Yamaha has been slow to adopt a new flagship DVD player. The S2300 went through two iterations, both of which were very well received. We preferred the standard S2300, which was based on the also well received Panasonic RP-82, compared to the latter S2300 Mk II. The Mk II had some minor pixel cropping that we found a bit annoying.
The S2500 is pretty much a whole new beast though. It features some state of the art features and connections allowing the end user more flexibility in delivery and performance. This includes HDMI for video and movie soundtracks and Firewire for DVD-A and SACD digital delivery.
This player appears to be based on a Philips transport as opposed to the previous Panasonic one. It uses the Genesis/Faroudja FLI-2310 LF chip for its main video processing and a Ziva5 chip from LSI for its MPEG decoding duties. This is actually very similar to what is found in the high end Meridian DVD players that cost several times more than the Yamaha.
As expected, the Faroudja chip exhibits the Macroblocking issue in Faroudja-based DVD players. Using my old standby test sequence from A Bug’s Life showed the obvious patches of MPEG noise and random blotchiness associated with the problem. I had heard some time ago that Genesis/Faroudja had found a work around for this problem, but I have yet to see a single Faroudja player that doesn’t have it. As always, anyone with a display that shows the bug should probably avoid this player, as the severity is different from display to display. I’ve seen some plasma’s that show the problem so bad that the image is nearly unwatchable. If you are not sure if your display will have any issues with the player and you’re interested in picking this player up, I would highly recommend buying it from a vendor that has a good return policy just in case.
When testing the S2500, I noticed a pretty significant difference between the HDMI output and the component outputs. Obviously one of the main draws to this player would be the HDMI output which offers scaled resolutions of 720p and 1080i, as well as a direct digital video path. This is definitely the preferred delivery system to a digital display as it alleviates the need for transitions from digital to analog and back, along with the filtering involved in the process.
The only downside here is that the component outputs are actually better, since they don’t have the same issues that this player’s HDMI output is exhibiting. The component outputs also have an array of video adjustments that are not available with the HDMI output.
On the core side, the component outputs are just about flawless. The frequency response is rock solid, and I didn’t notice any artificial ringing in my subjective analysis. The Ziva 5 chip did fine in our chroma tests, especially since the Faroudja chip masks any issues associated with it. Pixel cropping was not an issue via component or HDMI.
The HDMI output had some definite issues on the core side though. For one, there was obvious Y/C delay that was easily over a full pixel. The player does offer an adjustment for Y/C delay in one pixel increments but it only affects the component video outputs (which didn’t have any Y/C delay issues!) The HDMI output is also set up for PC RGB levels, which means it has remapped black (digital 16) to digital 0 and white (digital 235) to digital 255 and truncated the head and toe room intended for video signal levels. The component outputs don’t have this problem either. I am not sure if this is being caused by the player’s processor or the Silicon Image HDMI transmitter chip, which has been a source of this issue with other HDMI players.
The S2500 does include set-up options for the Faroudja processing but does not include a separate video mode for sources with a 2-2 cadence. This is unfortunate since we know the FLI-23xx series of chips is capable of handling material with this cadence. I was also disappointed to see that Yamaha didn’t include video output modes for the HDMI output. I would have liked to have seen user options that included YCbCr and RGB. I like to keep the video signal in the digital component video space and have my projector do the color space conversions.
As far as the rest of our progressive tests, the S2500 delivered like most other Faroudja based players. The chip does an excellent job with film based cadences but can be a bit sluggish recovering from transitions between video based content and film based content. This is one of the advantages of some of the newer video processors on the market now, including the Silicon Optix and National Semiconducter chips.
The operability side of the player is a bit of a mixed bag. The transport is extremely slow to initially load a disc. This becomes a bit of a frustration over long time use. Once a disc is loaded though, navigation isn’t too bad. Not the fastest player I’ve used, but definitely not sluggish. The layer change was about a full second using our high bit rate test. The remote isn’t much to brag about and is missing a lot of the buttons that I think should always be included on a remote, such as a title menu button and audio selector for high resolution audio.
The on-screen menus and player set-up were easy to navigate and straightforward. My only real complaint here was the lack of support for the HDMI output and no indication that it wasn’t supported. If you are using the HDMI output, you can still adjust the parameters in the player’s set-up menus, but you are only adjusting the component outputs. Personally, I think that these parameters should be blacked out if they can’t be used for the current video output mode.
The audio side of the S2500 features the full compliment of support for all of today’s audio standards. This includes full support of DVD-A and SACD. On top of that, the S2500 features a Firewire output for digital delivery of high resolution content. Yamaha has several A/V receivers that will accept this input. This is a big plus for customers looking to keep their music in the digital domain while applying things like room correction, bass management, and time alignment. Just like video, transitions from digital to analog and back will cause issues with the signal at some point and should be avoided if at all possible.
Conclusions
The S2500 could use a bit more grooming. The HDMI output needs more attention on the core side, and the issues we found could be easily addressed with a firmware update from Yamaha. Fixing these issues would make the S2500 one of the better players out there. I know that Yamaha recently released a firmware fix for some audio issues associated with this player, so hopefully that means that they can address the video side as well.
