are recorded on another brand's recorder. My 2-year old Zenith had no trouble playing my homemade DVD's, but the Panasonic froze up.

After reading the manual, testing the unit, and looking on Panasonic's website, I finally called the service line. They informed me DVD's recorded on anything but Panasonic recorders would not play properly.

If you have no intention of playing homemade DVD's, this may still be a good player for you. I personally think this is an absurd limitation, and it should have been listed in their product specs and manual (which I read before purchasing). I guess "standardization" is not a priority with Panasonic!

I don't have anything to add that other reviews haven't already stated, except that my unit seems to be finicky about playing DVDs that are scratched or damaged. I get alot of my DVDs from NetFlix. In the two months I've had this player I've encountered three DVDs it wouldn't play--one wouldn't play at all and the other two started skipping halfway through the movie. With two out of the three I was able to play them successfully in my computer's DVD drive. Previous to this I owned a cheap-o Wal-Mart DVD player (Emerson, I think) and it never refused to play a DVD.

In short, I'm very happy with the features and performance of this DVD player, but wish it wasn't so intolerant of slightly scratched DVDs.

The item was just what i wanted and i got it right on time.

To me i would say the service was magnificent and i would tell anyone how well the product works.

It show any type of DVD the picture is perfect the sound is wonderful what more can i say i am please with it no complaints at all.

This is my the first DVD player that I have ever purchased myself. I really like this DVD player--it's sleek, light and very thin. I received the DVD player on time, and since I have most packages delivered to my office the box was very easy to carry on the train ride home. It plays DVDS, and CDs and MP3s on discs--that's all I really use it for. There are so many fancy features: a button that displays subtitles. I usually like to rewind and fast foward in slow motion. I also have a habit of watching movies with subtitles to see the dialogue (watch Casablanca in French--it's amazing!) Another reason to choose this item is that you can play foreign movies and advanced issue DVDs (not pirated stuff, just things people get advance sometimes) and not have to worry about your disc being compatable. Only gets four stars because I can't put anything too heavy on top of it (I usually place a few DVDs or CDs on the top)- the metal feels too thin for that.