An excellent DVD/DVD-Audio Player (Panasonic DVD RA71)

Member Name: Chewystu

Product:	Panasonic DVD RA71
Date:	14/10/03 (282 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Excellent picture quality, Excellent Audio, Good value for money

Disadvantages: Does not play all DVD-R discs, Does not show time remaining on the disc, An older model now.

I purchased this DVD player from www.techtronics.com for a bargain price of (if I can remember correctly) £300.00, chipped to be multi-region and to play MP3 discs.

At the time, it was the first of the 2nd generation DVD-Audio players. I had previously has a Panasonic A360 but was looking to upgrade to a DVD-Audio player. For those of you who have not experienced DVD-Audio I would recommend it highly!

The player has loads of functions, is good looking, and represents good value for money.

It is very easy to set up, and has an on-board Dolby Digital/DTS decoder so if you have an oldish surround amp, or just an amp without any on-board decoders, just plug the player into the six discrete surround RCA inputs.

The player supports DTS, Dolby Digital and MPEG (although I think there were only ever a couple of DVD discs recorded in MPEG). It also plays most DVD-R discs, although some experimentation is required to nail down exactly which make of DVD-R's will play in it.

The picture quality and sound are excellent. RGB is the preferred video output via a suitabley good scart lead into an RGB enabled TV. The player outputs in PAL, PAL60 and NTSC, so will cater for most types of TV.

The menus are easy to use and offer a wealth of different options. There is a digital picture enhancer for older films and audio enhancement options. You can adjust the look of the picture and make it softer, harder, etc, etc.

Moving on to the DVD-Audio side - this is excellent. You will require an amp that will take an analogue six channel input, otherwise you will not get the full DVD-Audio experience from a digital connection. The sound quality is awesome and channel separation is clear.

The player has an 'audio only' button which turns of the video circuits supposedly increasing the quality of the audio tracks by reducing interference, although I cannot tell any difference.

I would highly re
commend this player, especially as it is probably now available for a lot less than I paid for it and therefore it would be a complete bargain.

My only real gripe is the fact it doesn't display the time remaining on the disc, but this is the only negative comment I can make.

Go out and buy one - NOW!

Summary: