Tagged Products - 1080p

Panasonic Blu-ray Disc Player with Standard DVD Upconversion

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(nch.com.au)to create the CD-R data disk which worked.

The player has good quality fit and finish. The remote is easy to read, though could use a backlight.

I noticed the player is now directly avaiable from Amazon (free shipping with Prime) at about 10% off what others are charging.

Sharp Aquos LC65D93U 65-inch 1080p LCD HDTV

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haven't seen any indication of this. I've also played a few PS3 games and didn't notice any refresh issues. By the way, if you think movies look incredible on this LCD, you really need to see a computer/console game. Amazing!

Overall, this is really an excellent deal and should not be missed. I was initially worried about purchasing such a large item over the Internet, but Amazon has always delivered without problems. If you were thinking about a large DLP to get that "movie experience", I'd really consider this LCD instead as it is brighter, clearer, easy to move, and takes up less room. So, buy it already!

Samsung 46" 1080p 120Hz Flat-Panel LCD HDTV

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wait as long as you can, write down the day and price, call them and wala! I received another $139 back on my visa. I will have no more reservations about big ticket items through them.

Pioneer KURO 50" Class 1080p Flat-Panel Plasma HDTV

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At this price, you can't go wrong with this plasma. In addition, this will be the last year that Pioneer makes their own screens.

Samsung 46" 1080p 120Hz Flat-Panel LCD HDTV

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to calibrating this set with different sources and firmware versions so I highly recommend spending some time there to learn more and get the picture set correctly.

The order process via Amazon went great and I ended up getting it shipped from 6ave via Amazon. 6ave has refunded my card twice match Amazon's price drops so kudos to that company as well as Amazon and Samsung.

The Sony universal remote has a code that perfectly matches this TV if you have gripes about the wheel on the remote. This new Samsung series is most definitely the sweet spot for price/quality and the ln46a650 takes top honors in my (biased) book.

Samsung 46" 1080p 120Hz Flat-Panel LCD HDTV

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to calibrating this set with different sources and firmware versions so I highly recommend spending some time there to learn more and get the picture set correctly.



The order process via Amazon went great and I ended up getting it shipped from 6ave via Amazon. 6ave has refunded my card twice match Amazon's price drops so kudos to that company as well as Amazon and Samsung.



The Sony universal remote has a code that perfectly matches this TV if you have gripes about the wheel on the remote. This new Samsung series is most definitely the sweet spot for price/quality and the ln46a650 takes top honors in my (biased) book.

Samsung 46" Class 1080p 120Hz Flat-Panel LCD HDTV

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to calibrating this set with different sources and firmware versions so I highly recommend spending some time there to learn more and get the picture set correctly.





The order process via Amazon went great and I ended up getting it shipped from 6ave via Amazon. 6ave has refunded my card twice match Amazon's price drops so kudos to that company as well as Amazon and Samsung.





The Sony universal remote has a code that perfectly matches this TV if you have gripes about the wheel on the remote. This new Samsung series is most definitely the sweet spot for price/quality and the ln46a650 takes top honors in my (biased) book.

Samsung 46" Class 1080p 120Hz Flat-Panel LCD HDTV

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has a price guarantee for 30 days after the TV is shipped ! The price dropped 4 times and each time I contacted Amazon the difference was refunded to me without question, saving me almost an additional $250 off my already low purchase price !!! BTW, the price at the local stores has not changed a single penny :-) Even without the pricing bonus, I would still be 100% thrilled with this TV and Amazon.

Samsung 46" 1080p Flat-Panel LCD HDTV

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on some calibrations done in the AVSForum online and this set at that point blew me away even more. Samsungs over months and months of figuring out what I should buy between plasma or LCD, or what brand even, have come out on top in picture quality and color reproduction.

