Hardware Specs
- Description:
DVD Video/Audio player - Supplier:
Upgrade Heaven - Price:
£449 (Multi-Region) - Technical Details:
Video
10-bit 54mHz video D/A converter
Auto switching field frame still
NTSC output selectable
Cinema Mode
Picture Control
RGB output via SCART terminal
MPEG Digital Noise Reduction
Audio
CD-R/RW Playback
Digital Re-Master Process maximises CD playback
dts / Dolby Digital Decoder Built-In
High Quality Aluminium Front Panel Design
Advanced Virtual Surround Sound
Dialogue enhancer
DVD Audio
- 192kHz/24-bit audio D/A converter (2Ch Linear PCM)
- 96kHz/24-bit audio D/A converter (6Ch Output)
Audio Only Playback
- Power Consumption:
- Pros:
Price
DVD Video and Audio playback
Stunning picture quality
Looks Good
- Cons:
Slow at reading discs
No remaining time for DVD Video discs
Panasonic DVD-RA71
07-09-2003 11:36 | 16103 views | Colin Polonowski | Show Backlinks
I've never really been a fan of Panasonic equipment - previous experiences with a couple of Panasonic televisions that had a pretty poor picture soured my opinion on their products. It was therefore with great trepidation that I decided that my next new DVD player would be a Panasonic machine. Originally it was my intention to go for a Pioneer 737 as a step up from my ageing Sony DVP-S715, however after much deliberation and a few e-mails I decided to settle on the Panasonic for three reasons - it was on par with the 737 in terms of picture and sound, it was a little cheaper and finally it supported the new DVD-Audio format...
First Impressions
The Panasonic DVD-RA71 is a very nice looking player. Gold in colour with a brushed metal facia it exudes the same sort of class as the old Sony DVP-S7700. The controls on the front panel are kept to a minimum - of course, we have the usual Stop, Play and Pause buttons, next and previous and a few player-specific functions that I'll get on to in due course. The LED display is nice and clear and easily read from a distance.
The back panel of the machine features all of the usual interconnects - we have two RGB SCART sockets, S-Video, two composite video outputs, one set of stereo phono connectors, the six outputs from the on-board Dolby Digital/DTS decoder and of course one optical and one coaxial digital output to pass your Dolby Digital/DTS signal to an external decoder or amplifier. Everything is nicely laid out with easy access to all of the appropriate connectors. Finally we also have a headphone socket on the front with an associated volume control.
The remote control is feature packed, and while it doesn't have the same level of presence as my old Sony remote it's still more than up to the task. It's fairly slim and comfortable to hold although it seems a little light and therefore doesn't really look the part as much as the player itself does. The buttons are all reasonably positioned - the joystick control at the top of the control does take a little getting used to, but it makes sense for it to be there rather than at the bottom as with most other remotes. The main control buttons are actually luminescent so they're easy to locate even in the dark and they're also of a reasonable size. In all, it is a very well designed and laid out piece of equipment.
Setting Up
Setting up DVD players is a fairly straightforward task. There aren't too many complicated things to worry about unlike say, an amplifier. Of course, with equipment of this calibre it is important to ensure that the interconnects you use are of a reasonably high quality - there's little point in spending £500 on a DVD player only to stick in a cheap £2.99 SCART cable. It's always a good idea to get hold of a good quality gold-plated oxygen free SCART cable at the very least.
At the very least, all you need to do to get on the road is plug in the SCART lead. Things do of course get more complicated if you add further components - but in my case all I have is my Dreamcast daisy-chained through the second SCART socket and a length of digital co-ax to connect the player to my amp. If you want to make use of the on-board sound decoders you'll need to invest in the appropriate phono connectors.
Once everything was connected setting up the player itself was easy. The menu system is fairly straightforward - it's just a case of telling the machine what sort of TV you have connected and the appropriate picture format to use (in my case it's a Widescreen telly and an RGB signal). You can also choose whether to output NTSC discs in either PAL60 or NTSC.
Sound-wise you need to specify how you're going to output your Dolby Digital and DTS soundtracks - either PCM or Bitstream. For a set up using an external amplifier Bitstream is the one you want to choose. The rest of the set up involves telling the player which language to use for menus and the like. Not really much to it is there?!
Performance - DVD Video
Using my old Sony player as a benchmark, the Panasonic performs easily as well - and in the majority of cases better. I tested the player with a selection of discs to see just how well it handled discs of varying qualities. First in was Toy Story 2 (Region 1) - the prime example of a perfect transfer. There was literally not one issue with the way the player handled this disc - the picture nothing short of perfect throughout with stunning colour definition and sharpness. There was absolutely no banding anywhere to be seen - some cheaper players make colour gradations really stand out, but the Panasonic RA71 was as close to perfect as it was possible to get. So far, so good.
