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Two female visitors yesterday actually *noticed* the RP82 in the wall'o'black AV rack (my separate stereo rack has all silver gear), which is not hard to do. They have never commented on any of my gear before, except the Maggies. They thought the 82 was "gorgeous" (?!?), so apparently I am FOS and the Panny focus groups were females. They also liked its small size. I deleted my previous post re this item, I am a minority, but I haven't changed my mind (yet). It has very cheap external construction in all ways. It has excellent progressively scanned video into a Sony 51HW40. I could not see any "chroma bug" (wish Sony and Pioneer et al would figure this out, so I'd have more DVDP choices, it's inexcusable at this point).I am off to buy my first DVD-A. If I can't find anything I want to hear again, I'll pick up something I want to see, Shania Twain and Brittney Spears come to mind from what I saw available. In the interests of science of course. I just had my ears checked this afternoon, perhaps I should have waited...
Follow Ups:
Or listen to some REAL music while watching Shania and\or Britney.Billy Idol would be great audio for either of those videos.
I wouldn't really have bought them, they were just two that I noticed the cover pictures... The selection of hi-rez music out here is abysmal, and the current catalogs don't have anything I particularly want to hear anyway, not my styles.Funny, I completely misread your post at first...I thought you were suggesting to turn the video off when listening to DVD-A, which is recommended for best results.
For reasons to lengthy to explain here but having to do with the compromises and reconstitution required in the component video standard, players with VGA-RGB out seem (universally, in my experience) to have no chroma bug. I have not played with Scart out, but I hear they are also bug free.This is even true of the cheaper Chinese imports (Daewoo, for example), but also for the more expensive players (Nintaus {Faroudja chip AND VGA out}), and super expensive players (Camelot).
Most of these are hard to find, and the liklihood of VGA-RGB out becoming common is very low. (Resistance from the movie lobby, exactly because of the quality of the output. Fortunately, the Chinese don't seem to care. The players are hard to get but have a devoted following.)
1. this is only true of the VGA out section of these players. In some cases the component out will have the Chroma bug.
2. To derive the most benefit one needs a projector capable of at least 480p with a VGA (computer) input. Displaying such an output on anything less is a waste of time . . . and money.
Many reviewers are swearing that the players all need a considerable burn-in stage (in the case of the new Pioneer, 5 weeks of continuous play). Many of the players are hard, bright and shallow right out of the box. I haven't committed yet so I can't comment myself. I'm actually waiting for the Firewire/USB debate to settle and for standards to be set.
Yeah, I'll let it cook...I also notice it works much better after it's warmed up for a few hours...noticed that with my other audio DAC stuff too. Just now noticed, my player shuts off by itself if it's sitting there, not playing. So I have to put it on continuous repeat, it will do that after all.I don't wait for any technical stuff after being in computers for so long...it usually takes lots longer than they first say, and by the time it comes out the new standards are already being touted, and next years stuff out-performs last year's for cheaper. Too much politics involved in some of it too. A/V is too much like computers now, so I just make sure my software investment doesn't get screwed, and assume my hardware will be better in a few years. IMO it's the analog capability that lags far behind the digital, and some of the current digital stuff is already easily capable of surpassing most people's analog gear. One thing that bugs me is the quality of displays, and I think their capability is intentionally being crippled, for some marketing purposes. However, I just sit a little farther away from the screen, and I'm happy enough, in comparison to how I felt a few years ago about it.
I guess it's a keeper after all. Part of the problem is the manual, but once you try everything and know the answers, THEN the manual makes sense. The manual is particularly poor about connecting the unit up, you have to know how and know which methods are better, it won't help you get the best results with video or audio.For DVD-A audio, for most people, the analog connections (5.1 or stereo) will be far far superior to the digital connection, which essentially just gives you DVD quality sound. For DVD's, the Dolby/dts decoders and DAC's in the RP82 are quite possibly superior to the ones you already had, so you might want to use the analog connections for movies too, if you have them... For video, no S connection to the display is ever required for any menu any time, unlike some earlier models. Spend some time in the picture menu, and you may also have to readjust your TV display settings for best results. I have only used the progressive mode.
One thing I noticed is the laser pickup seems to be quite intolerant of discs that aren't perfectly clean. Even discs that superficially looked clean had some consistent/repeatable skips, but were fine after a quick wipe with a cotton cloth. May not be a good player for rentals...or could just be mine.
Though the remote is cheap, the buttons for DVD use are big enough and adequately separated. The ones often used with DVD-A (with the TV display off) are too close together though. I copied what's needed to the system remote, so no problem. Put some proper rubber feet on the case so it doesn't slide around. Tray mechanism is very smooth, unit quite quiet generally. Built-in display doesn't keep up with the shuttle dial at all well at any but the slowest speeds, so is a little awkward if searching by time. I wish designers would always put the built-in display and the remote sensor in the *middle* of the package, makes unit positioning more flexible on average.
I saw the 82 at CES and yes Panasonic reps said they were downsizing everything to appeal to the better half(!).Personally, I think they make the best televisions out there and now some of the best DVD players as well.
Try a redbook cd on your 82, I'll bet it sounds good.
[I know this is the video asylum...]Only HMV has them, I went to all the music/video stores, and just a few of them at that. The huge racks of stuff I had been previously pointed to turned out to just be music DVD's...most people didn't even know what a DVD-A is...reminds me of a year ago when looking for SACD's (and they still don't know about them out here, except HMV). Anyway I got The Last Waltz DVD-A, just got the SE TLW DVD about 2 months ago, they're sucking me dry.
I did play a CD in the 82 the other day, but in a different system for a different reason, will check it out in the AV system. I bought the unit strictly for DVD though, video really, but I was curious re the DVD-A. There is up to 192kHz sampling for some audio, don't know if it will upsample redbook, but I think it can from the slightly ambiguous manual. They use non-audio terms to describe it (their "glossary" is amusing), but it sounds like selectable upsampling to me.
You should know that the RP82 does not look at all like the one pictured on the Panny web site for months, at the CES, or in other places around the web. It is not available in black. It also does not have all the same features/controls as mentioned/pictured, but has some not mentioned. It also plays some formats the manual says it won't, but it warns for CD-R and CD-R/W that only ones recorded at up to a certain speed are "guaranteed" to work, 16X and 4X respectively. That suits me OK, as I've been a bit conservative when recording, if I want to try them in the unit sometime.
I have not looked at DVDP's since I had ordered the 82 three months ago, but I noticed tonight that the styling (mirror-chrome plastic) of the 82 is not uncommon, though none of the other units I saw (except from Panny) were nearly as slim. I saw a unit from Zenith that could be a fitting mirror in a haberdasher.
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