Sony DVP-NS575P DVD Player

A Little Background


I purchased this player along with a base model receiver, basic speakers, and fairly nice TV (that they actually paid for) as an early Christmas gift for the aunt and uncle. Last month during one of Texas' predictably unpredictable storms lightning finally struck their house and fried a whole bunch of stuff (electronics) as well as starting a small fire. They're ok, the house is now ok (thank God for State Farm), and considering storms have split or burned three live oaks in the backyard, I guess the house was finally due its share.

They had a fairly basic system before, but no surround so the receiver will be a nice addition for them. The Sony DVD player I got here maybe two years ago died after a freak dog/banana/squirrel-outside-the-window accident and was replaced by a Daewoo that promptly konked out as well. Having recently discover NetFlix, they were dying to get another DVD player, but didn't know what to look for and hates shopping, so I took care of it.

All that was needed was a unit that would hopefully last a little while, playback DVDs reliably and be easy for them to use. They are hardly feeble, but far from geeks, so a synergy of simplicity and quality was what needed to be found and I believe I did exactly that with the purchase of this Sony DVP-NS575P. Motivating factors were my almost two decades of experience with Sony products, price, and ease of use. I like Sony and all baseline players are cheap these days, so along with the ease of use, voila, we have a winner.



First Impressions


I am one of those "...if its heavy, it's quality..." kind of electronics buyers and it has been hard getting away from that in certain home electronic arenas like DVD playback devices. Not unlike VCRs four years ago, cheap is the name of the game for the MFRs of electronics devices. As such, DVD players have gotten as light as quickly and dramatically as they have gotten cheap. I will say that this player has a cheapish feel about it, but to some degree so did my last 5 disc Sony changer and it's still chuggin along, so I guess that's all moot then.

This player is exceptionally light and very svelte in overall volume. It is the new standard width for Sony components, measuring just short of 17" wide, but is only 10" deep and doesn't even stand 2" tall. Wow. There isn't anything remarkable about the face plate either, consisting of a mere seven buttons for all the most basic functions; play, stop, ff, etc. There is a little silver accent strip across the width of the unit which is sorta nice, breaking up the matte black plastic. I had actually thought I was purchasing a silver one, but whatever, they didn't care so neither did I.

Playback is really quite good. It is tough to find a DVD player over $60 that isn't progressive scan these days, so there is not a whole lot of excuse not to get one and of course if you don't have a progressive TV, who cares, by mid 2006 you probably will anyway so why not get the technology now? Although the player, receiver, and speakers were bottom of the line, the TV the player is hooked up to is rather nice, a Toshiba 30HFX84 widescreen CRT. So with that in mind, my judgments of the players abilities should be pretty fair considering I am not too concerned about the TV coloring (teehee) the results too much.



Features and Performance


This player is very easy to use from the word go. The unit has an easy set-up that will kick in and try to lead you through set up processes. I skipped this as I do not need the assistance and prefer to do everything to my taste and experience, however I could see it being useful for someone. The hookup process in and of itself is the same cheese, different look. The only output this unit is missing, and not really to its detriment, is a toslink output. This isn't the end of the world for the vast majority of purchasers simply because they will most likely not need it. Toslink, or optical output, is for sound only and will provide equivalent digitally transferred sound as the coaxial, so no worries.

All the other connections are there, basic analog RCAs, component RCAs (also for use as progressive outs), and a longtime fave of mine, S-Video. There is only one set of each. Next to the S-Vid output there is a microscopic switch for the choice of progressive or interlaced playback. This unit had it switched to progressive right out of the box, so if you have no idea what this means, or know you do not have a progressive capable TV, switch that bad boy on over to interlaced so you can actually watch movies etc. Progressive is absolutely the way to go if you can. Though the difference is not as great on this unit as some players reveal, it is still there.

Disc startup seems to lag sometimes, but not so excessively that it becomes a nuisance, hopefully this will not get worse. From direct comparison of identical scratched discs, disc read is fairly decent and this unit does a better job reading trashed discs than my last unit featuring the Precision Drive 2 mechanism (this unit features Precision drive 3). It's not a catch all though, you start straking the substrate layer (factory disc label) and you'll have problems, but this would be true of any playback device.

