Sony DVP-NS725P DVD Player

Stay away from this horrible offering from Sony. I purchased this based on the performance of my older sony dvd player (which is still working like a charm),but their quality has come way down. I once belonged to the cult of followers that outfitted their entire home theater components with Sony, but after my last a/v receiver and this dvd player, I have been set free.

This unit dazzled me at first with its high contrast picture and vibrant detail. Within days of constant use(mp3 playback, music DVD's, movies, and tv shows on DVD), the image became highly grainy and noisy. Flesh tones took on a disturbing painted look and no matter what I did to my 42" rear projection Sony TV as far as adjustments, I could not get it to look right. DVD layer changes led to 2-3sec jumps ahead cutting out parts of the movie. Inexcusable! DVDs from my home collection of over 200(all in pristine condition) started to show problems with skipping, freezing, block artifacts, etc. Theses same DVD's put in my old player, which I still have in another room, worked flawlessly. I was shocked and maddened by this outcome. I had this unit for 17 days and really wanted it to be "the one". Sadly, it is not! In all fairness, I do not own an HDTV, so the image quality in progressive mode may be better, but disc performance will be the same.

Fortunately, I did alot of research before I bought this unit and went to get my 2nd choice yesterday(the Pioneer dv-563a) and I am totally blown away by its performance. Layer changes are not even noticable and the image is so film-like, it makes me smile just thinking about it. I gave it the 12hr workout and it was flawless. Unlike this unit, it can play jpeg cd-r, zoom the image of moving or static sources, random play mp3 files, the front display can be turned off, AND it can play SACD and DVD-a discs. At $150, you will not be disaapointed.*image/picture quality based on interlaced mode, not progressive, which is also part of both of these units.