Sony - DVP-NS75H

MPEG Maker: Sony MPEG Model: CXD9804R Deinterlacer Maker: Unknown Deinterlacer Model: Unknown     MSRP: $119.99 Website: http://www.sony.com

It has been awhile since I’ve tested a Sony DVD player, mostly because I just haven’t been receiving any to look at. I was pleased with their recent turnaround in performance when they started moving away from the previous MPEG decoders they were using. Although I like some of the decoders they used in the past for speed and core video performance, they weren’t paying off for de-interlacing and scaling duties.

The DVP-NS75H represents the best progressive scan player I’ve tested from Sony so far. Surprising because it is also one of the cheapest players they’ve released. I am not sure what MPEG decoder they are using here as it has the standard Sony stamp on it, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it is a Mediatek design. The player is quite fast and performs very similar to some other MTK based players I’ve tested.

The NS75H isn’t the prettiest player on the block, but it isn’t cheap looking for its price either. The chassis is straightforward plastic, but it doesn’t look gimmicky either. Build quality is what I would hope for. Of all the players I tested this go around, it had the most impressive internal design with a decent power supply board.

From an operability standpoint the NS75H does quite well. It is very responsive, and its user interface is straightforward and easy to operate. The player has an HDMI output and supports upscaling to 1080i. Sony obviously cut back on the price by not including SACD, but with the dearth of new titles on the SACD format, I am not surprised. Those looking for high-end Sony audio should probably check out some of their higher priced offerings.

The core video performance of the NS75H is just above average for a progressive scan player nowadays. The player does not suffer from any of the CUE issues that plagued so many of Sony’s early DVD offerings, and it retains the full dynamic range of the image via HDMI and component video by passing below-black and above-white information. It does not use a chroma filter for 4:2:0 material, which is the only reason I am not completely sure this is a MTK based player.

Y/C delay is a problem with the component video output. The player has well over a full pixel of delay with this output. The HDMI output didn’t show any signs of Y/C delay and is definitely the preferred output choice for this player.

Pixel cropping is an issue with both outputs and rather excessive on the left side of the image.

In our de-interlacing tests the Sony did better than expected. It passed the majority of our tests and should do quite well with standard DVDs on the market. The player had no issues with 3-2 and 2-2 based material and actually did quite well with video based material. The video processor did a very commendable job with diagonal line processing using the HQV test disc. This is another reason I think they may be using an MTK MPEG decoder, as the results have been similar with other players using this chip.

The NS75H did trip up with some of the mixed flag material. I saw some light combing with our Galaxy Quest trailer clip around the planet and ship engine, and the player combed immediately with our mixed flag test. This has become common with just about every player out there using an all-in-one chip solution for their decoding and de-interlacing.

Conclusions

It is great to see so many low priced players starting to really offer decent video performance. In the early days there were some rare apples that popped up on occasion and impressed us, but lately I’ve seen some great offerings for people to choose from for well under $200. If you are looking for a solid progressive scan player with HDMI support for any room in the house, the Sony DVP-NS75H is one to consider.

Video Frequency Response
Sony

Sony - DVP-NS975V

MPEG Maker: Sony MPEG Model: CDX9304 Deinterlacer Maker: Sony Deinterlacer Model: CDX9304     MSRP: $349.99 Website: http://www.sony.com

Previously, I reviewed the Sony 555ES changer. I was quite impressed with it compared to the other Sony players and looked forward to seeing where their future offerings would go. Unfortunately Sony has been extremely quiet in the land of mid and high range players. It has been a few years now since they introduced the last ES player, and they didn’t have really anything new to show at CEDIA 2004.

The DVP-N975V is part of their entry line of players, but it has more in common with their ES line then the lower line. The player is based on their own MPEG decoder, the CDX9304, which also doubles as a de-interlacer and scaler for their HDMI output. This is the first time I’ve seen Sony use a proprietary solution for their MPEG decoder duties or de-interlacing, and it has paid off.

The 975 passed all of our chroma tests with the exception of the 4:2:0 ICP test. This was expected since this test requires special chroma filters normally found only on outboard processors or the Faroudja video processing solutions. It did an excellent job with alternating 3-2 material though, with no obvious flickering or banding. However,the MPEG decoder could not properly synch its subtitle output with the progressive frames, and combing was quite evident with our reference test using “The Abyss”.

The 975 passed a below black pluge via its component output, and the white level measured in a tad hot at 102 IRE, but was still within our test criteria. Pixel cropping was excessive on both the component and HDMI output, with 17 pixels cropped on the left and right side combined and 7 pixels on the upper part of the image.

