Customer Reviews

Sony DVP-NC85H/S HDMI/CD Progressive Scan 5-Disc DVD Changer, Silver

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

I have been into DVDs for about six years now, so I have spent a LOT of time watching them. I started out on an old full frame tv and now have a 30" widescreen HDTV (1080i resolution). I plugged this player in with an HDMI cable (available here on Amazon far more cheaply than in your local store). So that's my perspective, now onto the review...

This player is the first multi-disk changer I am aware of capable of HDMI upconversion. At least at this price. I can also confirm that it is capable of playing vcds, which is often a hit or miss proposition since the format is so uncommon in the US.

As someone who watches a lot of tv shows on dvd and multidisk editions of movies, being able to load multiple disks at once is desireable for obvious reasons. I did find the interface for changing disks to be somewhat confusing at first, but once you figure it out you can change disks fairly quickly. But be advised that all the extra disks make this player fairly large. Much larger even than my first dvd player, let alone the miniature ones they make today.

The HDMI upconversion is the real holy grail here. Most people who own HDTVs do not actually subscribe to HD channels. I do subscribe to the HD pack and premium movie channels through my cable service, so I know what 'HD' tv shows and movies are supposed to look like.

And here's the verdict: This player makes DVDs look just as good as HD broadcasts. Maybe a bigger tv than I have can tell some difference, but for comparison purposes I decided to take the most digitally packed movie I could think of (Star Wars: The Phantom Menace) and watched the pod-racing scene. I know, bear with me for a minute. This scene has thousands of small moving objects in the audience and lots of detail all around. The picture looked beautiful. It was as good as I have ever seen pod racing look, and as good as anything I've scene on an HD movie channel.

How does HDMI upconversion compare to the new 'High Def' dvd formats? Well, consider this...The next generation dvd players offer two advantages over current gen dvd players: 1) HDMI upconversion to a higher resolution and 2) Higher disk capacity for larger files. Now consider that every movie you have ever seen has already been fit onto just one or two current gen DVDs just fine. Once you 'upconvert' those DVDs to the higher resolution of this player (1080i or 720p), then you will get a picture that's basically the same thing as the next gen players. The next gen players will be able to support 1080p resolution, but there are very few televisions on the market right now to use with it. Most HDTVs, except for a handful of the most expensive models, only support 1080i or 720p.

So for now, there really just isn't anything better on the market than this player. And for the current generation of players, I don't expect there ever will be anything better.

*UPDATE*
SA-CD users take note: Amazon has a misleading statement in the title. This is NOT an SA-CD player. Apparently a number of people are buying this player primarily to play SA-CDs. So be warned that Amazon's title is just plain wrong. I haven't found any other errors in the title or product description, but there is no SA-CD capability of any kind.

On that note, another music related issue is that when playing music cds it only shuffles tracks on one disk...not all five, as some might expect.

The picture this player displays on my new 72" Toshiba DLP set is truly "near HD" via the HDMI output.

I was so glad Sony finally came out with a 5 disc changer with HDMI output. When I got my new TV, I hooked up my cheap Toshiba progressive scan DVD player from the bedroom via component video, instead of my non-progressive scan 5 disc Pioneer changer I had with the old TV. I did this to maximize PQ on my new TV, willing to sacrifice the convenience of a changer, and not willing to buy another DVD player to get HDMI upconversion without multi-disc capability, and Sony's mega changer would have been overkill for me.

I was a little disappointed at how DVDs looked with this initial setup. The picture was dull with noticeable mpeg artifacts. Not so with this player. Picture is crisp and sharp, and depending on the DVD itself, hardly any noticeable mpeg artifacts. Good quality DVDs like Star Wars, King Kong (2005), and Terminator 2 rival the HD movies I record with my cable co.'s DVR. I'm no videophile, but am finicky on picture quality, and this player truly makes a difference on my HD TV. With the idiocy of the 2 competing HD DVD formats, I won't be upgrading to HD DVD for a long time with this upconverting player.

I even believe this player is outputting 1080P to my TV! Per the manual, the progressive button on the front panel lights up when outputting a progressive signal. I have the player set to 1080i, and my TV confirms it's receiving a 1080 "i" signal from the HDMI port, but this light is on during DVD playback...hmm. Since my TV is native 1080P DLP display, maybe over the HDMI connection, the TV and player negotiate a progressive signal vs. interlaced??

Other good points, plays about any kind of recordable DVD, such as my home movies, and is a good small size to easily fit in my A/V center. Cons, the build quality of the disc carousel feels a little cheap. The trays holding discs don't feel deep enough, making me paranoid that I'll jam a disc not placed perfectly in the individual tray. The remote also feels a little cheesey, the buttons are small, and doesn't have a backlight. Small imperfections preventing me from giving this player 5 stars. But for the money (under $150!), it's a steal if you want a really good DVD player for your new HDTV.