There are a variety of features beyond your average play and stop modes. Of course it has FF and rev, but also slow scan and zoom modes. The zoom is picky and doesn't seem to work all the time. I am not too sure why this is the case, but the only consistency is it will work on all of some discs, but not at all on others. My mom doesn't use this feature though (for that matter neither have I, ever), so as with color/aesthetics, they don't care so neither will I. Instant replay can be notchy, but fun to use when you think you saw something (thriller, horror, whatever), but isn't a function I see too many people using a lot. Picture navigation is fairly user friendly too. The test discs (jpg sets) I burned all worked flawlessly and effects as well as basic playback was a cinch. Burned DVDs were another matter.

Bill? Strange things are afoot at the Circle K. This player without any consistency would sometimes play and sometimes not play, all of the test discs I made (1 each of a DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD R, and DVD RW). Although I doubt it makes too much difference the R/RW were TDK discs and the R/RW were Sony discs. Like I said though, there were no patterns or consistency, sometimes they started playing, sometimes I got a read error. This is not too paramount though considering that the vast majority (99.9%) of their playback will be studio pressed discs, not burns. Just an FYI, though it may just be a minor defect in this very player (not the whole line, just this unit I bought). I nabbed an MP3 disc out of my car and it played fine for those of you wanting to use this model for audio playback as well. Note though, it does not support SACD or DVD-Audio playback.

The DVD playback is quite sharp, though on more than one occasion I thought I noticed some jumpiness. It's hard to describe, it wasn't in your face, but detracted somewhat from the fluidity in some scenes. I don't think it is a defect, just a quirk. The colors are not overly saturated and lines along extreme color changes are clear and without ghosting of any kind. The top and bottom of the window, when one sees it is sharp and even, but being that this isn't being played back on a 4:3 set, I only had one opportunity to judge the most minor of letterbox situations. Pause and slow-mo are clear (to some degree depending on the speed of the on screen action).

The audio lag common with so many Sony DVD players seems to have been fixed at last. Every stop and start test I performed restarted with no audio delay which is nice, because it is far more annoying a bug than it might sound. Also of note, if you are running sound through your television, there is an audio enhancement feature which is useless on receiver based home stereos, but can often be quite useful with standalone TVs though how useful may depend on the quality of your individual television.



Remote


The remote is of the newer frame Sony is now using for most home components, including ES. It is slightly wider and taller but thinner and appears to be a little lighter. The remote is plenty easy to use, but one thing Sony has pulled away from is using specific shapes for specific keys. This was a real boon in the dark and this remote is neither lit nor does it glow, so finding a certain key if you are not familiar with the location may pose a problem in the dark. All the primary functions are present and the remote has programmable options, but being that it is run through a receiver and they rarely watch television, this capability was not used. If you are running sound and vision direct to the TV in your set up then it may be useful unless you have a TV so old or so off market that it isn't covered, which is rare. The remote runs off two AAs as the vast majority of small remotes do these days and a starter set of Sony AAs are included. Sony makes terrible batteries, this is fact, so expect little from them, but rechargeable Ni-Mh or even Duracells should last several month with moderate usage.



Final Thoughts


If all you need is a basic DVD player without a load of bells and whistles, but it still progressive and strikes you as cheap or at least reasonable at $80-$90, this may very well fit the ticket. I have only had one Sony DVD player die on me and it was a long time ago, so I have little reason to believe that things should be any different with this one. It is a tiny little thing that should fit almost anywhere and looks fairly good to boot. The remote is straightforward, with a few minor drawbacks, and operation overall is a breeze. Even in progressive mode, the image quality is not going to floor anyone, but if you are new to DVD or this is an upgrade from your last player, you will most likely be very pleasantly surprised.

As with most Sony products, the warranty is a scant 1yr/90day affair. If this is scary to you keep in mind that there are several major name brand models out there with 90/90 warranties, but the reality is, if all things are equal and you take care of it (i.e., sans the proverbial peanut butter sandwich in the VCR), it should last a good while. As far as remotes, mine have been thrown, dropped, sat on, spilled on, burned slightly, mauled by vicious housecats, etc, etc. and they still work fine, so short of the hand of God, it should never break down.

I used to list stats with my DVD player reviews but stopped a while ago. Unless you are talking high end units up around $1000 or more per unit, it's pretty apples to apples among all the low end units within the sub $80 price range. Now, this is not to say a $28 APEX or Goldstar or Hypertecnic or some other such odd brand will perform the same, they won't, but within the major brands like Toshiba, Panasonic, Philips, JVC, Pioneer, etc, it is fair to say quality is roughly equivalent. The bottom line though is that I am reviewing the Sony DVP-NS575P and I recommend it as a base model DVD player purchase.