The HDMI output offers several output resolutions including 480i, 480p, 720p, and 1080i. This makes another player on the market to offer 480i via HDMI. Unfortunately, the HDMI output does not pass a below black pluge and didn’t have any selections for RGB or YCbCr colorspace. Since HDMI supports several different output formats, including 10 and 12 bit YCbCr, I would like to see more manufacturers support its potential.

Navigating the player’s setup menus was a breeze, and the overall response time of the player was excellent. Menu navigation with our test discs was fast, and chapter skips had little hesitation. The layer change clocked in at a respectable 0.75 seconds.

The most impressive part of this player was its de-interlacing performance. The player offers two progressive modes that are easily accessed via the front panel progressive button; Progressive Auto and Progressive Video. The Auto mode did a superb job in our testing and reminded me more of a high line solution than a one chip proprietary solution. It passed all of our de-interlacing tests except our Bad Edit test, which is a common failure even for higher line de-interlacers. Recovery time during our cadence tests was a tad sluggish at about 15 frames, but otherwise this is the best performance I’ve seen from Sony yet.

Progressive Video is a forced video mode and should only be used with known video material. Setting the player up in this mode for normal film based material will result in an extremely soft image with obvious artifacts.

Another addition to this player is support for Sony’s SACD format. It is nice to see more support for this format from Sony in their lower priced players. The HDMI output of this player is the new generation and would support high resolution DVD-A, but as of yet Sony has not supported the competing format. We hope that Sony will eventually allow for full SACD support on HDMI making for a more streamlined hookup to future products.

I was really impressed with the performance of this DVD player, and Sony continues on the upward trend. I am hopeful that Sony will announce a new player for their ES line at CES and will approve HDMI as a transmission method for their popular SACD format. The biggest downside that I could find here was the lack of support for below black information via HDMI. This could be fixed via firmware, and hopefully Sony will address it. The de-interlacing performance was excellent though, and as a component based player, this is a great option.

Video Frequency Response
Sony

Sony - DVP-NS90V

MPEG Maker: Mediatek MPEG Model: unknown Deinterlacer Maker: Mediatek Deinterlacer Model: unknown     MSRP: $199.95 Website: http://www.sony.com

Recently I had the opportunity to test Sony’s flagship DVD player, the DVP-9100ES. While I was impressed with the build, features, and video processing, the player needed work in its core performance. This has become more and more of an issue it seems in the last year or so. As video processing has been getting better and better, attention to detail in some of the most critical areas has been getting worse. The unfortunate side of this is the core performance has more to do with the manufacturer then anything else. Does this mean they are getting lazy, or that they just don’t care? It is a hard question to ask but an even harder one to answer. Most video processing chips do just fine in their default state nowadays, so implementing them is not hard. Most user interfaces are rehashes of older designs and are generic amongst whole product lines most of the time. But tweaking the full performance of the core video properties takes time and attention to detail. It means you have to look for the issues before hand and work with the chipmakers to get it right. I’ve seen some companies invest serious amounts of time in this, and others just push out the same problems over and over again, year after year.

For this review I took a crack at one of Sony’s entry offerings, the DVP-NS90V. This player is much different than the DVP-9100ES in every way. The build quality is in an entirely different league and its video processing isn’t at the same level. But here is a player that actually performed better on the core side. The DVP-NS90V uses a different MPEG decoder; that much was apparent right from the start. So this could mean that the chip’s default performance was better from the start and didn’t require much tweaking. But it really makes me wonder why a player that costs less than half of another would actually have these important details worked out.

I was unable to figure out what MPEG decoder is being used for the DVP-NS90V. Most Sony DVD players have the information on the top of the chip scraped off, blacked out, or stamped with a generic Sony stamp. I have some suspicions that it may be a Mediatek offering, but I can’t prove it. Its responsiveness and chroma performance suggest it though. Sony is not using a two-chip solution here, so all MPEG decoding and de-interlacing/scaling are being done with this single chip. The video processing performance is also inline with what I would expect from a solution like this.

The NS90V is more of an entry DVD player by price point, but it does have some attractive features that have been making their way down the price ladder. This includes support for SACD (Sony’s high-resolution audio format), HDMI, and scaling to high definition resolutions. The player is average in build for its price point, and has a clean design as well as a reasonably friendly user interface. The HDMI output supports standard PCM and Dolby Digital and DTS soundtracks, but not SACD or DVD-A digital out. The HDMI video output supports 480p, 720p, and 1080i. Support for 480i is not offered, making this player a bad choice as a straight digital transport. That is unfortunate as its core performance on the HDMI side is pretty good.

