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| Product |
| Sony DVP-NS400D Black DVD Player |
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| Description |
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The Sony DVP-NS400 is a DVD player complete with a surround sound decoder and some excellent little touches. The slim NS400 has Sonys typical classy finish, sleek and purposeful. The menu system is mercifully easy to use and the player is simple to set up. Some thought has obviously been put into the onscreen menus, which can be confusing on some players and require frequent reference to the manual. Itll play CD-RW and CD-R discs, which can come in handy if youve a PC with CD-Writer, but for many people its one of those "might come in useful one day" features. Itll also play NTSC discs, which is much more likely to be put to the test. It also has a handy bookmark feature, which is great for cataloguing your favourite bits--the songs in a musical for example. You can also set potential controls on specific DVDs. The memory available for both these functions is 50 slots. Another smart extra is quick navigation between chapters. This is often a clumsy procedure on other systems, requiring you to go back to the main menu. On the back there are two SCART sockets, always nice to see on any DVD player. Another area where this player scores over the simpler Sony offerings is in the inclusion of a Digital Dolby decoder offering surround sound via a full set of analogue outputs. The big advantage here is that if youve already invested in an AV amplifier without a built-in decoder you can add DVD and Dolby Digital in one go. If you dont already have the required amplifier then its a less impressive feature as just about every modern AV amplifier has an integrated decoder apart from some budget models so, if and when you add surround sound to your system, youll be duplicating the decoder. Theres also a virtual mode which attempts to replicate the surround sound effect with a standard set of stereo speakers. Like most such systems its effectiveness is somewhat limited--theres just no substitute for the real thing. The remote control is sensibly organised and has nice big buttons for the main features. Picture quality is superb, Sony once again delivers an excellent result on screen. It has rich colours and a crisp image. It has a notably smooth scan and slow-motion too and theres a terrific "show me that again" button which plays back the last 10 seconds. The usefulness of the surround sound decoder is debatable, but there is no doubting the quality of the player itself with some nice control features to lift it above the crowd.--Miles Berkeley |
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