Sony 300+1 DVP-CX860 DVD Player

And why should you? Well, not only because of its ability to play a DVD withpin-sharp clarity of picture and sound in both Dolby Digital 5.1 (DD5.1) and DTS 5.1sound formats, the latter sounding the best but appears on less releases dueto it taking up more space on the disc and that the former has a widerrecognition.

Also, Joe Punter is only just getting his/her head around Dolby Digital andSky are trialling DD5.1 broadcasts on their movie channels through Sony digiboxeslater this year, so DTS will remain alone on DVDs for the time being. MoreDVDs from other regions, in particular Region 1 (North America), have DTSsoundtracks so if you’re going to buy this machine make sure it can be madeto play all regions and not just Region 2 (Europe, Japan) which is the defaultsetting.

On the subject of regions, these days you have to ensure the player is”region-selectable”, i.e. that whether it’s done manually or automatically uponinsertion of a disc, that the player selects the region individually so it isnot tied down to more than one region at any one time. That way you will alsodefeat RCE-encoded DVDs (Region Code Enhancement), in which if a disc detectsthat the player is enabled to look after more than one region – and many DVDplayers will be set to ‘all’ when chipped – then the disc will simply refuseto play. At the moment, RCE is only implemented on Region 1 DVDs.

On an internet search I found the cheapest price for this DVD player to bearound £539 remaining on Region 2, but around £569 to coverall regions.

But what’s the most important thing about this fantastic beast? The fact thatit plays just a few more than the usual one disc – it plays 301 in total, eachwith the capacity to hold 9 bookmarks. Not so obsessed that you’ve maxed outyour credit card on over 300 DVDs? No problem as it’ll take your collectionof regular CDs too.

I initially thought from the name of this DVD player that it held 300 discsin a rotating carousel and one on its own for when you don’t want to flickthrough the rest, but no doubt to conserve space, they’re all together at justover 1o apart and a “flip” option ensures that double-sided DVDsget just the same executive treatment as the carousel rotates 180obefore inserting the DVD into the vertical player in the centre, fronted bya captivating glowing green light.

However, where the “+1” comes into play is if you insert the disc at position301, so just to the left-hand side of the carousel’s divide, and to force theplayer to jump to that disc, press “Easy Play” on the remote or the unit.

With a weight of around 10kg and dimensions in millimetres of 430(w) x 198(h)x 503(d), it should fit nicely into your A/V setup and will impress yourfriends as the front draw opens invitingly to add or remove your favouritefilms and CDs.

Taking a trip around the front fascia of the unit, starting on the right-handside, we find many of the usual controls you’d expect and the plus is thatalmost all of these are replicated on the remote exactly, including therocking cursor control and jog dial for rewinding and fast-forwarding a film.However, one thing unique on the player is a rotating control which worksin conjunction with the ‘disc change’ (for selecting a different DVD) and’direct search’ for changing chapters within the DVD that you’re watching.Push this in and the selection is confirmed. The alternative way to do thisfrom the remote alone would be to go into the menu and type in the numberof another DVD or chapter.

In addition to the ‘Easy Play’ and ‘Flip’ controls is a ‘Mega Control’ button.It’s something I wouldn’t need to use, but for those with an extra Sony CDchanger that can hold 5, 50, 200 or 300 CDs, plugging this into back of theDVD player will effectively double the capacity for those musically-minded whofind that 301 CD spaces isn’t enough.

If you’ve filled the machine with 301 DVDs though, how on earth are you expectedto find them all? With the Disc Browser. DVDs and CDs are already separated intoseparate categories but you can create four further folders in which to divideup your collection and enter a short title for each disc. Those that make useof “CD Text”, which would enable the name of the disc to show up on the frontelectronic display, are catered for but for those with nothing you can simplyplug your PC keyboard into the PS/2 connection, type in your choice of titleand navigate the disc browser structure.

To complete the front is a dimmer switch for the display and a “VES” button,which cycles through a couple of virtual surround sound modes. When I triedthese though it made absolutely no difference to the proceedings whatsoever,but that might be down to being overridden by the sound fields created bymy Sony STR-DB930 amplifier, of which that contains plenty.

On the subject of sound the DVP-CX860 certainly doesn’t skimp on that score.Test DVDs includedTerminator 2: Judgment Day,Seven: Special EditionandStar Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.In T2 the action scenes are numerous, while the highlight of Star Wars was thepod race and the climatic battle.