The player is very good from a usability standpoint. Menu navigation and chapter skips were very fast, making operability smooth. The initial load times were a bit on the sluggish side though, which seems to be a reoccurring theme with the Sony players. The player’s layer change was very fast and clocked in at less than a second.

I started my tests with the digital side of the house first. I evaluated all of the HDMI output resolutions but conducted the majority of the benchmark tests with 720p to match the native resolution of the projector I had at the time. The core performance of the HDMI output was quite good and better than the analog component output. You can choose from two output color spaces: YCbCr and RGB. The YCbCr output is upsampled to 4:4:4, which is another indicator that this is indeed a Mediatek-based player (the new Mediatek chips are having chroma issues with 4:2:2 YCbCr so they don’t include this output option). The luma scale is correct and uses video RGB levels with black correctly set at digital 16 and white at digital 235. Above white and below black information are retained.

The HDMI output did extremely well with our chroma upsampling error (CUE) tests, failing only the expected 4:2:0 ICP test. It actually did quite poor in this test though with very pronounced streaking in moving objects, in fact, far more than any other Mediatek player I’ve looked at in the past. The DVP-NS90V had no signs of Y/C delay via HDMI, and pixel cropping was limited to just 3 pixels on the left side.

The component outputs had somewhat different results. While they performed the same with our CUE tests, the analog outputs suffered from over a full pixel of Y/C delay. All NTSC video is basically two complete frames of video overlaid onto each other. One contains the luma (black and white) data, and the other has the chroma (color) data. This information is combined to give you the full color image. This is why grayscale is adjusted when a display is calibrated. If the grayscale (the luma information from black to white)is incorrect, it can skew the color information. If there is Y/C delay, the images do not line up properly on the display causing what looks like ghosting or ringing on one side of the picture. With the NS90V, the chroma information is delayed to the left side so the right side of an object will appear to have some ringing. Images also tend to be softer from this problem similar to what you see when convergence is off in an analog or 3-chip digital display solution.

The white level of the player is just a tad low but still passed our criteria. Using a gray ramp and a digital oscilloscope, we measured the expected 100 IRE output at 99 IRE. This should have a negligible effect on contrast. The overall video frequency response of the analog video was quite good and near flat. There was just some mild increase in the upper frequency range, but I did not see any ringing as a result. The component output does not crop any pixels and retains the full active image.

Moving on to our de-interlacing tests, the Sony did about average for its price point. This is the drawback of a one-chip solution. At this time there are quite a few other players on the market at this price point using the Genesis FLI-2310 solution which offers far better de-interlacing performance, but even that solution has its caveats. The now infamous “macroblocking” bug manifests with a lot of displays out there, making the image near un-watchable for some consumers. At this time, there are just no other low-cost video processing solutions being used, so the lower end market tends to be below average in overall video prowess.

The NS90V does do true inverse telecine de-interlacing with both 3-2 and 2-2 based cadences, which covers the majority of the software on the market today. This player also features motion adaptive de-interlacing for video based material and does a fairly decent job with diagonal line processing. While not nearly as good as Faroudja’s DCDi solution or some of the other newer chips out there, it is not nearly as bad as most current single chip DVD players.

The Sony did fail the majority of our “hiccup” tests. These include chapter breaks and bad flagging. Recovery times are good, but you will notice either combing or softening of the image if the DVDs have mastering issues. This is where higher end de-interlacing solutions outperform these budget players and offer the best playback experience.

Conclusions

Overall, the Sony NS90V is quite a decent player. While it is by no means the best budget player I’ve reviewed, it only has a few drawbacks and will perform fine for the majority of DVDs out there. It offers some nice features for the money, and its video performance is about average for this part of the market. If you are looking for a decent low budget player, then the Sony DVP-NS90V might be one player to consider.

Video Frequency Response
Sony

Sony - DVP-NS9100ES

MPEG Maker: Omega DVD MPEG Model: Unknown Deinterlacer Maker: Unknown Deinterlacer Model: Unknown     MSRP: $1299.99 Website: http://www.sony.com

Until now, I’ve had a very lukewarm relationship with Sony’s DVD players. While the ES line has always maintained a great build, sleek look, and nice features, it has failed to inspire me in the video performance department. In our Benchmarks, Sony has usually delivered an average grade in its core performance, with frequent chroma issues. Its de-interlacing has also been well behind the curve of other flagship lines from companies like Denon and Pioneer Elite.