So there's the praise on the picture, but we all know that if you're serious about an HDTV you need to consider everything else. The 5ms response time is nice and works just fine with time sensitive games... forget wasting your money on the more expensive sets that give you 4ms response time. Hundreds of dollars for this and a 50,000:1 contrast ratio alone aren't worth it. This TV doesn't have 120hz but there's really nothing to say negative about any kind of motion blur, this set holds up extremely well with very very little or no blur at all.

How about the ease of use? The menus are very easy to navigate. I mentioned I did some calibrating, which usually means you have to go into a service menu that has to be accessed by punching a secret code in a remote. Then, you're staring at menus that you have no idea what anything means, so if you change the wrong values, you could potentially turn your TV into a large paperweight. Don't like the new service menu settings, and forgot to write down what the old ones were? Well, you're screwed. Especially since service menu tinkering voids your warranty!

Not so with this set, and this is my favorite part of the TV's settings since I love to tweak my set:

All of the color and white balance options are accessible via the normal user menu. Change your color mode to custom, and you can change all of your gains and off-sets... and if you don't like what you've done or if you messed up... there's a option in each color menu that says 'Reset'. Tell me that's not convenient. If you never wanted to shell out $200-$400 for a professional calibration, and you've always been a little weary of tweaking your service menu... fear no more.

The only downside to this set, is that the speakers sound pretty bad. Most people like myself, already have a surround sound system so this may not be a deal breaker... but the options for the sound can be calibrated to sound decent enough as long as you're patient.

Last but not least, Samsung has given us a much larger viewing angle for this LCD than we'd get with normal LCD panels. Samsung is ahead of the game with LCD's and if you're thinking about LCD (which I did because I game a lot and didn't want to even risk image retention with plasma), Samsung is the way to go. When Sony is using Samsung parts now-a-days, you know that's gotta mean good things, right? Great contrast, good black levels, good viewing angle, lots of HDMI and component inputs, can't ask for much more than that.

Samsung PN58A550 58" Widescreen Plasma HDTV with Full HD 1080p

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on some calibrations done in the AVSForum online and this set at that point blew me away even more. Samsungs over months and months of figuring out what I should buy between plasma or LCD, or what brand even, have come out on top in picture quality and color reproduction.



So there's the praise on the picture, but we all know that if you're serious about an HDTV you need to consider everything else. The 5ms response time is nice and works just fine with time sensitive games... forget wasting your money on the more expensive sets that give you 4ms response time. Hundreds of dollars for this and a 50,000:1 contrast ratio alone aren't worth it. This TV doesn't have 120hz but there's really nothing to say negative about any kind of motion blur, this set holds up extremely well with very very little or no blur at all.



How about the ease of use? The menus are very easy to navigate. I mentioned I did some calibrating, which usually means you have to go into a service menu that has to be accessed by punching a secret code in a remote. Then, you're staring at menus that you have no idea what anything means, so if you change the wrong values, you could potentially turn your TV into a large paperweight. Don't like the new service menu settings, and forgot to write down what the old ones were? Well, you're screwed. Especially since service menu tinkering voids your warranty!



Not so with this set, and this is my favorite part of the TV's settings since I love to tweak my set:



All of the color and white balance options are accessible via the normal user menu. Change your color mode to custom, and you can change all of your gains and off-sets... and if you don't like what you've done or if you messed up... there's a option in each color menu that says 'Reset'. Tell me that's not convenient. If you never wanted to shell out $200-$400 for a professional calibration, and you've always been a little weary of tweaking your service menu... fear no more.



The only downside to this set, is that the speakers sound pretty bad. Most people like myself, already have a surround sound system so this may not be a deal breaker... but the options for the sound can be calibrated to sound decent enough as long as you're patient.



Last but not least, Samsung has given us a much larger viewing angle for this LCD than we'd get with normal LCD panels. Samsung is ahead of the game with LCD's and if you're thinking about LCD (which I did because I game a lot and didn't want to even risk image retention with plasma), Samsung is the way to go. When Sony is using Samsung parts now-a-days, you know that's gotta mean good things, right? Great contrast, good black levels, good viewing angle, lots of HDMI and component inputs, can't ask for much more than that.