Next up was something a little more challenging - U2: Rattle and Hum (Region 2). The variety of film stocks used in the filming of this rockumentary offer the perfect test of the players ability to handle a wide range of different picture issues - the one I was most interested in was grain which is present in almost all of the concert footage on the disc. Once again, the player handled this with style and the picture was an accurate reproduction of what was supplied. Full marks yet again.
Finally I thought it would be worth giving the player with known picture issues to deal with - one of the Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season Two discs (Region 2). These all suffer from some quite dramatic smearing so it would be interesting to see if the Panny made this any more watchable. Unfortunately not - but you can't expect miracles! As far as the picture quality for this disc was concerned it was neither better nor worse than I had seen elsewhere.
The audio output for all of the above films was nigh on perfect. I also tried a number of other discs to see if any of them would cause trouble on the audio front, and with one exception everything went perfectly. The exception was Star Trek: First Contact (Region 1) which had quite a high level of hiss coming from all five speakers - however thankfully this wasn't the fault of the player as I have no reproduced this on three other set-ups. I just can't have listened to that disc at such a high volume before!
My final test was to see how well the player handled down conversion of an anamorphic source for display on a non-anamorphic supporting television. In order to achieve this down conversion, different players use different methods - the most common is to just strip out every fourth line to ensure that the correct aspect ratio is preserved. The old Sony player did some nifty jiggery-pokery that meant that the loss of resolution was minimised. I'm pleased to say that the Panasonic RA71 performed just as well with no noticeable artefacts introduced by the down conversion process.
In all everything in terms of playback was a complete success! However, there were a couple of issues - nothing too major, and certainly nothing that would convince me to part with the player. The first was that it's impossible to find out how much time is left in a chapter or title - I'm not sure why this limitation has been imposed on the DVD Video playback side of things as you can still do it for DVD Audio and CD playback. This was a bit irritating, but after extended use I'm beginning to miss this feature a little less. The other problem - and this one isn't limited to DVD Video playback, is the length of time it from inserting the disc until the format was determined and the contents first displayed - there's quite an extended period where the player decides if it's a video or audio disc, or whether it's a VCD or CD. It's not too bad, but I was used to far quicker performance on the Sony.
On the plus side, layer changes are nice and fast - and unlike the Sony, there was no break in the digital output during the layer change. This could confuse my old DigiTheatre DTS and you could lose a couple of seconds' worth of dialogue. It's not a problem here though. Also, menus respond much more quickly so another thumbs up.
Performance - DVD Audio
It was my plan to compare a few DVD Audio discs to their CD equivalents and thereby kill two birds with one stone in this review. Unfortunately, various things have conspired against me meaning I only have one disc to test the DVD-Audio playback with and it's not really one that pushes the system to any extent - it's The Corrs: In Blue. I would have liked to get hold of a couple of other discs - especially classical music, but that would have meant me waiting a lot longer before writing this review.
First up there's a problem with this particular disc - I'm not sure if anyone else has mentioned it or whether it's just my disc that's the problem, but the first couple of seconds of the first track appear to be missing so it all starts off very abruptly. This isn't a problem with the player though as I've seen this with the same disc on another DVD Audio player.
So how does it sound? To be honest in the case of this disc there isn't that much of a jump in terms of quality over the CD. Very little use has been made of the multi-channel capabilities, although this was to be expected considering the nature of the music.
Of course, it's difficult to give an objective opinion on the player's DVD Audio performance with this limited experience but it's safe to say that technically it handled the disc perfectly. There wasn't anything that gave any cause for concern and while the difference in quality for this particular disc wasn't that great it still did offer some improvement. I intend to update this review once I have managed to make more use of the Audio capabilities.
Technically, the player offers multi-channel DVD Audio playback at 96kHz and 2-channel playback at 192kHz.
Other Stuff
Well, there's not really much more I can say in terms of the quality of the player. In addition to the basics (which really are all you should actually need), the player does offer some interesting little bits and pieces of functionality.
First up is the 'Re-Master' function that tries to improve sound quality - as with most of these sorts of things, it tends to do more harm than good in most cases. I suppose with a really bad source disc it may be worth seeing if any improvement is offered, but with most discs you just end up adding an additional layer of processing to the which can have a negative effect. Thankfully in most cases this wasn't really that noticeable, but it's worth bearing in mind. There's also an MPEG digital noise reduction option but I couldn't detect any difference in anything when it was switched on! It did add a nice little light to the front of the player though so maybe that's what it's there for!
