Great picture and sound

BACKGROUND
Well just to give you some background of where I started from. I have a Toshiba 42H82 42” HDTV rear projection with component inputs only, no digital connections like DVI or HDMI. For audio I have the ONKYO HTR520 6.1 receiver. Then, I paired it with an LG DVB418 with upconversion because the LG had gotten great reviews and had lots of features, including DVD-Audio capability, HDMI, and a memory card reader. Reviewers raved that the component video quality was just as good as the HDMI quality. Things were great, and then it started with the video/audio sync problem. I flashed the firmware but the problem continued. I took it back to Best Buy, where I had purchased a 4 year service plan, and they said that it could not be repaired so I got to replace it with another one. (Hurry up and take it back!) I was happy since that had been my second LG DVB418 in under a year. (Just a heads up: the LG LDA-511 is the exact same model but without the drawer.) I always connected the LG to my TV via the component video ports, as my TV doesn’t have DVI or HDMI. And recently I read somewhere that the digital connection really does NOT provide a better picture than analog. HDMI and DVI are there simply for copy protection because analog is capable of resolutions higher than 1080P without a problem… psst! Just look at the analog cable going to your PC monitor. 720P is equal to 1024x768 resolution.

VIDEO
Honestly, at $50 cheaper than my previous player, I wasn’t sure what to expect from this unit. I had high hopes based on the Yamaha name, and figured that since this model didn’t feature all of the doodads promised by the LG it should be better. Luckily, I was right. This Yamaha only puts out a 480P picture via component video, but it is better than the 480P on the supposedly superior LG that has a Faroudja chip in it to assist with an upconversion! Note that because I could not use the HDMI connection some movies had to be watched at 480P, but others I could actually get 720P or 1080i. I found that 720P is the max resolution that you want to squeeze out of a DVD. At 1080i you start to go backwards. I like the solidity that progressive scan provides. I found the images of the Yamaha to be more vibrant, more 3D, and just had more depth and detail to them, and better than movies I had unconverted to 720P. BTW, my TV already upconverts everything to 720P anyway, and unless you are going to buy a DVD player that has a better upconverter than the one in your TV take my advice and just get a really good 480P progressive scan player. I see the folly of my ways now, so now you can avoid that mistake.

For perspective: I recently assisted my brother with installing his own 34” CRT HDTV, and after playing some movies I thought that the CRT technology had my rear projection TV beat. I had brought over some of my reference movies to check out his new set and I saw colors in these movies on my brothers TV that I hadn’t seen on my own! (Like in the beginning of LOTHR1 the Elvaan’s armor is actually a combination of bronze and steel.) I attributed this to the fact that CRT’s are a perfected technology and that of course it would do a few things better. BUT, after seeing the SAME movies played by the Yamaha S5750 I am happy to say that rear projection tech rocks. I use movies like Nemo, and The Incredibles, along with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and T2 Extreme DVD to test out the picture quality whenever I change anything. Heck, even my kids made me finish watching Nemo, and I can’t blame them. It was almost a different movie!

And then, after looking at the menu of the Yamaha I see that it actually provides you with the ability to adjust the picture via color saturation, tint, contrast, and brightness. After running my AVIA video tuning disk by it, I only had to bump up the black level a few notches, and fine tune the tint. That way I can keep my TV in Movie mode and get a great picture. These adjustments make sure that this DVD player will adjust to any type of display, which is invaluable to people serious about Home Theater.

Also, I want to point out that the hard-core test of a DVD digital to analog conversion is its capacity to render the moon WITHOUT having nasty blocky, disfigured artifacts in the night sky all around it. This Yamaha bested the LG with the Faroudja! The last time I saw Nemo look this “real” was in Best Buy and it was playing on a Plasma. All the color blending was flawless! When the whale comes from behind the Dad and Cory, the background is superb and you can see the outline of the whale precisely. And the fish tank never looked so transparent! The colors in this movie POPPED off the screen, and while I strained to detect any color biases or red push there just wasn’t. I did the Avia test again to be certain tint and saturation were correct and they were. I just had never seen Nemo look this good on my TV. In LOTHR, all the skin tones were correct, but because of the added color saturation I could now see the age spots on Gandalf’s hands! At first I felt that the picture was too bright, as some faces and skin looked rather pale, but then someone with a darker complexion entered the scene and it all fit in perfectly. Correct skin tone color is another excellent test that the Yamaha passes easily. Heck, in LOTHR I was surprised to actually see distinct colors in the characters outfits that I had previously missed, but were now eye-poppingly obvious. The texture detail of cloth, leather, skin, trees, fish, sand, coral, grass, and dirt etc… ALL showed up very well and better than the Faroudja powered LG.

AUDIO
Ok, I really should have expected this, but this Yamaha really kicks butt in this area. I found myself pulling out all my above mentioned reference materials to not only see what wonders the S5750 could do to the video, but also to hear what I had been missing. After hearing some “lost” details from Nemo I wondered what else had been lost in the others. Lots of little detail sound had gone missing, despite my 1000watt Onkyo stereo when paired with the LG. There are lots of little sounds that just got washed out with the LG and now they were there. Also, the sound just seems fuller, and richer. It must be due to the 24bit sound processor and Yamaha’s history in the music business. When I upgraded my PC from 16bit sound to 24 bit sound I had the same type of experience. I found myself popping in some U2, and a male vocalist named Josh Groban to test it out on the S5750. The results were amazing. But yet this player can do even more with CD’s. It actually has the ability to upconvert CD’s from 44khz to 88khz or 176khz! So, of course I tried them all out and I detected more texture to the voice and more depth of the music field. The change from 44khz to 176khz was like going from store-brand vanilla to Haagen-Dazs. Both experiences are pleasant, but one is definitely better. So, I have my DVD player connected via optical cable AND stereo outputs. That way I get the best of both worlds. Note that if you use the upconversion feature on the CD’s you will only be able to use the stereo outputs on the player. I think this is a small price to pay, since audiophile purists still use the stereo setup for vocalists. Besides, with the DSP’s on the Onkyo receiver I was able to expand that out to DTS: NEO 6.1 even though, it sounded great in stereo too. I don’t think I will miss the DVD-Audio output on the LG since I don’t listen to CD’s on my receiver much and I only own one DVD-AUDIO compatible DVD anyway. Luckily, that DVD plays in Dolby Digital 5.1 so all is not lost. Another thing I noticed was that movies are just louder in general. I used to set my receiver volume to 42, but now I set it at 30 for the same sound level.