Well my unit arrived a coupel of hours ago, Delivey on a sunday ? weird I know.was some guy in an unmarked van :grin:
well, ill cut to the chase, its going back. seriously, I am never listening to a what hi-fi review again, Im sure there is some serious backhanders going on between mr sony and what hi-fi.
DVD playback, i compared it back to back with my Pioneer AV 565a which is hooked up with as QED silver ref scart cable. used Cars as a demo disc, exellent quality DVD
HDMI test (mark grant HDMI lead)
I tried it in the lowest resolution first, and was frankly appalled, sure the colurs were bright, but the amount of jaggies on display was just unwatchable as far as im concerned, so I swithed it to 720p, still no better, was getting feeling ripped off at this stage. finally i set it to 1080i, it was a huge improvent over the other 2 settings, the colours bright and vibrant, a lot more detailed, but still had the jaggies although a lot less prononced. I flicked over to the Pioneer and there really was no comparrison, it wiped the floor with the sony for picture quality, bear in mind this player is 5 years old and £250.
Scart test
same as the shocking lowest res HDMI test which is frankly carp
So as a DVD player the sony is pretty shocking, well below the really good £100 players out there, even if the HDD recording was amazing I would have to keep my pioneer for DVD playback.
Freeview and HDD recording
No once again I was expecting great things after reading the what hi-fi review, "amazing freeview picture and recordings indistingwishable from the original" when I first turned it on I thought there was a problem with my arial, the quality of the sinal was no where near as good as the intergrated unit in my TV (pannasonic tx52) I checked on my TV and no, the signal was fine. It wasnt terrible, just a lot more noise and pixelation then im used to.
I thought id give the recording mode a try out before I boxed it back up, on HQ mode its very dodgey, pixels all over the place, and very noticable change in image quality from the original source, so i swapped it over to HQ+, although it was better, it still was clearly lower quality then the source, on testing seens things would get quite messy.
Conclusion
Quite frankly how this machine got the reviews it did is a bit of a mystery, I know i am a fussy bugger when it comes to AV gear but all I wanted was a DVD player as good as my old pioneer and freview picture on par with the intergrated unit in my TV, not asking a lot I thought from a unit with a RRP of £400.
as it stands I am gutted to say the least, i am going to have to send it back, hopefully I wont get to much grief off the supplier.
well, ill cut to the chase, its going back. seriously, I am never listening to a what hi-fi review again, Im sure there is some serious backhanders going on between mr sony and what hi-fi.
DVD playback, i compared it back to back with my Pioneer AV 565a which is hooked up with as QED silver ref scart cable. used Cars as a demo disc, exellent quality DVD
HDMI test (mark grant HDMI lead)
I tried it in the lowest resolution first, and was frankly appalled, sure the colurs were bright, but the amount of jaggies on display was just unwatchable as far as im concerned, so I swithed it to 720p, still no better, was getting feeling ripped off at this stage. finally i set it to 1080i, it was a huge improvent over the other 2 settings, the colours bright and vibrant, a lot more detailed, but still had the jaggies although a lot less prononced. I flicked over to the Pioneer and there really was no comparrison, it wiped the floor with the sony for picture quality, bear in mind this player is 5 years old and £250.
Scart test
same as the shocking lowest res HDMI test which is frankly carp
So as a DVD player the sony is pretty shocking, well below the really good £100 players out there, even if the HDD recording was amazing I would have to keep my pioneer for DVD playback.
Freeview and HDD recording
No once again I was expecting great things after reading the what hi-fi review, "amazing freeview picture and recordings indistingwishable from the original" when I first turned it on I thought there was a problem with my arial, the quality of the sinal was no where near as good as the intergrated unit in my TV (pannasonic tx52) I checked on my TV and no, the signal was fine. It wasnt terrible, just a lot more noise and pixelation then im used to.
I thought id give the recording mode a try out before I boxed it back up, on HQ mode its very dodgey, pixels all over the place, and very noticable change in image quality from the original source, so i swapped it over to HQ+, although it was better, it still was clearly lower quality then the source, on testing seens things would get quite messy.
Conclusion
Quite frankly how this machine got the reviews it did is a bit of a mystery, I know i am a fussy bugger when it comes to AV gear but all I wanted was a DVD player as good as my old pioneer and freview picture on par with the intergrated unit in my TV, not asking a lot I thought from a unit with a RRP of £400.
as it stands I am gutted to say the least, i am going to have to send it back, hopefully I wont get to much grief off the supplier.
