Customer Reviews

Sony DVP-NS700H/B 1080p Upscaling DVD Player, Black

5 star:		(123)
4 star:		(36)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

Just hooked-up this player to my new Sony 40" LCD TV via HDMI cable and the results from standard DVDs is excellent. Not HDTV quality, but very, very close and an improvement from my older Panasonic player. By the way, the complaint about this unit not displaying older 4:3 aspect ratio films, ie older classic movies, is not correct. I just watched a portion of the Wizard of Oz and several other older movies in the correct OAR. The answer is on page 56 of the manual. I am always amazed at how people complain about products without reading the manual. After a 15 second click of several buttons on the remote, the player automatically shows both widescreen and old-style 4:3 format films in the correct aspect ratio.

If all you're looking for is a DVD player, this newly released Sony is simply unbeatable. It replaces the popular, top-rated DVP-NS77, which is still available, but since Sony has lowered the price by about twenty bucks while retaining all of the specs of the NS77, there's little reason to look at another "upconverting," "upscaling" player unless it's a Blue Ray drive. This Sony provides a sharp and steady picture, is exceptionally trim and slim (a tad shallower than the NS77), and offers the user multiple options for adjustments to things like aspect ratio, image sharpness, contrast levels and black ratios, surround sound vs. normal stereo. The darn thing even comes with onboard music for home-made JPEG discs that lack it, and it controls most functions of a Sony TV.

Sony recorders are another story. As one of the Big 4 companies in the distribution of movies and CDs, Sony is notorious for not only issuing the usual legal threats but for engineering their recorders to reject copyrighted material. Those in the market for a DVD recorder might do better to check out the Toshiba DR410, which is priced so attractively it can be forgiven in the event it too balks at recording certain programs due to legal issues.

I recently reviewed the NS57 480p Sony, and its amazing they are nearly identical in function, making them easy to learn and use. All you need to do appreciate 1080p quality is to use the HDMI jack, and leave the rest to the player, automatically. With Blu-Ray now the higher level format, if this DVD player lasts 5 years, this could be the last DVD player you'll ever own as we await more Blu-Ray releases.

The upconversion is excellent; if you've seen Blu Ray quality or an equivalent 1080i to HD broadcast its clear this isn't it, but its far closer to it than than native 480p or 480p unscaled by my 1080p TV. In well made DVDs the difference is unnoticeable unless you have an equivalent HD movie to compare it against or regularly see 1080i and better, broadcasts. You can clear make out every hair on Tom Hanks beard in 'Saving Private Ryan' and about 80% of it with the NS700H.

The only major difference between this Sony and the NS57 are the buttons are laid more to the top of the player, and the extra output jacks. The unit thus, is 1/4" wider in width. Also, in burn-it yourself discs, the 700H will play supported music files as background music for images files found on disk; the NS57 did not.

Pros

Sony has no trouble playing problem disks that plagued my other players. But, it also doesn't play a few disks my other players struggle to play.

Sony menu functions are very well integrated compared to the hodge-podge look of lesser brands making it easier to use this player without reading a manual.

Installation is very easy. The power cable is not removable. Just plug the HDMI jack into your TV and play as always.

The case is all black, with 4 buttons difficult to see against the black case. The DVD tray opens slower, but is quieter when it runs. The ELD display is far clearer and more informative about the status of the disk or the chapter playing.

Images, sharpness and colors are superb on default settings! Sony includes manual or preset image adjustments to maximize its output; aspect ratio can be forced to 16:9 or 4:3 or taken as automatic.

When powered ON, the Sony will resume playback from whence you stopped for up to 6 separate disks.

It has has on/off and volume control for TVs in the DVD remote.

Variable play from 1.4x to 0.5x speed, but with sound.

Sony has sound function that takes the basic output of 2 speakers and tries to emulate surround sound.

Sony will create thumbnails of each DVD chapter independent of the DVD menus. This helps quite a bit in home made DVDs that have no menus.