I wasn't crazy about getting a five disc player- I preferred a quality single player, however, none were available in black offered by Sony with the features I wanted.

So I purchased the SONY DVP-NC85H a few month's ago at list price, (something I usually never do) $150. plus tax & shipping, simply because of the reviews I read.

The player is amazing, in that it NEVER skips, it plays every format out there. The picture is excellent and the player also offers HDMI, (no wire is included though) for televisions offering the same.

I even enjoy the five disc changer, as I put in multiple disc more often than I thought I ever would. And the changer preforms well and of course one can exchange DVD's in the player while another one is playing.

The player offers a nice memory of where you left off (or stopped) playing each discs and asks if you want to begin from where you left off or start from the beginning.

The on screen menu is very good.

Now the cons: The Sony SONY DVP-NC85H is the slowest opening player ever. And turning it on from the player itself it reads a silly "welcome" display when you simply just want it to OPEN! The speed changing disc in the player is only fair.

The player doesn't offer SACD, so I kept my Sony NS75V DVD player exclusively for SACD.

The remote is adequate exactly like the NS75V remote, except it doesn't have the capacity to control A/V amps or receivers as the NS75V does and the button's on the DVP-NC85H take a little getting used to.

The DVP-NC85H display is a bit dull, but again, adequate.

The players controls are basic & minimal and not easily read.

But all the cons are relatively small compared to the DVP-NC85H performance, which is fabulous (besides how slow it opens) and what one really buy's the player for, QUALITY!

You can always buy a $39. dollar player at CostCo...However, when you buy the DVP-NC85H you'll see why it's worth the bucks.

I love it! But man is it slow opening up.

Although I have been pleased with the quality of the audio and video from this unit, it has a couple of quirks that some readers may find useful in making a choice. I purchased this unit last year and specifically wanted a disc changer to accomodate the fact that I was mostly playing DVDs of some classic TV shows, plus an occasional music CD. It's great to leave a disc full of TV episodes in the changer until you're ready to move on to the next disc. You can switch immediately from an episode of Columbo to one of the Wild Wild West for example.

The three quirks that I am uncomfortable with however: playing a music CD. The sound is not a problem. It is that the player, once finished with your music CD does not stop, it goes immediately to the next disc, whatever that is. The only way to stop this is pushing the button that opens the tray, the STOP button has no effect unless you remember to press it within seconds of the end of the CD. If you have been reading or not paying close attention, then you have to hit the button to open the tray. I just don't think this is a very convenient option. There is one alternative, you can program the CD. Then it will go back and begin playing the CD from the beginning. But programming on this model is a bit cumbersome. This is not to say that playing DVDs are any problem. Most DVDs are programmed to stop after an episode or chapter or at the end. Not so with CDs though.

My second gripe is the direction of the platter. It is not so much which direction it turns, but it just seems that once you get the tray to open, the disc you want to remove has gone past in a clock-wise motion. So you have to click 4 times to get it back. It just always seems to be in that direction. Sony could have programmed it so that the second most recent disc could be retrieved with just one rotation of the tray. Also, this player could easily have been engineered to allow for the access to two discs at once, when the tray is open, rather than 1 full disc plus the halves of two others that it currently allows.

Finally, Sony did not design the remote to easily select a disc. You have your discs loaded in the player and go sit down. But you forgot to press the disc number button on the unit. There is no one-touch way now for you to select the disc to play. You have to go through the display menu, and it is pretty simple, but it still would have been more convenient for the remote control to have had immediate disk play buttons on it.

I also bought this unit to be a replacement for my old slide projector. Now that all of my new pictures are digital, and more and more of my old color slides have been scanned, the JPEG display is nice. Unfortunately, I do not have a quality monitor to truly say whether this unit is doing the job I wanted in that regard. Although it does recognize and display JPEG images as claimed.

I would give this unit 5 stars for DVD play quality, but take away two of them over usability issues. I have owned it for six months now and have not had a hardware problems. If the issues I mentioned do not affect your planned use of this player, then feel free to consider this to be a 5 star review.

I just got this DVD player and hooked it up to my 48' JVC digital TV. I must say the picture is very crisp and clean. I liked the option of having optical or coaxial hook up. I prefer optical myself, light travels faster than hooking up the coaxial connection, but each their own. It has been a while since I had a 5disc changer. I would say back in the early 90. I remember it was very cool to load 5 discs at a time to play (then) only CDs. I do have to agree with one reviewer about the shuffle mode on this player. I would like to see it shuffle ALL discs in the player not just one at a time. However I am not really using the player for playing music. I have a computer for that. Last week I had purchased the Samsung hd755. According to Amazon it is not available to buy yet. I got it at Fry's Elect. I did not like a great deal of things about that unit. As soon Amazon opens the review section to review that item I will do so. Back to this unit, I took the Samsung back to the store to get this unit. I must say that between the two there really is no comparison. The picture is must smoother and cleaner. I like the way you can FF or RW the move in TWO different buttons. Scanning the movie in a few different modes really makes it worth while when you are searching for a scene for example. It is very smooth and I have very few players that do this type of function so effortlessly. Also, I agree with yet another reviewer about it starting up a disc slowly. I suppose in this day and age one can get spoiled to wanting a machine's response as quickly as snapping of the fingers. Sony has been around for quite a long time and I am sure I am getting a high quality player. Everything they put out tends to be of great quality with the exception of their cordless phones. That is another story. All and all I feel I am going to be happy with my investment and I am sure you will too.