The DVP-NS91000ES is the newest flagship player from Sony. Surprisingly, Sony had never addressed the need for a truly state of the art DVD player in their short lived Qualia line, and the 9000ES was getting a little on the dated side. So, with the 9100ES, Sony has added some needed features such as HDMI support and up scaling to HD resolutions. Like the ES players before it, the 9100 continues Sony's support for the Super Audio CD format and even includes an iLink (Firewire) output to deliver SACD digital bitstreams. Unfortunately, the 9100ES does not support the rival DVD Audio format despite its inclusion on the Columbia (Sony) supported Dual Disc format that has affected the SACD and DVD-A market.

Like most of Sony’s previous players, the 9100ES continues their long-standing tradition of subtle performance issues that just add up. I really wish that companies would do a bit more with their flagship lines than just putting them in nice cases with captivating aesthetics. Can’t we for once spend the time to ensure that at least the core functions of the player meet the DVD specification and feature performance in line with the price point? I could only imagine what would happen if a Nissan fan managed to get his hands on an Infiniti only to find the same performance limitations of his previous car!

On the core side, the 9100 just doesn’t keep up with the competition’s flagship offerings. The player has issues with chroma performance, pixel cropping, Y/C delay, and just overall operability. We’ll start with the HDMI performance and then move on to the component outputs.

On the HDMI side, the biggest offenders with the 9100ES are pixel cropping and Y/C delay. The HDMI connection offers three output resolutions: 480p, 720p, and 1080i. The 480p output suffers from extremely excessive pixel cropping with numbers ranging in the teens for each side. That is pretty much inexcusable considering that is an active part of the picture they are eliminating. 720p and 1080i fared much better in this regard with less than 4 pixels being cropped from any one side.

Y/C delay was obvious at all resolutions and was just over 1 pixel. The player offers a chroma delay adjustment, but it did not offer a resolution fine enough to correct the problem.

The player passed half of our chroma tests but had issues with material mastered with a 2-2 cadence or the standard ICP chroma test. The latter requires chroma filters that few video processors have and usually ends up filtering the chroma resolution of the player. The performance was the same using the component video outputs as far as our chroma tests go. The 9100ES uses an Omega DVD MPEG decoder, which is actually a bit rare. The last player I remember that used this chip was the Krell Showcase DVD player, but it was coupled with a Genesis/Faroudja video processor to eliminate some of the issues inherent in the Omega chip.

The component output did have about the same amount of pixel cropping except with 480p; it was much better in that regard. The component output didn’t have any chroma delay either. I was surprised, since it is harder to get the analog outputs right than the digital ones! The analog video frequency response was excellent overall, and in line with the previous ES players we’ve tested.

Most of the Sony products I’ve tested in the past use Pixel Works video processing chips for de-interlacing. When I opened up this player, I didn’t find any video processing chips except the MPEG decoder. I looked on Omega’s website to find out information on the chip, but I guess it is too new to be listed. The overall de-interlacing and scaling performance were quite good but still not to the level of the better chipsets out there from Faroudja, Silicon Optix, and Gennum.

The player passed all of our de-interlacing tests in its default processing mode except our Bad Edit test and our Subtitle test. Overall, I would say that is terrific. Even material mastered in 2-2 was free from artifacts. This is by far the best performance I’ve seen from Sony in this regard. In fact, if this player were tweaked in a bit more on the core side, it would make my short list of highly recommended players.

Operability of the player was lacking. The set-up menus were hard to navigate, and the remote didn’t make operability any better. The layout of the main keys was cumbersome and unintuitive, and responsiveness of commands was sluggish. Initial load times were very slow, and ejecting a disc seemed to take far too long. Again, these are not problems we should see with flagship designs. The player’s layer change clocked in at an extremely sluggish 2 seconds, which is definitely a fail in our tests.

Conclusions

While I was extremely impressed with the de-interlacing performance of the 9100ES, it needs a lot more attention in its core performance and usability. At the end of the day, these things contribute just as much to a satisfactory home theater experience as any other factor and should never be overlooked. Hopefully, its successor will be a bit better in this regard.

Video Frequency Response
Sony

Sony - BDP-S1 Blu-ray

MPEG Maker: Sigma Designs MPEG Model: unknown Deinterlacer Maker: Sigma Designs Deinterlacer Model: unknown     MSRP: $999.95 Website: http://www.sony.com

The Sony BDP-S1 represents Sony’s first dip into the world of standalone Blu-ray players. I was actually surprised that they weren’t the first company out there with a Blu-ray player, as they are one of the principle founders of the technology. Sony claims that the player was delayed to the market to ensure compatibility and proper operation, which does seem wise, given the rather rocky start that we saw with Samsung’s first offering.