Canon VIXIA 3.3MP High-Definition Digital Camcorder with Flash Memory - Silver

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course, thousands of pines mean millions of needles. That's a lot of detail. And my camera is never completely still in real life - even if only slowly zooming or panning (or if there is some movement in the subject/s). This is not a small quality difference. (I should note I have a 65" 1080p projector - smaller screens may not reveal such a big difference).

2 - Movement is more fluid with the HV20. With the HF100, I noticed that I found even reasonably slow pans bothersome - there was blur and greater "blockiness" to the scenery. The HV20, on the other hand, seems both more fluid and to present more of a solid image as I pan - really allowing my eyes to track the scenery during a pan.

3 - Medium to low light shots are dramatically better on the HF100. With the HV20, I tried to do all kinds of things to compensate any time it was evening in doors (even with a few hundred lux of light) or nearing twilight outdoors. The colors seemed overly reddish on the full auto settings, the image got noisy, etc. I used cineamode to try and offset both to some reasonable effect. By comparison, I have found I never need to take the HF100 out of the "Easy mode" and the quality is far better than what I got with all my fiddling on the HV20. (I should note I do all my filming in 60i - so bear that in mind). This is no small quality difference. It's huge.


In the end, for video quality, I'm faced with having to let go of the occasional "wow" factor in higly detailed (and real world - with movement) shots for the much greater quality consistancy under varying lighting conditions. That's not an easy trade-off, but probably tips the scales for me to the HF-100.

If you are a hobbyist or such who can always assure ample lighting - the HV20 probably still reigns for best quality.


EDITING AND CONVENIENCE - another matter entirely. If you want to do a lot of post work, there's still no comparing the tools available. I do not do a lot of post work. I was pleasantly suprised by the packaged (Pixela) software. It's not great, but for scene deletions, trims and rearrangements, it works while doing smart-rendering, which is a big deal for time and quality. So that suggests the HF100 for me.

For distribution, the jury is still out, but it looks like AVCHD will win out. There is some suggestion that Hi-Rez MPEG2 (HDV) can be natively encoded to Blu-Ray disks. I haven't tried that. But I can say that that the AVCHD disks created on DVD from the HF100 play very well on the Play station 3 and several other Blu-ray players I've tried them on. All my connections are via HDMI - and there is no perceptible quality loss to me vs. hooking up the camcorder straight. That's promising.

INTERESTING NOTE
I took my Colorado HV20 footage and encoded to AVCHD (17Mb/s). I used Pinnacle Studio 11 - probably not the best encoder. But the important point is that, even though TWICE compressed with the re-encoding, the resulting footage was, in general, better than the AVCHD from the HF-100 for the highly detailed nature scenes described in point 1. That's really surprising and is good news for the standard. It suggests any quality trade-offs I'm seeing today may be more a function of processor limitations (doing it all in real time) vs. the protocol(s).

I'm still struggling, but in the end, I think the more consistant quality with low light and the distribution convenience probably will make me shift to the HF-100 and AVCHD.

For what it's worth.

Samsung 40" 1080p 120Hz Flat-Panel LCD HDTV

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course, thousands of pines mean millions of needles. That's a lot of detail. And my camera is never completely still in real life - even if only slowly zooming or panning (or if there is some movement in the subject/s). This is not a small quality difference. (I should note I have a 65" 1080p projector - smaller screens may not reveal such a big difference).



2 - Movement is more fluid with the HV20. With the HF100, I noticed that I found even reasonably slow pans bothersome - there was blur and greater "blockiness" to the scenery. The HV20, on the other hand, seems both more fluid and to present more of a solid image as I pan - really allowing my eyes to track the scenery during a pan.