Cons:

Remote is well laid out, with similar function buttons set near each other but in opposite directions for opposite functions, i.e., rewind left, forward, right. However, like many el-cheapo DVD players, the buttons are too small and one cannot differentiate functions purely by feel. You have to gaze at the buttons to read the function.

All advanced functions are controlled by the remote, so its indispensable.

Although Sony explicitly mentions it has support for copy protection schemes built right into the data [ e.g. the video file or image, not just the disk], I have not yet encountered data that would not play.

I went to a store to buy a Sony PS3, specifically for the Blu-ray playing capabilities. I wrestled with the high price ($400) for an hour, and ended up buying this Sony up-converting HDMI dvd for $75 instead, hoping that it would look ok. I plugged it in, put on "The Fellowship of The Ring" dvd and was floored by how good it looked. It made the standard definition dvd title look 95% like high definition. Having previously owned the XBox 360 HD-DVD player, I can tell you that the picture on my 52" 1080i Panasonic is identical in clarity and detail. Blu-Ray may be technically better, but for $325 less and an amazingly detailed, crisp picture, this Sony dvd player is a great deal!

I recently adopted HD technology after purchasing a wonderful Sony lcd. I have about 400 DVD's and not even close to replacing them with blu-ray, so I purchased this great little upscaller. First of all, for Sony this is cheap! I matched it up with my Sony LCD with the HDMI cable and what happened?

I read so many reviews stating it was near HD quality to it did nothing for quality. Well, here is my take... No it's not near HD quaility; however, it significantly improved the picture. More so than an ordinary DVD player paired with an HDtv. Why? because I campared. I plugged in my regular DVD player through component cables since it obviously did not have an HDMI port. HDMI makes a huge difference. The colors are bright, vibrant sharp and clear. I would say it had picture reminecent of the movie theatre except brighter.

If you are not ready to adopt blue-ray yet, get this. It sells for change with free shipping and no tax. If I had to replace my DVD collection, it would cost about 7,000 dollars. Compare that to 70. Granted it's not HD but really, I'm perfectly happy with the picture produced from this dvd upscaler. Also, it's really nice looking. Nearly all black and it's hard to spot the tray slot until it opens. Kind of futuristic looking. Highly recommended.

* Quick update on picture quality: I have discovered that some movies are almost HD quality. Particularly the new star wars movies. So it's kind of a lottery. The majority of movies are not near HD picture but some are.

I researched and reviewed over and over contemplating will it make enough of a difference to buy a upscaling dvd player. I bought this sony upscaling dvd player and as soon as i got it i tested several movie's scenes on it against my old dvd player(prolly about 5 years old or so) and yes to my contentment it surely looked better upscaled. Yes some people say dont waste your money on it it didnt do anything, and yes some will not look much if any different if they are older or the filming was done a certain way. im on to blu-rays now but do not intend on repurchasing my already large collection and an upscaling dvd player does make my regular dvds look better, some much better, especially newer ones. i have had this sony make some of my dvds look easily as good as an average (not great) blu-ray movie. I dont know how older dvds are designed and made, but it does vary, some look great, some good, and some not but bottom line if your like me and want the best picture possible for what you have this is indeed a good buy, i am very happy with it just dont expect magic. Also the precision drive to help read scratched up discs works great, i watched a very messed up miss treated dvd the other night and it did not skip a single time. Upscaling Does Improve Picture Quality Hope I have helped.

I had 1080p upscaling on my PS3, but I moved the PS3 to the game area. So I needed a DVD player for
my 1080p 70" Sony TV. I was quite pleased with the video picture. It is really stunning when you run
SuperBit DVDs in it.

(A SuperBit DVD doesn't have the same compressed picture as a typical DVD. They eliminated all of the previews and behind the scenes garbage and used the entire DVD's storage for picture and sound.)

Although Blue-Ray is stunning, I just can't pay $30 for a movie I can get for $10 that looks really good as well. I ran Disney's Cars side to side via BlueRay and 1080p upscale to compare the formats. There was a lot more dimension and better color on the BlueRay, but not anything that justified 3 times the cost. I keep my BlueRay purchases to just the movies that will benefit the most from the format, for example when Ironman comes out, I will spend the extra for that. (sound is entirely different issue that factors into what kind of speakers and receiver you own).