This is the third Blu-ray player I’ve looked at for our DVD benchmark. Remember that the DVD benchmark revolves around the player’s performance as a standard DVD player. We are working to create a benchmark for high definition players from both formats, but for now we will continue to explore how well these players do with the majority of the video library out there, which is without a doubt DVD right now. I will make some comments about HD performance as well, but I will limit those as a full review will be published that will cover the Blu-ray aspect a lot more.

The Sony BDP-S1 is the first Blu-ray player to not rely on a stand-alone video processing chip for the majority of its video processing duties. Both the Samsung and Panasonic players that we reviewed before put in a video processing chip to handle its de-interlacing duties for both SD and HD content. While this may be a good thing for SD performance, it can take its toll on HD performance, depending on how good the video processing chip is with HD de-interlacing.

The BDP-S1 uses the new Sigma Designs decoder for both SD and HD content. On the HD side this is a big plus, as the Sigma chip allows for a pure 1080p24 video stream that is untouched after the decoder. No other player has offered this yet. It also allows for a 480i video stream for standard DVD playback, another feature no other Blu-ray player has offered to date. This is a great feature for anyone with a stand-alone video processor, as it allows a native 1080p24 stream for BD playback and a 480i stream for DVD playback without ever having to select the output resolution for each source. Most players need to be switched every time. Keep in mind this is only a benefit if you display supports a 24p source, as the direct mode does not output 1080p60; that is a separate resolution that will have to be selected independently.

For our DVD benchmark tests I ran the player’s output in 480i and 480p most of the time, with a few tests done at the higher resolutions (pixel cropping). The BDP-S1 upconverts standard DVDs to 480p, 720p, 1080i, and 1080p via HDMI, but the component output is limited to 480p. 1080p24 is not supported with standard DVDs, only Blu-ray. All of the video processing is done in the Sigma chip. We’ve tested lots of Sigma Design’s MPEG decoders in the past, and while they do offer a lot of great features (wireless support, DIVX, WMV-HD), they usually don’t do that well in our testing. This implementation is definitely better than most I’ve seen with a Sigma chip, but it still comes up short of the better DVD playback designs.

The biggest drawback for DVD playback with all of the Blu-ray players I’ve tested to date has been core video performance. Both the Samsung and Panasonic players use standalone video processing chips that are quite capable when it comes to de-interlacing and scaling, but the decoders have had a lot of issues before that ever happens. This isn’t really the case with the Sony.

Pixel cropping was pretty much a non-issue. With a 480p output, only one pixel was being cropped from the left side. The only other resolution with pixel cropping was 480i, which had 4 pixels cropped from the left side.

This player retains the full dynamic range of the luma signal and does not clip head or toe room with standard DVD playback. In other words, below black and above white data are retained. I could not verify this with HD playback because the player does not support BD-R or BD-RE discs at this time. My Blu-ray test disc with native 1080p material is on a BD-RE. I was surprised that Sony, of all companies, couldn’t support BD-R playback, but Samsung and Panasonic could. You would think the inventor of the format could do most of what it is capable of, or at least more than the other companies could this early in the game.

There is some slight Y/C delay with 480i and 480p via HDMI. 720p, 1080i, and 1080p were all fine with no signs of Y/C delay. This player does not show any signs of CUE, regardless of the signal type. This has always been a strength of the Sigma Designs chip, and I’m glad to see the performance here is no exception. This does mean that they are using some type of filtering for ICP though, but that is to be expected.

From an operability standpoint, the BDP-S1 is a very good player. The initial power up sequence is a bit sluggish, but once it is on, the responsiveness of the player is quite good. Menu navigation is average to above-average, even with some of the more difficult Blu-ray Java features. Some of the buttons on the front panel aren’t as responsive as I would like, but using the remote control remedied this issue. The layer change was my biggest complaint. Using our high bit rate test, it clocked in at a sluggish 1.5 seconds, which is definitely enough to be noticeable during DVD playback.

On the de-interlacing side, the Sony did fairly well, but falls short of what most of the other Blu-ray players will provide with their separate video processing chips. The Sigma chip is a flag based design, so as long as the flags are good, you shouldn’t have much of an issue. Unfortunately, that is not always the reality, so combing will probably be evident from time to time.

The BDP-S1 failed all of our alternating cadence tests, including the rather basic alternating 3-2 pattern. Usually this test is a non-issue for even the most entry level players, but the Sony could not lock on and stay in film mode at all. Using our mixed mode test, the player regained its lock with film based material extremely fast, showing that the player is indeed using the flags and not relying on cadence detection.