3 - Medium to low light shots are dramatically better on the HF100. With the HV20, I tried to do all kinds of things to compensate any time it was evening in doors (even with a few hundred lux of light) or nearing twilight outdoors. The colors seemed overly reddish on the full auto settings, the image got noisy, etc. I used cineamode to try and offset both to some reasonable effect. By comparison, I have found I never need to take the HF100 out of the "Easy mode" and the quality is far better than what I got with all my fiddling on the HV20. (I should note I do all my filming in 60i - so bear that in mind). This is no small quality difference. It's huge.





In the end, for video quality, I'm faced with having to let go of the occasional "wow" factor in higly detailed (and real world - with movement) shots for the much greater quality consistancy under varying lighting conditions. That's not an easy trade-off, but probably tips the scales for me to the HF-100.



If you are a hobbyist or such who can always assure ample lighting - the HV20 probably still reigns for best quality.





EDITING AND CONVENIENCE - another matter entirely. If you want to do a lot of post work, there's still no comparing the tools available. I do not do a lot of post work. I was pleasantly suprised by the packaged (Pixela) software. It's not great, but for scene deletions, trims and rearrangements, it works while doing smart-rendering, which is a big deal for time and quality. So that suggests the HF100 for me.



For distribution, the jury is still out, but it looks like AVCHD will win out. There is some suggestion that Hi-Rez MPEG2 (HDV) can be natively encoded to Blu-Ray disks. I haven't tried that. But I can say that that the AVCHD disks created on DVD from the HF100 play very well on the Play station 3 and several other Blu-ray players I've tried them on. All my connections are via HDMI - and there is no perceptible quality loss to me vs. hooking up the camcorder straight. That's promising.



INTERESTING NOTE

I took my Colorado HV20 footage and encoded to AVCHD (17Mb/s). I used Pinnacle Studio 11 - probably not the best encoder. But the important point is that, even though TWICE compressed with the re-encoding, the resulting footage was, in general, better than the AVCHD from the HF-100 for the highly detailed nature scenes described in point 1. That's really surprising and is good news for the standard. It suggests any quality trade-offs I'm seeing today may be more a function of processor limitations (doing it all in real time) vs. the protocol(s).



I'm still struggling, but in the end, I think the more consistant quality with low light and the distribution convenience probably will make me shift to the HF-100 and AVCHD.



For what it's worth.

Samsung 46" 1080p Flat-Panel LCD HDTV

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I have ever seen after it is adjusted. I have dish network and a regular outside antenna for the local stations. I live in the Dallas/Ft Worth area and found that the local "HD" channels look really good using my old antenna. We can now get almost 40 channels if you count the weather channels each station broadcasts and the channel for the D/FW airport ramp. I will have to upgrade to get "HD" on dish.
The sound quality is poor like most reviews have stated. You can make it bearable by adjusting the custom EQ. The one thing I don't like is the fact that you can only change the volume one click at a time. Maybe they will correct this where you can have a choice in some future software update. The TV would be a Five Star for picture quality but the poor sound brings it down to a Four Star. Make sure and watch the price for 30 days for a price drop to get your price guarantee. I missed mine.

Samsung 40" 1080p Flat-Panel LCD HDTV

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I have ever seen after it is adjusted. I have dish network and a regular outside antenna for the local stations. I live in the Dallas/Ft Worth area and found that the local "HD" channels look really good using my old antenna. We can now get almost 40 channels if you count the weather channels each station broadcasts and the channel for the D/FW airport ramp. I will have to upgrade to get "HD" on dish.

The sound quality is poor like most reviews have stated. You can make it bearable by adjusting the custom EQ. The one thing I don't like is the fact that you can only change the volume one click at a time. Maybe they will correct this where you can have a choice in some future software update. The TV would be a Five Star for picture quality but the poor sound brings it down to a Four Star. Make sure and watch the price for 30 days for a price drop to get your price guarantee. I missed mine.

Panasonic 50" Class 1080p Flat-Panel Plasma HDTV

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it's underneath the sheet of glass front so when the TV is off it looks much nicer than that standard bezel look.

