Toshiba REGZA Cinema Series 55SV670U 55-Inch 1080p LCD HDTV with LED Backlight and ClearScan 240, Black Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I have had this Toshiba 55SV670U for about one week. My decesion to pick this set over the Samsung 7100, Samsung 950, Sony XBR8 and LGH90 did not come without a carefull examination of the picture quality on all the sets. (I eliminated plasmas as they appeared rather dim to me.)

My desire was high brightness, sharpness and high contrast ratios. The weight and thickness was not that important as I only planned on moving this set once or twice. I will be looking at the picture more often than looking at the side view. This model Toshiba is now using a similiar front layer as Samsungs and it has improved the contrast ratio signifiantly. The blacks are much darker using this front material. I know it will reflect lights from behind me, but I'll block the window with a shade.... I would rather have that problem 10 % of the time than have the matte finish distort the picture 100 % of the time.The only way to improve contrast ratio is to locally dim. All the above do locally dim except the Samsung 7100. I questioned how the Samsung 7100 could have a single backlight and be able to make selected areas blacker. I found this Samsung set to have a slight blue hue over the whole picture. However, the Samsung 7100 would have been my second choice.
The Sony XBR8 and the Samsung 950 had the best pictures - just too expensive for the RGB backlighting and Just not worth
$ 1500 to $ 2000 more to me.


The Toshiba 55SV670U gave me the local dimming, an anti-reflective coated contrast window, 120 HZ scan rate and a bright long lasting LED display. I am completelty satisfied with this set.... and with and with its much lower selling price.
Drop in Mr and Mrs Smith in Blu Ray and you will ever regret purchasing this Toshiba




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The New REGZA Cinema Series LED TV is the most advanced, most beautiful TV we’ve ever produced. Our advanced FocaLight™ LED Backlight System with Local Dimming, and stunning new Deep Lagoon™ Design with Infinity Flush Front™, create the perfect combination of highquality and stylish appeal.

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Philips DVP5960 DVD Player with HDMI, 1080i Upscaling, DivX Ultra, USB direct Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I bought this DVD player in mid May and 3 weeks later with very nominal usage my player just died in the middle of a movie. I had it connected to a top of the line surge protector so the problem was not a power surge. I could not even get the disc out. When I took it back to Circuit City they assured me it was probably just a bad one and gave me a new one. I could have got another brand but for the features and price I could not find one I liked in the store. The new player has worked ok for the last month but it shows some jitters while switching from one HDMI set up mode to another and causes a 'green' screen to display on my plasma. Once I switch it off and then on again it has worked fine but I am prepared to have it die on me in just a few months. I did not notice any substantial improvement in picture using the HDMI cable over the component connection. In fact, if you have a progressive DVD player I doubt that you would notice too much difference in the image quality using this upconverting DVD player. I had it set to the 1080i resolution and also to the 720p and 570p. On some DVDs the 1080i performed better than the other resoulutions but on some others it did not seem to make much of a difference which makes me think that the image quality is very DVD dependent.
The good:
Plays all discs - VCDs, CD-RWs, CDs, DVDs, MP3s, Div-X and just about anything that won't play on other DVD players.
It even has a USB connection in the front which you can use to directly plug in a zip drive or another device like a hard drive, although I have not used this feature yet.
The bad:
Remote is not at all user friendly. It is of cheap construction and buttons are not intuitive. I liked my Sony remote much better. Worse, the DVD player is VERY slow to respond to your pressing remote buttons. At times, I have to struggle to get it to respond.
While changing resolutions through DVD player set up it is better not to have a disk playing in the DVD player as that causes errors.
Finally, for the features and price this is a good buy if you have a lot of Div-X, VCD, DVD-RW discs and copies of original DVDs as this player plays them all. However, don't expect this player to be a life-long purchase and cross your fingers and hope you get a good piece when you buy one. In fact, I recommend buying it from a store close to you so that the return is easier.
11/06/06 Update: The player has worked just fine up till now but I hardly use it more than once a week.
11/16/08: This player is still working fine and plays all DVDs and home made movies without any problem. You can also make it region free if you like - just Google it. So I stand by my rating.