The Sony does support both 3-2 and 2-2 cadences, so most DVDs should play back fine with the full resolution of film based de-interlacing. I would still recommend using a different DVD player if you buy this for Blu-ray playback, as there are several sub-$200 DVD players that will outperform this one for DVD playback and de-interlacing.

On the HD side, I was quite impressed with the Sony. The video was as good as I’ve seen from any other player at this point, and its support for 1080p24 was welcomed. Unfortunately it does not support decoding of Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD Master audio, but I’ve heard rumors that support (a downloadable software update) for at least Dolby TrueHD is in the works.

Conclusions

Overall, I can’t recommend the Sony BDP-S1 as a standard DVD playback device, but if you are just looking for a Blu-ray player, then this one is definitely worth a look. While I don’t think it is as future proof as the Panasonic design, the available 1080p24 output is enticing for those of us with displays that can take advantage of it. Be on the look out for the full review soon.

Video Frequency Response
Sony

Sony - DVP-NS775V

MPEG Maker: Sony MPEG Model: CXD9804R Deinterlacer Maker: Sony Deinterlacer Model: CXD9804R     MSRP: $129.99 Website: http://www.sony.com

First off we’d like to give a huge thanks to Derek Smith for giving us the opportunity to test this player. Derek graciously volunteered his player and even came over when I did the tests.

The Sony DVP-NS775V is a mid to lower line entry from Sony that doesn’t have many bells and whistles other than support for SACD playback. The 775 is built on a Sony platform all in one video chip that handles both MPEG decoding and de-interlacing for progressive playback. Like the last few Sony players I’ve tested, this one shows that Sony has come quite a way over the last few years in terms of video performance. I look forward to trying out their new flagship ES players that are due out later this year.

The Sony video processing is in line with most standard players on the market right now. It handles film cadences quite well but will occasionally trip up when that cadence changes. So with the majority of film DVDs out there, this player should do fine in the de-interlacing department. It does lack a mode for DVDs using a 2-2 cadence though, so video performance may vary.

Equally important to video processing is the player’s core performance. This is the building block to a great picture. Keep in mind that most displays nowadays contain some pretty advanced video processing, including scaling and de-interlacing. Sometimes it is more beneficial to rely on that processing instead of the player’s own processing. But a player’s core component performance is critical so that the display’s processing has the best signal possible to work with.

The 775 fared okay in these tests but could be improved upon. The most glaring issue was Y/C delay. Using a bowtie pattern on Video Essentials and our digital oscilloscope, we measured greater than a full pixel of Y/C delay on both the Pb and Pr channels. Y/C delay will cause a “ghosting” effect on the image that almost looks like a halo on the side of the delay. It is essential that the luminance and chroma channels are perfectly in sync with each other to provide the best video image.

The video frequency response of the player was excellent and just about ruler flat. I did spot some pixel cropping on the left and right side of the image with a total of 7 pixels being cropped. The player did extremely well with our chroma tests. The only one it didn’t pass was the 4:2:0 ICP test which requires a chroma filter that is normally only found in high end video processors.

The player did pass the below-black pluge pattern test, but its white level was a bit high at 103 IRE. This will exaggerate white levels and produce an artificially high contrast level.

The user interface was simple to navigate, and response times were quite good. I thought the initial loading times were on the sluggish side, but menu navigation and chapter skips were quite speedy. Using a full bit rate layer change, we measured the delay at about 0.75 second, which is excellent.

Overall, the Sony is a decent entry level player, but a bit more attention to detail would have gone a long way. It surprises me that so many companies seem to drop the ball on the easy stuff this late in the game. I hope that the next offerings from Sony that are due out later this year are tweaked in a bit better.

Video Frequency Response
Sony

Sony - NC555ES

MPEG Maker: MPEG Model: unknown Deinterlacer Maker: Sony Per Pixel Deinterlacer Model: unknown     MSRP: $599.99 Website: http://www.sony.com

The NC555ES player was a huge surprise and shows that maybe Sony is changing their ways. This changer is part of their new line of ES products and resembles their new flagship receiver in form. Sony has obviously not only changed their MPEG decoder, but they have spruced up their deinterlacing solution as well. It even passed the Faroudja test patterns, including the flag, which is a rarity for proprietary solutions. They might even be using Faroudja technology inside, but we did not open up the player to find out. There was some noticeable combing with subtitles though, and the layer change was a bit on the slow side at about four seconds. There is also some flicker in solid colors, similar to what is seen with Faroudja players that leave the cross color suppressor on. On the plus side the build of this player is very good as are reactions to inputs and navigation. The player features SACD playback as well. Seems Sony and Pioneer have both revamped their offerings, which is promising for future products.

