I was able to get the Sony DVP-NS77H for $42 as a product substitution at Frys. But I am selling it now and here is why.
I have a 50-inch 1080p-compatible plasma TV and already have a very good DVD player with 1080p output over HDMI and all the bells and whistles I need. The player is
Pioneer DV-400V. Not only does it play all kinds of formats, including DivX, has a USB port and PAL playback on an NTSC TV, it is a pleasure to use.
But the upconversion from standard-def DVDs to 1080p is not perfect due to stairstep artifacts. So I wanted to see if I can get better upconversion from the Sony NS77.
Features
The NS77 is a DVD player with HDMI interface and upconversion up to 1080p. It features optical and coaxial digital audio outs, composite video, component (480i/480p) video and S-Video outs, plays all recordable formats, including CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, MP3 and JPEG.
The player comes with a multibrand remote control and includes 1-year warrant for parts and 90 days for labor.
Performance
I have never been a big fan of Sony DVD players but this DVD player is an exception. Despite all the fancy names Sony marketing personnel uses to describe the features of their many products, it is the performance that matters. And, although in the past, the good performance was not something Sony DVD players always delivered, this model is actually not too bad.
Sony advertises such items as
Precision Drive 3 error correction circuitry and
Precision Cinema Progressive Technology-2. It all works not much better than most other decent DVD players. But works rather well nonetheless.
The player itself looks nice and has well-marked inputs. Once I connected it with an HDMI cable to my
50-inch Hitachi P50H401 plasma TV and to my receiver using the player’s digital out, I discovered that, despite all the marketing noise, the upconversion to 1080p works well, but does not work appreciably better than in my Pioneer DV-400V.
The upconverted standard-definition DVDs still display stairstep artifacts, especially apparent in
South Park. When the characters talk or move their heads up or down, I can see the blocks/stairstep artifacts without getting up from the couch.
Obviously, it is difficult to expect miracles (and especially so at such a price point), but it appears that the whole 1080p (or otherwise) upconversion over HDMI turned into some kind of marketing trick to get people to buy new DVD players.
In other words, as long as your player has an HDMI out, it is not necessarily better to have the player do the upconversion. The TV can do it as well.
Still, the deinterlacing performance of this player is very good. The advertised error-correction circuitry does not seem to be able to handle scratches any better than other recent players I had. But the player’s menus look very nice and are responsive.
This Sony player produces pleasing colors and sharp video overall, perhaps even too sharp. I prefer more true-to-life reproduction and I am glad I bought this player for so little money, because my Pioneer DV-400V is much better in terms of features and ease of use and is a match in terms of video performance. This Sony is going to eBay.
Remote Control
The remote control of this player can control some functions on TVs of different manufacturers. The problem is, I do not feel like using this remote because it has similarly-shaped and sized buttons with very little thought placed into arranging them in any sort of logical fashion. The remote control of the Pioneer DV-400V is much better.
What I Like
The player looks very nice, plays a lot of formats, has both optical and coaxial digital outs (most others have only one), upconverts up to 1080p over HDMI, has good deinterlacing and colors and features lip-sync correction and control of BRAVIA equipment over HDMI (which I could not test since my TV is Hitachi). The remote can control some TVs. The upconversion does work OK. The MP3 and JPEG playback are nice features.
What I Dislike
I dislike the remote control, and the high price.
Bottom Line
The Sony HS77 is a nice-looking upconverting DVD player with HDMI. Aside from its remote control, which has a poor button layout, the player is a solid performer and has a good feature set and all the inputs you will need.