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DVD, HDMI (1080i Upsampling), DivX Ultra 6 (Mpeg 4 Video), Ultra Slim design, Progressive Scan, Plays CD, MP3, DVD, DVD+/-R/RW, CD-RW, JEPG Pictures,USB Connect to play all your favorite music or digital pictures, Windows Media

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Pioneer DV-220V-K HDMI 1080p Upscaling DVD Player Review

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(More customer reviews)This player is really small, so it might not stack well with your other components.
The converted picture to 1080p is really amazing! (I don't feel like I need to get a Blue-Ray player...)
One small complain: to change mode from 4:3 to 16:9 you need to stop watching, go into the setup menu and do it.
It would be nice to have a button on the remote to do this.
(We just finished watching a DVD that had been recorded in 4:3, so it looked squished on our HD TV until we figured out how to change that aspect ratio...)

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Pioneer DVD player for For the home theater enthusiast that has an extensive library of DVD titles, our Pioneer DVD player encompasses both form and function. Spectacular video and audio playback combined. Ultra-compact Design - 14-3/16” (360mm) Wide -HDMI 1080p Upscaling -USB Input for Compressed Music Playback -CD-to-MP3 ripping to a compatible USB Recording Device -Advanced Graphical User Interface

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Philips DVP5990 HDMI 1080p Upscaling DVD Player Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)This DVD player is a great bargain at $55. It works perfectly fine. Here's what you really want to know:
1) Make this DVD player region-free. Press Setup on the remote and go to Preferences. Press 1, 3, 8, 9, 3, 1 on the remote. Use the up and down buttons to select Region 0 (region-free).
2) Go to the General Setup page. Press 1, 3, 7, 9. This will display the firmware information. If the last two digits of Version aren't "31," then go to the Philips website and update to the most recent firmware (31).
3) For US users, the first two digits of Version will be "37." Go to http://vb6rocod.euracks.com/dvp5990_37.php and download "DVP5990_37_vb6_v32_All_Logo.rar" and follow the upgrading instructions (http://vb6rocod.euracks.com/upgrade.html). It really is as simple as it sounds, and it can be done in less than 60 seconds. I recommend the USB method. Upgrading to this firmware will give the USB capabilities of the DVD player increased functionality and usability (there are a couple dozen changes and fixes; I won't list them here).
Random notes: The DVD player will only recognize jump drives and USB hard drives that are formatted in FAT32, so you will need to do that. Now, the manual says there is a limit of 300 folders and 648 files. This is not exactly true. There IS a limit of 648 files PER folder. So what reads as a limit of 648 files is actually a limit of 648 * 300 = 194,400 files. So this is NOT a limiting factor.
I tested a variety of files and the DVD player can read everything I threw at it, with the exception of Quicktime files and Real files. It is equally as capable in the realm of audio files. It also has a slideshow feature for pictures. In case you are curious, it can't read PDF files.
When one video or audio file finishes, it automatically goes on to the next one. It could be great for background music when hosting a party.
The DVD player can access .srt subtitle files that have multiple tracks and you can flip through them while watching a foreign Divx movie. I was extremely pleased by this. The modified firmware I linked will also allow you to change the color, size, and location of the subtitles while you're watching the movie. Extremely nifty.
Watching Divx movies on my TV looks perfectly sharp, and now I don't have to store or swap discs. This DVD player is a sign of the future. Get out and buy one (and a USB hard drive... if you catch a deal they're as cheap as ten cents/GB). $100 can create a total multimedia collection that changes with you.
Also, the remote does feel a little cheap. But who cares? It is cheap.

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Philips HDMI 1080p DVD player with true high definition video upscaling, D/A converter: 12 bit, 108 MHz progressive Scan, High Def (720p, 1080i, 1080p), Video Upscaling(720p, 1080i/p)192kHz/24 bit audio DAC enhances analogue sound input, High definition JPEG playback for images in true resolution, Brings your PC to your living room with Windows Media Video playback, DivX Ultra for enhanced playback of DivX media files, Plays DivX, MP3, WMA and JPEG digital camera photos, Plays CD, (S)VCD, DVD, DVD+R/RW, DVD-R/RW, Direct conversion from CD to MP3, USB Direct plays DivX movies, photos and music from USB flash drives

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Toshiba XDE600 1080p Upconverted DVD Extended Detail Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I bought this one on a whim just to try out the extended detail enhancement feature. Of the three (Sharp, Color, Contrast) Sharp worked very well. I have a properly calibrated set, so the other two were pretty much of no use. On newer films Sharp added just the right amount of sharpness to scenes without additional halos or other edge enhancement artifacts (the better the film's cinematography the better it works). With older 4:3 aspect films or non-HD TV shows from the 90s the image is stretch and there is nothing I can do to fix it. My Vizio TV can't adjust for it (it just sees a 1080P image coming from the player and keeps it in its "normal" state - stretched in other words) and neither can the player. That's pretty frustrating and I may end up sending this back for that reason. Need to take stock of how many DVDs I rent that are 4:3. The audio is good/average. Nothing to write home about, but perfectly acceptable. The build quality of the unit is very light. The case of the player feels like a tin can and the remote is as tiny and lightweight as a child's toy. The buttons are very small and unintuitive.
Again, for what its basic purpose is (DVD upscaled playback), it does a great job on 16:9 widescreen material, particularly with Sharp enabled. The image quality rivals at times the Oppo DV-980H (no joke) and is slightly better than the Pioneer Elite DV-49AV. I wished Toshiba had chosen to put the XDE feature into a more quality player from a feature and build standpoint. It would have a real winner then - even at another say, $50 for that quality.
Edit: Well, after a week or so of ownership I feel I was a bit too harsh on the XDE-600, so I bumped the rating up to four stars. The image quality is so good for the low price that I can overlook the deficiencies. Plus I found a work-around of sorts for the 4:3 aspect problem. Set the HDMI resolution to 480p in the player and it will display in the proper aspect ratio on the TV. The only snag is that the XDE settings won't work in anything but 1080p, but since they are mostly older movies (that use that format) I can live with it.

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Upconvert 1080P DVD Player

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Philips Blu-ray Disc Player, BDP7200/37 Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Have owned/installed dozens of DVD players.
Comparing this one with Sony 301, BX1, Toshiba A2, E500, Philips 5992 and Oppo 970HD.
Blu-Ray - ok. If you must have a BD player, this may be a nice choice. Especially if you need Divx compatiblity. No Ethernet tho.
SD DVD - Upconversion is typically poor, as is most BD players. Not as good as HD DVD, E500, or Oppo. Even $39 5992 is superior.
Divx - poor resolution, compared to 5992. Subtitles are not well formatted, compared to LG/Zenith Divx compatible players.
Pros:
Cheaper than sony BD players up til now.
Cons:
No ethernet, poor divx quality/compatibility. typical BD sluggish remote command response. Remote is long, heavy, button layout is horrible.
5992 has much better remote.
Summary:
I returned this unit. Too many drawbacks. Especially at this price. Will wait for a player that make me happy in all respects. If I had to buy something now for a HDTV HDMI setup, it would probably be the $39 Philips 5992. Great value and performance.
Reviewed using a 50" PDP 1080i using HDMI connection.

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Play your Blu-Ray discs with high definition picture and superior sound. Enjoy the thrill of full high definition pictures delivered by the BDP7200. Indulge in every detail, silky smooth action and vivid colors with Deep Colour. Current DVD favorites can also be enjoyed, with upconversion to 1080P via HDMI. See more. Blue-ray Disc playback for sharp images in full HD 1080P. 1080P at 24fps for cinema-like images. Full HD 1080p for razor sharp images. Deep color for vivid images in over a billion colors. DVD video upconversion to 1080P via HDMI. Engage more. CD& DVD for enjoyment fo familiar favorites. Bonus view for Picture-In-Picture video and audio mixing. EasyLink for easy control of connected devices via HDMI CEC.

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