Video Frequency Response
Sony

Sony - BDP-S1 Blu-ray

Sony - PlayStation 3

MPEG Maker: unknown MPEG Model: unknown Deinterlacer Maker: unknown Deinterlacer Model: unknown     MSRP: $599.99 Website: http://www.sony.com

I really don’t expect much when I start doing Benchmark tests on a video game system. DVD playback is probably the least of the designers' worries, and just basic playback performance is more than enough for their agenda. But, I think that designers who are touting their product as a media console and not just a video gaming machine have more of an obligation to ensure at least a decent level of performance in all areas of media playback, including video and audio.

Recently, I tested Microsoft’s new venture into the world of console gaming, the Xbox 360. The 360 performed very well in our DVD benchmark and positioned itself as the only game machine I’ve tested to date that I would probably recommend as a DVD player. The 360 launched a year before its competition, the Sony PlayStation 3 (PS3) and Nintendo Wii, so I was wondering how much Sony and Nintendo would put into their next generation consoles to combat the 360’s strong points. Nintendo opted out of the media console market and launched a system strictly designed for gaming and interactivity with the Wii, and it does not include DVD playback, but Sony went all out, and not only included DVD playback, but also support for Blu-ray (BD), one of the high definition disc formats.

For this Benchmark, I am going to stick with standard DVD playback like I’ve done with previous Blu-ray players. I will be following the Benchmark with a full review of the PS3, including its performance as a Blu-ray player and video game console.

Months before the PS3 ever released, I would have guessed that it would be an average DVD player and below average Blu-ray player. The PS2 was anything but impressive as a DVD player, and despite the rather high price point of the PS3 as a game console, it is only about half the price of the competing stand alone Blu-ray players. This would obviously lead me to believe that Sony designed this as a video game console first, with the BD and DVD playback section being passable at best, and enough to maybe lure some tech savvy owners into stand alone BD players at some point. Evidently, this is not the case.

The PS3 represents one of the best BD players I’ve used to date. It is fast, the image quality is excellent, and it supports more of the BD functions and features than just about any other player. The fact that it does this for nearly half the price of the other BD players out there is almost embarrassing, and rather disappointing when you think about it. As a standard DVD player, however, the PS3 may represent one of the worst progressive scan players I have ever tested. Surprising, considering its BD performance.

The PS3 is the only game console to feature an HDMI output to date. Given this feature, I was fully expecting to see support for upconversion of standard DVD to high definition resolutions like most HDMI-based DVD players. Unfortunately, that doesn't happen here. The PS3 only outputs 480p for DVD playback. Personally I would have rather have seen 480i as the only DVD output resolution given how bad this player does with its de-interlacing.

The PS3 has no film-based de-interlacing support. It is essentially locked in video mode the entire time, so as the cadence changes, resolution is compromised. This is pretty much unforgivable at this stage in the game and embarrassing compared to every other DVD player I’ve tested from Sony. Why this is the case I have no idea, especially since DVD is the only thing the PS3 is de-interlacing (the PS3 does not de-interlace 1080i to 1080p for BD content, it only outputs what the disc is encoded).

Core video performance was about average. The PS3 allows you to select from two separate color spaces via HDMI: RGB and YCbCr. Neither of them passes below black information, so head and toe room are clipped. There is also some minor pixel cropping with DVD playback (BD playback had no pixel cropping).

On the plus side, the PS3 does not have any issues with CUE or Y/C delay when viewing DVDs via HDMI. I’ve seen reports that it does have CUE issues with Blu-ray playback using 4:2:0 material.

The PS3 passed all of our tests that relate to video-based material, which was expected since this player is essentially in a forced video mode. This includes 2-2 material. I could not get it to lock onto a single 3-2 based pattern, regardless of how much time I gave the player to do it.

From a usability standpoint, the PS3 does quite well. The transport is fast, and I really love all of the information available when you press display (bitrates, video codec, etc.) I highly recommend picking up the PS3 remote if you plan on using the console for movie viewing, because it alleviates a lot of the frustration that can come with using the controller as a remote. The only drawback is that the remote is Bluetooth-based, so you cannot program your HT remote to mimic it. My only other gripe is that the player does not start-up a disc when it is inserted. You have to navigate to the video selection in the main PS3 menu screen and select it.