ANTI-GLARE SCREEN

The anti-glare screen is better than my PH-50PX60U... but not much. Don't expect it to be much of an improvement. One thing I did notice is that from the side, you don't as much depth in the double images... not much to comment on but it is another improvement. Cleaning the screen can and is hard to do. I used regular Windex after testing a small area. Using a soft micro-fiber cloth, it took a lot of reapplying Windex to get the finger smudges off the screen. Our hands left a lot of finger prints from hanging the TV. If you don't get the fingerprints completely cleaned off - then they leave an iridescent sheen on the screen that quite visible. This kinda reminds me of the anti-glare coatings on camera lenses.

MPG VIEWER

The TH-50PZ800U has a decent MPG viewer... it's not great but it's a step better because it "can" fill the screen now. Pictures don't get shrunk - they just display as-is. I've started cropping mine with ACDSEE or Photoshop at 1920x1080 so they fit perfectly. This year is a big improvement over the older viewer SW they had before. Controls via the remote are minimal... seems like you can start, stop and move forward & backward... and set the slide show delay in seconds.

The picture viewer on my old PH-50PX60U sucked. Even though I would feed it a 2272x1704 picture - it would shrink it down to about 1/2 the size of the screen... grrr. Guess back then they didn't have any good SW engineers working at Panasonic.

TV ERGONOMICS

About as nice as you can get for a plasma today. Black rounded back that doesn't look bad when seen from the side. The front panel that folds down so you can access the SD memory slot is ok... but again, I give Panasonic a ding in the design - why did you not recess the SD slot a bit more so I could close the door when the SD memory card is inserted but not pushed in? Why oh why Panasonic guy??? This means that I can not store my SD card with my reformatted pics "in" the TV's SD slot... unless of course I leave the door cover open. Oh well. And why don't they give us a little slot under the door that holds a dozen or so of the SD cards... I've got 10 or so now and would like to use the smaller ones to organize my pics... and keep them in the TV. Oh well.

WHAT'S BEHIND DOOR NUMBER 1

The front panel swings up to expose some external connectors and the important TV controls - just in case the dog carries the remote away.

Menu TV OK/Video v-Vol-^ v-Channel-^
1-S-video connector
1-Video L-Sound-R (RCA PLUGS)
1-HDMI connector
1-SD memory card slot

SERVICE & MY DOG EARS

Don't know if it's just me or what - but after the TVs been on a while, I begin hearing a high pitched noise coming from the TV. Kind of like a low pitch noise you hear from a transformer outside - but at the high frequency end. Mute the sound and it's less but still there. Turn up the sound and it louder. In fact, this is why I have the 800U... the noise from the old 60U was driving me crazy. But I must say that the local Panasonic customer service rep was great and he replaced the TV for me near the end of the 1 year warranty. I just paid a couple of hundred dollars and upgraded to 1080p. Again - Panasonic service was top notch! But if you haven't seen inside a 50 plasma yet, let me tell you - there's a whole lot of 2-inch high voltage capacitors in there... enough to make some serious high pitched electronic hum for sure. Don't let this sway you from a decision on this - no one else hears it but me... hence the dog ears.

CONNECTIONS

It's got everything I want... just check the published specs. The only thing I would recommend they change next time is to angle the connectors on the back down a bit so things like the HDMI plug don't stick out so far. This would allow the tilting wall mount to tilt down a bit more - right now it's resting the connectors against the wall. Not a big deal just a suggestion for Panasonic next year.

REMOTE

The remote mostly sucks in the normal remote ways, ie, the ergonomics, functions and button positions are poorly laid out. And where the frig did the sleep timer button go - it existed on my PH-50PX60U remote. So guess what - I'm using my old remote for the new TV... just for the sleep timer function... that's the only reason I pick it up. For everything else I use my FIOS TV Motorola QIP6416-1 DVR remote... but like most all remotes - it does not have a sleep button either - grrr.