The player can handle pretty much any media you throw at it - I've tested as many as I can including a number of brands of CDR and CDRW disc. Nothing managed to trip the player up. The VCD playback is as good as any other player I've seen - both with original discs and home-burned MPEG clips.
All in all, the Panasonic DVD-RA71 is an outstanding piece of kit. DVD Video playback is flawless - it even handled problem discs without even so much as a whimper. DVD Audio playback appears to be spot on as well, and as soon as I get a chance to give it more of a work out in this area I'll update this review with my findings. Even so, if you're in the market for a new player and can afford the asking price the DVD-RA71 is well worth the investment. Considering the player offers both DVD Video and Audio playback and yet is priced at around the same level as most other DVD Video-only players of the same quality, this is really a bit of a bargain.
First Impressions
The Panasonic DVD-RA71 is a very nice looking player. Gold in colour with a brushed metal facia it exudes the same sort of class as the old Sony DVP-S7700. The controls on the front panel are kept to a minimum - of course, we have the usual Stop, Play and Pause buttons, next and previous and a few player-specific functions that I'll get on to in due course. The LED display is nice and clear and easily read from a distance.
The back panel of the machine features all of the usual interconnects - we have two RGB SCART sockets, S-Video, two composite video outputs, one set of stereo phono connectors, the six outputs from the on-board Dolby Digital/DTS decoder and of course one optical and one coaxial digital output to pass your Dolby Digital/DTS signal to an external decoder or amplifier. Everything is nicely laid out with easy access to all of the appropriate connectors. Finally we also have a headphone socket on the front with an associated volume control.
The remote control is feature packed, and while it doesn't have the same level of presence as my old Sony remote it's still more than up to the task. It's fairly slim and comfortable to hold although it seems a little light and therefore doesn't really look the part as much as the player itself does. The buttons are all reasonably positioned - the joystick control at the top of the control does take a little getting used to, but it makes sense for it to be there rather than at the bottom as with most other remotes. The main control buttons are actually luminescent so they're easy to locate even in the dark and they're also of a reasonable size. In all, it is a very well designed and laid out piece of equipment.
Setting Up
Setting up DVD players is a fairly straightforward task. There aren't too many complicated things to worry about unlike say, an amplifier. Of course, with equipment of this calibre it is important to ensure that the interconnects you use are of a reasonably high quality - there's little point in spending £500 on a DVD player only to stick in a cheap £2.99 SCART cable. It's always a good idea to get hold of a good quality gold-plated oxygen free SCART cable at the very least.
At the very least, all you need to do to get on the road is plug in the SCART lead. Things do of course get more complicated if you add further components - but in my case all I have is my Dreamcast daisy-chained through the second SCART socket and a length of digital co-ax to connect the player to my amp. If you want to make use of the on-board sound decoders you'll need to invest in the appropriate phono connectors.
Once everything was connected setting up the player itself was easy. The menu system is fairly straightforward - it's just a case of telling the machine what sort of TV you have connected and the appropriate picture format to use (in my case it's a Widescreen telly and an RGB signal). You can also choose whether to output NTSC discs in either PAL60 or NTSC.
Sound-wise you need to specify how you're going to output your Dolby Digital and DTS soundtracks - either PCM or Bitstream. For a set up using an external amplifier Bitstream is the one you want to choose. The rest of the set up involves telling the player which language to use for menus and the like. Not really much to it is there?!
Performance - DVD Video
Using my old Sony player as a benchmark, the Panasonic performs easily as well - and in the majority of cases better. I tested the player with a selection of discs to see just how well it handled discs of varying qualities. First in was Toy Story 2 (Region 1) - the prime example of a perfect transfer. There was literally not one issue with the way the player handled this disc - the picture nothing short of perfect throughout with stunning colour definition and sharpness. There was absolutely no banding anywhere to be seen - some cheaper players make colour gradations really stand out, but the Panasonic RA71 was as close to perfect as it was possible to get. So far, so good.
Next up was something a little more challenging - U2: Rattle and Hum (Region 2). The variety of film stocks used in the filming of this rockumentary offer the perfect test of the players ability to handle a wide range of different picture issues - the one I was most interested in was grain which is present in almost all of the concert footage on the disc. Once again, the player handled this with style and the picture was an accurate reproduction of what was supplied. Full marks yet again.
Finally I thought it would be worth giving the player with known picture issues to deal with - one of the Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season Two discs (Region 2). These all suffer from some quite dramatic smearing so it would be interesting to see if the Panny made this any more watchable. Unfortunately not - but you can't expect miracles! As far as the picture quality for this disc was concerned it was neither better nor worse than I had seen elsewhere.