Conclusions

It is a shame that Sony put so much work into the PlayStation 3 in some areas but not in DVD playback. The lack of a film mode for de-interlacing and no support for upscaling are rare in progressive scan DVD players these days. While I would still recommend it as a Blu-ray player, anyone considering adding the PS3 to their home theater rack should probably keep their standard DVD player as well.

Sony - NS700P

MPEG Maker: Unknown MPEG Model: Unknown Deinterlacer Maker: Unknown Deinterlacer Model: Unknown     MSRP: $399.00 Website: http://www.sony.com

This machine was a surprise to us, a mildly pleasant one. We had heard through the grapevine that this player would be using the Genesis chipset, as the earlier S9000ES had. When we got the player, however, we found that Sony was using a chip of their own. It's not quite up to the level of the Silicon Image or Sage chips, but it's several notches better than the Genesis.

Video Frequency Response
Sony

Sony - DVP-NS575P

MPEG Maker: Sony MPEG Model: CXD9781R Deinterlacer Maker: Sony Deinterlacer Model: CXD9781R     MSRP: $89.99 Website: http://www.sony.com

Throughout our Benchmark testing, we have covered a good majority of the Sony ES line of DVD players. This is the first time I have tested a non-ES player. The Sony DVP-NS575P is as entry level as you can get. The player is built by Sony from the ground up and even incorporates a Sony MPEG decoder.

In our core tests, the Sony did OK. The player has a few shortcomings, including a full pixel of Y/C delay and some rather excessive pixel cropping (7 on the right and a combination of 5 from top and bottom). The player does pass blacker-than-black, and actually had a pretty decent video frequency response for a budget player.

In our chroma tests, the player incorporated a chroma filter in progressive mode that eliminates the chroma bug; however, the player still exhibits the problem with alternating flag material such as Monster’s Inc.

In our usability tests, the player did very well. This player’s interface is extremely fast with both menus and chapter skips, and also has a completely seamless layer change (seamless, meaning that you can't tell the layer is changing, there is no pause in the movie). I found that surprising since none of the ES players I have tested do this.

The Sony MPEG decoder also serves as the de-interlacer for the player. It has two modes of operation: Auto and Video. Funny thing is, they are both identical. I would recommend just leaving it in Auto and forgetting about it. The de-interlacer is flag-based and has a tendency to trip up with bad flags. Recovery time is pretty quick though, so artifacts shouldn’t be too obvious.

Overall, the Sony is a nice offering, with only a few issues. Compared to the other players in the July Benchmark, it is a decent contender.

Video Frequency Response
Sony

Sony - DAV-C770

This is one of the new Home Theater in a Box product’s from Sony. The HTIB is the hottest selling consumer electronic product today. They are flying off the shelves and we felt we should include at least one.

Sony - DVP-NS999ES

MPEG Maker: Unknown MPEG Model: Unknown Deinterlacer Maker: Unknown Deinterlacer Model: Unknown     MSRP: $1199.00 Website: http://www.sony.com

We recall the Sony 7000 fondly. At the time, the 7000 was the best built and best looking DVD player around. Sony really did make a statement with that piece. We are still waiting for Sony to make a replacement that exceeds their work on the 7000.

Video Frequency Response
Sony

Sony - DVP-S9000ES

MPEG Maker: LSI MPEG Model: Unknown Deinterlacer Maker: Genesis Deinterlacer Model: gmAFMC     MSRP: $1500.00 Website: http://www.sony.com

The S9000ES is a very good unit, but not absolutely top notch. Our chart shows that the S9000ES didn’t do perfectly on our de-interlacing tests, but the chart doesn’t tell the whole story. The S9000ES uses the two-chip Genesis solution, which means it uses cadence reading, and the de-interlacing has all the problems of that chipset. However, while the player failed most of the same tests as the other players using the Genesis chipset, it became clear as we were testing that the S9000ES combs less often than the other Genesis-based players, and it combs for a shorter time. You can see this on the “comb count” on "The Big Lebowski".

Sony - DVP-S7700

MPEG Maker: LSI MPEG Model: Unknown Deinterlacer Maker: Cinematrix Deinterlacer Model: PSM-1     MSRP: $1299.00 Website: http://www.sony.com

The Cinematrix add-on for DVD players is a nifty idea in concept. It is an add-on board that can in theory be installed on any DVD player, and completely replaces the output stage of the player with a de-interlacer plus scaler that can scale the output to almost any resolution you could desire. And since the de-interlacing and scaling are done in the digital domain, there is no loss to extra D/A and A/D steps, as there is with an external de-interlacer. We found the execution to still have some hiccups.