The very first DVD player I bought was Sony's very first 5 Disc DVD changer back in 1998. It was an excellent player, but as the technology improved, it could no longer keep up. I upgraded to a single disc Sony which could handle DTS, and later to another single disc player which could handle progressive video. But I always missed the convenience of a 5 disc changer after having been spoiled by one at the start. At about one-third the price of that original DVD changer, this player has all the features of those previous upgrades and more while retaining the familiar functionality of my first player. It produces an excellent picture, has lots of tweakable settings, has more outputs, and is also very stylish looking.

I do have a couple of nits, though. My original DVD changer had buttons on the remote which allowed me to jump directly to whichever disc I wanted. With this one, I have to press a Disc Skip button to cycle through all the discs until I reach the one I want. The front of the player does have direct access buttons, though. I wish I still had my old remote control as I'm sure it would work with this unit to restore that remote functionality.

Second, the upscaling through HDMI produces a great image, but not really any better than leaving the image at 720x480p. In fact, upscaling will sometimes magnify some interlacing artifacts visible in the picture. It's also unfortunate that while connected through HDMI, progressive scan cannot be turned off. This shouldn't be an issue most of the time, but there are some video sources that might look better with it turned off. Progressive settings can only be changed on the unit itself and not through the remote, but they cannot be turned off when connected through HDMI.

One last thing about the HDMI connection. There can sometimes be a noticeable audio sync issue when using HDMI connections and digital TVs. This is not a problem with the player, but with the way HDMI is currently implemented. This player has an audio-sync adjustment feature which should compensate for the problem. However, the audio-sync adjustment doesn't work if the player is connected to a receiver via its optical digital outputs. Since I need to have mine connected this way in order to enjoy 5.1 sound, the audio-sync adjustment feature is useless here. And that's a shame. By the way, there should be no audio-sync issues if the player is connected via component, s-video, or composite outputs.

There's also a minor thing I've found about all my Sony DVD players that I haven't liked. They are unable to correctly display Time Remaining on certain discs, or more commonly on the special features (documentaries, etc.) on certain discs. I also have a cheapo Philips player which has no problems displaying Time Remaining on those things (even on the menu). It's an improvement I'd really like to see implemented on future players.

Now, despite the complaints I've listed above, don't get me wrong. This is still an excellent player and I really love it. I happily recommend it to anyone considering purchasing it. It really is a great value and it performs very well in most instances, and I feel it's the best DVD player I've ever owned. It's just not quite perfect. In all likelihood, it's also the last DVD player I'll ever own as I'll probably be buying a BluRay or other HD player in a couple of years when that format war is over. But this is a great player to hold me over until then.

The HDMI video picture is first rate. The sound quality is amazing playing CD's. The only downfall is that you cannot shuffle music, but then you can't with any CD/DVD combo. Only issue I am having is with hooking it uo to an HDMI switching component. Signal won't go through component, but I don't think the issue is with this product.

Pros
1. Plays most of my discs. In my DVD collection, I have some disc of questionable quality. This player plays all but one of them.

2. Great HDMI performance. It even allows me to program it to match the capability of my TV.

Cons
1. No HDMI cable included.

Buy this player if you have a TV with a HDMI input.

If this player can play all my DVDs and comes with a HDMI cable, then it deserves 5 stars. As it is, it deserves 4 stars.

Because of the HDMI output with upconversion (with an HDTV with HDMI input), I get near-BluRay/HD-DVD quality video at a fraction of the cost - and more importantly, I don't have to upgrade my entire DVD collection to take advantage of it.

Side note: don't waste money on a brand-name HDMI cable. It's digital - so there's no need to shield it from interference. I bought a generic HDMI cable for $15 to go with this and the picture quality is awesome.

I received this player as a prize, and was really looking forward to using it. It worked fine for about 2 weeks, then the "locked" message was displayed on the unit, and the tray would not open. I followed the directions in the manual, which didn't work. I unplugged the unit, which didn't work. Finally, I contacted Sony, who told me that it would need to be sent in for service. After searching for a solution online, I've found that this is not an uncommon problem. I wouldn't recommend taking a risk with your money on this Sony.