Sony DVP-NS50P/S Single DVD Player, Silver

• Precision Cinema Progressive Technology
• 12 Bit Video DAC with 108Mhz processing
• Precision Drive 3 System compensates for flaws in DVD Discs
• 192 kHz 24 Bit DAC
• DVD-RW (Video Mode/VR Mode w/CPRM)/DVD-R/DVD+RW/DVD+R/ + R Dual Layer Playback1

I recently purchased this DVD since mine broke, and this thing is nothing short of amazing. I had an older Sony dvd player I got in 2000 and it finally went, and after having so many years out of my first Sony dvd player I thought I should stick with them, and I am glad they did. First off when it says it plays all those formats it really does. I have burnt DVDs along with some VCD and SVCD and it never flinched at any of them. Also the startup time and the disc recognition time is very quick. Plus on top of everything else for all this the item costs roughly $75, and to think my first Sony was $299.99 and it wouldn't play anything but store bought CDs or DVDs. If you are looking into DVD players in this price range I highly reccomend anyone purchasing this, you will not regret it.

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I'd read reviews here & elsewhere for various brands of players and decided I'd get a Sony.

I was surprised at how small this thing is, I've got books bigger than it is!

My brother & I set it up, not too difficult altough the manual could be a little clearer on some aspects (to me anyway), leaving the settings on factory default (except for setting the screen for my standard 4:3 TV and turning off the progressive scanwhich the manual tells you how to do)and have found the picture to be fine just as it is.

The sound, I think the manual says something about this, does seem to need to be turned up but is good. The picture has been good on everything I've looked at with the occaisional exception of the movie "Purple Butterfly", dark scenes needed some adjustment on itnot worth trying to reset things for.

The remote isn't bad to use either, you likely won't use half of the functions even after you understand them so don't be bothered by the sight of all of those buttons. You get a zoom function, kind of a joke as it is 2X and 4X, but you can get a little closer look at parts of a scene, the quality depends on the original of course. There are a couple of buttons marked stepreplay or advance, replay means what it says, advance speeds you through a short bit of the scenenot worht much to me. You also have the usual next and previous buttons. A couple of odd features are the slow play & fast play buttons, you use them to go slowly or quickly through a scene with (appropriately affected)audio, not worth much to me.

Every CD or DVD I've tried so far has been flawless on the part of the player. I do wish that there was a means of having my TV go blackscreen as if you run a CD more than 15 minutes it goes to screensaver function which is a blue bar reading Sony DVD Player moving around a black screen.

Most places don't mention that when you buy this player you will get an audio/video cable as part of the kit. Depending on your own placement of the TV/player you might want to go ahead and get something longer. That little cable seems to produce a good picture but it's only about 3 feet long, if I get tired of that I may go ahead and use the 6 foot S-video cable I already had. You should be sure of what your own TV can use before you buy anything.

Other than the almost too short cable I don't really have any complaints and I'm glad I made this purchase.

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Our first ever DVD player was the Sony DVP-S717D, bought almost 5 years ago for about $1,000. It was just under their flagship model at the time and it was one heck of a player with all the bells and whistles. Unfortunately, it just wouldn't play DVDR media.

After going through catalogues to find a player compatible with most DVDR media, we settled on the DVP-NS50P. I was a bit hesitant at first because of its small size and the fact that Sony is known to have compatibility issues. But I went to the store armed with all kinds of DVDR and it came through with flying colours!

It plays everything it says it will (DVD-R/+R, DVD-RW/+RW) AND it also plays DVD+RDL which many players fail to read. This wasn't noted in the specifications. I haven't tried DVD-RDL so I don't know if it plays this type of media but I wouldn't be surprised if it did. But even if it didn't, I'm more than satisfied.

Another bonus which I accidently found out was that it plays DVDs with other region codes! I live in Japan and our machine is rated for region 2. It plays our region 1 movies without a hiccup. It's a handy feature if you have a DVD collection with different region codes.

