Panasonic DVD-S97

The home theatre fun continues. Today I picked up a new DVD player—the Panasonic DVD-S97

Why a new DVD player you ask? The S97 is one of the first on the market to offer HD (high-definiton) picture quality using an HDMI cable. With the HD projector I have, this means that I can get 1,080 lines of resolution.

Right now my Pioneer DVD player is putting out 480 lines of resolution and the funny thing is that I’m already impresssed with the picture quality. I’m looking forward to seeing how much better the picture quality is using the HDMI cable.

The Panasonic site has this to say about the higher resolution using HDMI and DCDi (Directional Correlation Deinterlacing by FAROUDJA).

When the DVD-S97 is connected to an HDMI-compatible monitor, DVD images can be upconverted to 720p or 1080i for output. The converted images have much higher resolution than the 480p images of conventional component output. You get beautiful, high-resolution theatre perfect images for today’s large-screen HD plasma display panels, LCDs and LCD projectectors.

The difficult part in acquiring this DVD player wasn’t price or availability. I managed to get once at cost like my projector (thanks Neal). The difficult part is trying to convince your wife that you need 1,080 lines of resolution, that the two year old DVD player you have is completely inferior in terms of picture quality.

Fortunately I have a wife that works in television with a bunch of guys that are very impressed with our new h-tech toys.

Posted in Home Theatre at 8:07 PM