The audio output for all of the above films was nigh on perfect. I also tried a number of other discs to see if any of them would cause trouble on the audio front, and with one exception everything went perfectly. The exception was Star Trek: First Contact (Region 1) which had quite a high level of hiss coming from all five speakers - however thankfully this wasn't the fault of the player as I have no reproduced this on three other set-ups. I just can't have listened to that disc at such a high volume before!
My final test was to see how well the player handled down conversion of an anamorphic source for display on a non-anamorphic supporting television. In order to achieve this down conversion, different players use different methods - the most common is to just strip out every fourth line to ensure that the correct aspect ratio is preserved. The old Sony player did some nifty jiggery-pokery that meant that the loss of resolution was minimised. I'm pleased to say that the Panasonic RA71 performed just as well with no noticeable artefacts introduced by the down conversion process.
In all everything in terms of playback was a complete success! However, there were a couple of issues - nothing too major, and certainly nothing that would convince me to part with the player. The first was that it's impossible to find out how much time is left in a chapter or title - I'm not sure why this limitation has been imposed on the DVD Video playback side of things as you can still do it for DVD Audio and CD playback. This was a bit irritating, but after extended use I'm beginning to miss this feature a little less. The other problem - and this one isn't limited to DVD Video playback, is the length of time it from inserting the disc until the format was determined and the contents first displayed - there's quite an extended period where the player decides if it's a video or audio disc, or whether it's a VCD or CD. It's not too bad, but I was used to far quicker performance on the Sony.
On the plus side, layer changes are nice and fast - and unlike the Sony, there was no break in the digital output during the layer change. This could confuse my old DigiTheatre DTS and you could lose a couple of seconds' worth of dialogue. It's not a problem here though. Also, menus respond much more quickly so another thumbs up.
Performance - DVD Audio
It was my plan to compare a few DVD Audio discs to their CD equivalents and thereby kill two birds with one stone in this review. Unfortunately, various things have conspired against me meaning I only have one disc to test the DVD-Audio playback with and it's not really one that pushes the system to any extent - it's The Corrs: In Blue. I would have liked to get hold of a couple of other discs - especially classical music, but that would have meant me waiting a lot longer before writing this review.
First up there's a problem with this particular disc - I'm not sure if anyone else has mentioned it or whether it's just my disc that's the problem, but the first couple of seconds of the first track appear to be missing so it all starts off very abruptly. This isn't a problem with the player though as I've seen this with the same disc on another DVD Audio player.
So how does it sound? To be honest in the case of this disc there isn't that much of a jump in terms of quality over the CD. Very little use has been made of the multi-channel capabilities, although this was to be expected considering the nature of the music.
Of course, it's difficult to give an objective opinion on the player's DVD Audio performance with this limited experience but it's safe to say that technically it handled the disc perfectly. There wasn't anything that gave any cause for concern and while the difference in quality for this particular disc wasn't that great it still did offer some improvement. I intend to update this review once I have managed to make more use of the Audio capabilities.
Technically, the player offers multi-channel DVD Audio playback at 96kHz and 2-channel playback at 192kHz.
Other Stuff
Well, there's not really much more I can say in terms of the quality of the player. In addition to the basics (which really are all you should actually need), the player does offer some interesting little bits and pieces of functionality.
First up is the 'Re-Master' function that tries to improve sound quality - as with most of these sorts of things, it tends to do more harm than good in most cases. I suppose with a really bad source disc it may be worth seeing if any improvement is offered, but with most discs you just end up adding an additional layer of processing to the which can have a negative effect. Thankfully in most cases this wasn't really that noticeable, but it's worth bearing in mind. There's also an MPEG digital noise reduction option but I couldn't detect any difference in anything when it was switched on! It did add a nice little light to the front of the player though so maybe that's what it's there for!
The player can handle pretty much any media you throw at it - I've tested as many as I can including a number of brands of CDR and CDRW disc. Nothing managed to trip the player up. The VCD playback is as good as any other player I've seen - both with original discs and home-burned MPEG clips.
All in all, the Panasonic DVD-RA71 is an outstanding piece of kit. DVD Video playback is flawless - it even handled problem discs without even so much as a whimper. DVD Audio playback appears to be spot on as well, and as soon as I get a chance to give it more of a work out in this area I'll update this review with my findings. Even so, if you're in the market for a new player and can afford the asking price the DVD-RA71 is well worth the investment. Considering the player offers both DVD Video and Audio playback and yet is priced at around the same level as most other DVD Video-only players of the same quality, this is really a bit of a bargain.