The picture quality is nothing short of superb. This machine comes with component video outputs for both coaxial and digital. Definitey use one of these outputs instead of the S-video. You want to take advantage of what Sony calls Precision Cinema Progressive (PCP) Technology. According to the blurb in the specs, most players pick up the images on the DVD at the scan line level, whereas the DVP-NS50P picks them up from the pixel level. This means the images are more faithful to the original source whether it be video or film. You'll notice this feature when watching images with fast motion like action scenes or sport scenes. The background is very sharp and moving objects are free from motion artifacts.

Sony also implements something called Precision Drive 3 (looks like they like precision). This allows slightly warped or scratched discs to be read. You'll have to read the specifications to understand the mechanics behind this new drive but no more wiping or buffing of DVDs! It reads everything in one go.

The sound is great too. Obviously it has analog outputs but the optical digital output rated at 96KHz/24bit is what you want. Just hook it up to an amp with a built in DTS/Dolby Digital Surround decoder and you're good to go.

I've concentrated this review mostly on its features concerning DVD playback but it also plays CDR, JPEG, MP3 (which most, if not all of the new players read also). The menu screen when accessing images or mp3s is very easy to navigate. The folders come in blue background and navigate to the one you want with the remote. The files in each folder are highlighted in green. Plus, the file names support both Roman alphabet and Japanese kanji characters. All the other players I know of only read Roman alphabet.

The only negative comments I can leave to balance this review (and I'm strecthing here) is that the Video DAC is 108MHz/12 bit. I would have preferred 216MHz/24 bit but I've only seen that in the flagship models. Loading time seems to take a smidge longer than our previous player but I'm not losing any sleep over that extra second. Also, it would have been a bonus if it played DivX files and SACDs. But I'm not complaining here. For the price and the featured functions, I don't think you can beat this great DVD player!

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For the money, $79, this machine more than delivers for the price. I've had the player for about three months now and I have three other newer players in the house I can compare it to. First the goods:

1. It playes just about everything I can throw at it. It plays my DVD+R, DVD-R, DVD+RDL, SVCD, .jpg, etc.

2. The player has what is called "Precision Drive 3", meaning it can play pretty trashed disks without skips or distortion.

3. It has progressive scan and a multitude of set-up's for image and sound manipulation to adjust these parameters to you liking.

4. A very nice touch is it can remember where in the movie it left off for the last six disks it played. In other words you can remove a disk halfway through the movie, watch another movie, put in the removed disk and it takes off right from where you last ended.

The Bads:

1. Very long time to read a disk and prepair it for play after it has been loaded. This is the case with all disks I have tried, especialy DVD+RDL (but most players can't play this type of disk anyway)

2. Butttons on the unit are very small and incomplete in terms of accessing the players features. In other words, your in trouble if you loose the remote.

3. Has just a coaxial digital output, if you must have optical look elsewhere.

4. Just plain feels cheapy

Bottom line; I'm picky, but for $79 this player is a bargain. Great picture and digital output sound quality. Plays just about any kind of disks and most formats. Most surprizing is it's ability to play my DVD+RDL disks, something only one other machine in my home can do. Lastly it can play pretty trashed disks with it's precision drive that most of my other players can't. It only looses the fifth star to the small buttons, the fact that it takes forever to load and start a movie, and if you loose the remote your hosed in terms of accessing the players settings.

This is just a basic DVD player, not for ones who are little tech savvy and create their own DVDs and watch various media files like MPEG 1/2/4, VCD .dat , .avi files etc.

I bought this to replace my 3 year old Philips 724 DVD Player.

It does not play most of my DVD+R disc

Does not play any MPEG1/2/4 files

Its sleek but little noisy

Display is sloppy

The thing is that Sony products are designed to play standard stuff and Sony proprietary technology, like a memory stick for a Sony Digital camera. In this case it playes only a standard DVD or VCD disc. So if you are into making your own personal DVD discs from your MPEG media files, VHS tapes etc then this is not the DVD player you want.

Later I bought Philips DVP642 DivX-Certified Progressive-Scan DVD Player and ... woh ... it played all my DVD+R and media files like DivX, MPEG 1/2/4, VCD .dat, .avi files etc on my customized DVD+Rs.