FINAL CONCLUSION

Overall TV satisfaction... a 10.
Suggestion for next years model - get some decent ergonomics engineers on staff and build the worlds first award winning remote :)

Samsung 40" 1080p Flat-Panel LCD HDTV

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it's underneath the sheet of glass front so when the TV is off it looks much nicer than that standard bezel look.



ANTI-GLARE SCREEN



The anti-glare screen is better than my PH-50PX60U... but not much. Don't expect it to be much of an improvement. One thing I did notice is that from the side, you don't as much depth in the double images... not much to comment on but it is another improvement. Cleaning the screen can and is hard to do. I used regular Windex after testing a small area. Using a soft micro-fiber cloth, it took a lot of reapplying Windex to get the finger smudges off the screen. Our hands left a lot of finger prints from hanging the TV. If you don't get the fingerprints completely cleaned off - then they leave an iridescent sheen on the screen that quite visible. This kinda reminds me of the anti-glare coatings on camera lenses.



MPG VIEWER



The TH-50PZ800U has a decent MPG viewer... it's not great but it's a step better because it "can" fill the screen now. Pictures don't get shrunk - they just display as-is. I've started cropping mine with ACDSEE or Photoshop at 1920x1080 so they fit perfectly. This year is a big improvement over the older viewer SW they had before. Controls via the remote are minimal... seems like you can start, stop and move forward & backward... and set the slide show delay in seconds.



The picture viewer on my old PH-50PX60U sucked. Even though I would feed it a 2272x1704 picture - it would shrink it down to about 1/2 the size of the screen... grrr. Guess back then they didn't have any good SW engineers working at Panasonic.



TV ERGONOMICS



About as nice as you can get for a plasma today. Black rounded back that doesn't look bad when seen from the side. The front panel that folds down so you can access the SD memory slot is ok... but again, I give Panasonic a ding in the design - why did you not recess the SD slot a bit more so I could close the door when the SD memory card is inserted but not pushed in? Why oh why Panasonic guy??? This means that I can not store my SD card with my reformatted pics "in" the TV's SD slot... unless of course I leave the door cover open. Oh well. And why don't they give us a little slot under the door that holds a dozen or so of the SD cards... I've got 10 or so now and would like to use the smaller ones to organize my pics... and keep them in the TV. Oh well.



WHAT'S BEHIND DOOR NUMBER 1



The front panel swings up to expose some external connectors and the important TV controls - just in case the dog carries the remote away.



Menu TV OK/Video v-Vol-^ v-Channel-^

1-S-video connector

1-Video L-Sound-R (RCA PLUGS)

1-HDMI connector

1-SD memory card slot



SERVICE & MY DOG EARS



Don't know if it's just me or what - but after the TVs been on a while, I begin hearing a high pitched noise coming from the TV. Kind of like a low pitch noise you hear from a transformer outside - but at the high frequency end. Mute the sound and it's less but still there. Turn up the sound and it louder. In fact, this is why I have the 800U... the noise from the old 60U was driving me crazy. But I must say that the local Panasonic customer service rep was great and he replaced the TV for me near the end of the 1 year warranty. I just paid a couple of hundred dollars and upgraded to 1080p. Again - Panasonic service was top notch! But if you haven't seen inside a 50 plasma yet, let me tell you - there's a whole lot of 2-inch high voltage capacitors in there... enough to make some serious high pitched electronic hum for sure. Don't let this sway you from a decision on this - no one else hears it but me... hence the dog ears.



CONNECTIONS



It's got everything I want... just check the published specs. The only thing I would recommend they change next time is to angle the connectors on the back down a bit so things like the HDMI plug don't stick out so far. This would allow the tilting wall mount to tilt down a bit more - right now it's resting the connectors against the wall. Not a big deal just a suggestion for Panasonic next year.



