Oh to get an OSE (Marantz DV 4100)

Member Name: EazyDude

Product:	Marantz DV 4100
Date:	19/02/02 (1233 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Award winner, 2 SCARTs, 1 RGB

Disadvantages: Outdated model, Expensive

And what a DVD player this special edition is. Impressive since the day I got it! I'd suggest another category for the Marantz 4100 OSE edition, but you'll see by the end, it's not worth it.

Why did I get this DVD Player?
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1) DVD player please

OK, so it would have been much cheaper to have got a DVD drive and plugged it into my PC, like a lot of people do. What I wanted was a little bit more though. I didn't want people to come around and huddle next to my PC in my room. I wanted people to be able to watch with a bigger TV and a nicer stereo, which I already have in the front room.

2) It's a Marantz!

I know this is going to sound really stupid, but I've got two other Marantz separates that I bought a long while ago with a view to keeping them for next to forever. I did blow a hole in my pocket for them, so I decided to do the same with my DVD player. I like the black and gold finish on their units as well as their simple fascias. What's slightly upsetting is that they've changed their style of buttons, so it didn't QUITE match my other two units. Marantz don't actually choose to make their own DVD drive mechanisms, and so this unit actually has a Philips one built into it. The give away is the display and the remote, which are identical to the Philips DVD players.

3) Multiregionality

I also wanted to be able to play DVDs from around the world, as sometimes they can be better versions than that available to the UK, but also it's because they can be cheaper too! Watch out for DVDs from the US or Australia, they can be cheaper than buying them in your local store! If you do do this, you do need to be careful.

US DVDs are encoded in a different TV format called NTSC (Never The Same Colour), whilst older UK TVs only support PAL (the UK format). This DVD player does not convert the signal from US DVDS into PAL, hence they wi
ll come out in black and white. To get around this problem you could buy a converter of some description, but they are expensive. The second alternative is to upgrade your TV, which you may well want to do, but buy one that supports NTSC inputs. If you don't want to do this, the third option is to get a DVD player that does convert the signal, which some do.

4) RGB output

I'd been reliably told that keeping your eyes peeled for a SCART socket that has RGB out gives you a better picture. I could have told you this was the case, but unfortunately I can't reliably tell you this. My old TV does not support RGB input, but still gives me a clear picture.

What I can say is that I have a little monitor (from the BBC days - remember them?) that does accept RGB inputs. If I play my US DVDs on this (it's the only way to watch my US DVDs at the moment in colour), the pictures are a lot clearer than on my TV. I can't honestly say if this is due to how naff my TV is, but do bear in mind how old the BBC computer is!

5) Award Winner

This player won an award from What HiFi in 2001 for being a "Hifi and Home Cinema Award". There are some good players with prices well below this player, but I wanted something that looked and performed good, and wanted it to still be in my house doing the same time in 10 years time.



5 Other Comments (couldn't think of another title here)
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1) Outputs

There are players with umpteen outputs, but I didn't need all of those. For example, my brother's LG DVD player came with 5.1 output for sound (connections for 6 speakers for the uninitiated), but I didn't need that. I've already mentioned the SCART output in RGB on mine, but what else does is have that I wanted?

- Stereo connections (to connect to my stereo, duh!)
- DTS Digital output (for the future, when
ever I get a decoder of some sort)

It also has

- A composite video output (phono socket)
- Optical digital output
- A second SCART socket
- A S-Video connection

2) Menu options/Display

Again, I wasn't looking for a lot as I'm a simple man. In fact, I wasn't looking for anything at all. What I didn get through the door was a pleasant surprise

- Zoom - operates to 4x, which is enough, but play is frozen during play

- Time search

- Track and Chapter Search

- Subtitle enabling

- Frame by frame advance

- Fast forward and Rewind upto 32x

These are all accessible through the remote or the menu system, which is quite nice to operate. It's a transparent overlay onto your film, that you can access anytime. Some options that drop down and obscure the film a bit do trigger a pause in the film, which then resumes when you come out of the menu option.

When there's nothing in the player you do have a nice gold-finished Marantz screen to display on your TV.

3) The remote

Initially I did think it was a bit tacky, but it grew on me. The options aren't always that easy to reach, but you do get used to it. It's an oddly concave shaped remote that fits nicely in the palm of the hand. The navigation keys (left, right) double up as the fast forward and rewind buttons during film play. The stupidist thing though, is to resume the film I've not found another way but to hit the PLAY button, which isn't near these buttons or large.

4) The drive

The only time I've actually noticed a significant drive noise has been when I first got the machine. It did seem a bit noisy, but now I don't notice it. It does seem a bit noisy during CD playback when I first tried it too but I was only testing it out, and haven't used it since. I already have a good CD player.

Formats that this player plays
are:

- DVD
- VCD
- S-VCD
- CD

The DVD playback is quite nippy but I think it could be a touch more so.

What I do like is the display on this machine too. Although a Philips one, it's got a little round circular thing that completes one revolution by the time it's picked up what sort of disc is in the machine and starts playing it. Nice touch Marantz.

5) Memory

I think it's 4 DVDs worth that it stores the last played position. Very useful if you've watched a film halfway one day, and want to continue the next day. It's tricky to enable it though, as you have to hit play twice (a must remember thing, otherwise you've missed your chance!). You also do have to play back through all the intro jargon/FBI warning as well. Y A W N !




Hope I've been of some help here, but this player is now discontinued. There's now a Marantz 4200 to replace the Marantz 4100 series. The price of this unit is less as well, so maybe I should have waited. But isn't the best time to buy always yesterday or tomorrow?

Thanks for reading.

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