One thing that gets overlooked with this DVD player is the ability to play music. Most folks don't realize that you can drag up to 700MB of MP3s onto a blank CD-Rom (approx. 150 songs) and play them on this DVD player. That is better than any 5 disc CD player. If you use an application like iTunes, you can burn songs on a DVD-Rom (4.2GB of MP3s) that is almost 1,000 songs.

I always like to tell folks you can burn your entire Xmas song collection on one disc and let it play randomly. The same goes for the entire Beatles collection or every Sinatra song on one disc.

It is really simple to do this, you don't need to be a computer geek to figure it out. iTunes makes it super simple (PC or Mac).

Also note, it you are a tech geek and you have .avi files or mpegs on disc, this will play them as well.

If you have home movies on your computer, just burn them to a CD or DVD-Rom and this DVD player will play them. You don't have to convert them or format them to a "DVD Video". Just leave them as mpegs.

This DVD player is one heck of a machine.

I agree with McLendon's review. I was using a perfectly capable Panasonic DVD player/burner outputting at 480p via component cable. After everything I read here and elsewhere, this Sony upconverting DVD player via HDMI was to make a world of difference in picture quality...even approaching HD with standard DVDs.

During a lengthy head-to-head comparison, I was hard-pressed to tell much difference on my Panasonic 50" 720p plasma. In fact, the most noticeable difference pertained to movies more than, say, ten years old. They actually looked worse! This player magnified the flaws: grain, noise, print dirt and specks were all more prevalent. To me, it made watching these "older" films less enjoyable. Of course, the difference with "newer" films was negligible. Disney's "Cars," for instance, still looked stunning.

Bottom-line, if you need a new player then this will do the trick. If you think, as I did, that this player will suddenly render your standard DVD collection near-HD, then you might be disappointed. I believe it will depend on the performance and age of your previous DVD player. Hope this helps.

This slim upconverting DVP is a very nice piece of equipment. It produces a beautiful picture from ordinary DVDs. Controls on the "pizza-box" itself are the very simplest, but all you need to show a movie. If you want to play around, or actually study part of a movie--read the titles of books on a shelf, say--the track, motion, angle, step, mode, and other fancy controls are on the remote. The remote can control some non-Sony (BRAVIA) TVs or other units. The NS700H has 5 ways to connect to a TV or AV receiver. Check your TV and receiver and make sure one has available HDMI, or Optical Digital, or at least Component Video interconnects, depending on how old your units are. You'll have to get to the back of your dusty AV and relearn all the plugs and options and cable connections. That's the hardest part of setting up this sweet machine. Or maybe it's time for a new upgrade cycle before the $ sinks out of sight for imported electronics? I had to switch some interconnects around among my pre-existing components, and separately buy the cables to do so since only a lowly Composite cable set is in the box. Plan on juggling the TV, DVP, and any AV receiver controls to get the best enhancement, since their functions may overlap (like sound fields, volume, bit rates).

This single-play DVP, of course, is not a carousel for multi-disk extravaganzas. Nor is it an HD or a Blu-ray player. While it can play most CDs and in-region DVDs, and MP3, JPEG, and some recordable disks, it won't play others, for example, PHOTO CDs, DVD Audio, HD layer on Super Audio CDs, disks from AVCHD DVD cameras, DualDisks, paper labels, or some DRM schemes, among others. Get a peek at the manual if in doubt; the outer box says little about disk compatibility.

I bought this player to be compatible with my Bravia TV and AV system. It is simple to setup (I am using HDMI connectivity) and use. It works flawlessly when using the Bravia Theater Sync features.

However, in my opinion, the best feature on this great DVD player is the video up-scaling (digital video upconversion). It looks awesome on my 52" LCD TV. You would have a hard time telling the difference between a good up-converted DVD and an HD satellite channel.

I watched Bullitt (1968) on DVD in my Sony DVP-NS700H player and it even looked good as compared to my old DVD player.

And how can you go wrong with the price!

Get this DVD player it rocks!