REMOTE



The remote mostly sucks in the normal remote ways, ie, the ergonomics, functions and button positions are poorly laid out. And where the frig did the sleep timer button go - it existed on my PH-50PX60U remote. So guess what - I'm using my old remote for the new TV... just for the sleep timer function... that's the only reason I pick it up. For everything else I use my FIOS TV Motorola QIP6416-1 DVR remote... but like most all remotes - it does not have a sleep button either - grrr.



FINAL CONCLUSION



Overall TV satisfaction... a 10.

Suggestion for next years model - get some decent ergonomics engineers on staff and build the worlds first award winning remote :)

Samsung PN58A550 58" Widescreen Plasma HDTV with Full HD 1080p

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pleased with my purchase and would certainly do it again.

Samsung Multiformat DVD-R/-RW/-R DL/+R/+R DL/+RW/RAM Recorder/4-Head Hi-Fi VCR Combo

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a square to pop up while it registers the information. 357 is a quiet quick load and unload, no time between menus etc.
*When you delete the 1st title on +RW disc, you don't gain the time back-on 357 (and every other +RW recroder I've tried)you can re-record another show in that time frame without deleting the following titles
*When you record on a 4x +RW disc, it reads as dirty when you try to play in any other machine (except for 1 of my 2 phillips players) any higher speed is fine
*You have to go to the menu & then the information pg to find out how much time is remaining on a disc-on 357 you press a button on remote & it shows what record mode you are in & time remaining for each mode.

PRO (compared to 357)
*Much cheaper now that 357 price was raised
*finalizes faster
*It auto formats a blank disc(357 requires going through menu)
*has more settings LSP/SPP/ESP etc. in addition to SP/LP/EP of the 357
*Dividing and editing on +RW is much faster-so slow on 357, I stopped editing out commercials-this is very fast-but not instant like on an LG
*records everything from my DVR to disc, no copyright problems that rquire you to qatch a show or movie right away(357 has no copyright problems either but its something you should know before buying a combo-many are so sensitive you can't record a soap opera.

For anyone who hasn't had the pleasure of using the 357, you'll like it just fine. But the downgrade in quality from the 357 is heartbreakingly obvious and a huge dissappointment - but admittedly better than anything else in the price range.I just hope it doesn't die as fast as the 357-about 18 months-2 years of heavy recording. Perhaps that's why they made a lower quality version-to make it last longer.

Philips DVP5982 Ultra Slim HDMI DVD Player with DiVx support

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following process:

1. open the tray
2. press "3" on the remote. The word "MULTI" should appear in the upper corner of the screen. Now, all NTSC discs will be output as NTSC, and all PAL discs will be output as PAL.

This process does NOT restore the TV type choices to the menu system, though (would take a firmware change to do that). However, if you wish to revert to "NTSC-only" output, simply go back through the menu system, go to TV Type and reselect "NTSC".

OPPO DV-980H 1080p Up-Converting Universal DVD Player with HDMI and 7.1CH Audio

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look now. I'm waiting a while for the price to come down. This Oppo will keep me happy until then. Oh and the dvd's that didn't play on the old player all play on this one. I even had my neighbor try them in his dvd player and they would not work. I happen to be an Anime fan and I put "5 Centimeters per Second" on and was not able to stop watching. It was absolutely beautiful.
The unit is light and thin.Plenty of input and output connections. It comes with the cables you will need. You don't need to buy an HDMI cable if you have an HDTV. It has one with the unit. The instruction book is easily read and to understand. You can use the setup menu while a dvd is playing. You can see the results of your setup change right away. Not happy with your setup change you can go back and change it back or to another selection. Very easy. There is a red light that is on when the unit is off. Turn the power on and it goes to blue. I didn't realize it was not on and couldn't figure out why the remote wouldn't work. You have to push the power on button. Duh! Then the blue light comes on.
Believe me you can't go wrong with this Oppo. I would buy their HDTV if they made one. Highly recommended!
If you decide to buy one buy it from Amazon for $169. Why would they advertize one from Toyzz for $299? I don't get that.