The picture quality brings out the best in a DVD too. I’ve been used to thetop-notch looks delivered by a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM pumped through to a32″ widescreen Panasonic TV and if there’s any glitches shown up through theDVP-CX860 then it’s down to the disc with mild glitches showing up often inStar Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menaceand the overall age ofTerminator 2: Judgment Dayshowing when it shouldn’t. The best discs that shone through during the brieftime I had with the unit wereI’m Alan Partridge -which you’d expect to be first-rate given it being so recent – andRavenous.

For NTSC DVDs that are region-free or Region 2 (as in many of the UK WWF DVDs),these are shown in pure NTSC given that there’s no on-board NTSC-to-PALconversion, so hook up with either a SCART or an s-video lead and you’ll befine.

Note that the rear of the unit contains two SCART sockets, an s-video out -which was my choice – phono video out and component video out sockets, as wellas co-axial and optical digital sound outputs and the aforementioned “MegaControl” connection.

I wanted to know why when using this DVD player does widescreen auto-switchingoccur on the Region 2 DVDs, Seven SE andTerminator 2,but notStar Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace,Bedazzled andRavenous, orhave only a handful of discs actually got the autoswitching enabled?

Thanks to Andrew Hodgkinson for the following reply:

“It’s a bit complex.

The disc itself contains flags describing the aspect ratio of thecoded frame plus the active area within it. For an anamorphic discthis would indicate a 16:9 coded frame and the DVD player itselfwould, depending on the level of support in its firmware, generatesignals on the SCART or S-Video leads and may construct appropriateline 23 (or line 21 for NTSC) signalling to tell your TV what to do.

Meanwhile, the encoded frame on a DVD includes the first half of thefirst line and the last half of the last line of the visibledisplay. If you look closely at a TV you’ll see that the visiblescan actually starts and ends half way along – the first line yousee is in fact line 23, but the first half of it is *not* meant tobe visible. Thus, a DVD player (and indeed DTV receivers and so-on)should mask out the first half of line 23 decoded from the actualMPEG stream, and possibly write their own information in there asdescribed. Some don’t, though, so if you actually MPEG encode awide screen signal burnt into the picture in the first half of line23 you have a fighting chance of it making it to the TV unscathedand the TV then switching accordingly.

This is, of course, very bad. The disc itself should NEVER containthe line 23 signal, because the DVD player may be told to output a16:9 letterbox image for a 4:3 TV. However the TV may be 16:9 shapeor 4:3 with a true 16:9 mode, and an attempt by the disc to overridewhat the player is doing could lead to nasty results, such as a 4:3or 16:9 letterbox picture being output by the DVD player, with theTV switched into 16:9 anamorphic mode because of burnt-in line 23signals being “leaked” from the disc. The same sort of argumentexists for digital TV receivers since they also can be told whatsort of TV you have, but the majority of those (unfortunately) doleak the first part of line 23 as the designers simply did notrealise they weren’t meant to…

Quite a few DVDs, by the way, have incorrect encoding flags so youcan find some 16:9 anamorphic discs do not switch your TV into thecorrect mode whilst others do. This can be caused by any number ofthings, not least including dodgy encoder software or an operatorwho isn’t as clued up as he/she ought to be. I reckon it was aspecific combination of confused flags settings that provoked olderversions of the Samsung 709 firmware to display the “anamorphicbug”, where it did a forced downconversion to 16:9 letterbox despitethe setup menu being told the TV supported 16:9 anamorphic, BICBW.”

A closer look at the remote control –>

I was only able to get a picture of the remote which accompanied theDVP-CX850, the 200-disc equivalent of this machine, but there’s little differenecbar a rearrangement of a few keys.

Again, apart from the usual you’d find, there’s the addition of folder keysto replicate that found on the unit, and a “picture memory” function. Pressthis at any time and it’ll save that image as the screensaver when youfirst switch on the machine. I had to learn that function pretty quickly as Iaccidentally made Alan Partridge eating a scotch egg the picture and the breaththat stank afterwards… 🙂

Finally – any downsides? Well, those DVD boxes will have to be stored somewhereif you insist on filling the beast, but that’s tough. It’s the price you payfor the luxurious extravagance and damn fine convenience. Also, I could beflippant and say that I cannot take screengrabs as I can with my PC DVD-ROMbut that wasn’t what this machine was designed to do, so it’s simple enoughto make a note of what you want, then put the disc in your PC and run a programlike PowerDVD in which to do the honours.

Seriously though, the jog dial is a pain and I’d add a couple more buttons totake the effort away from moving the dial when instead it’s better and morenatural to press a button to shuttle back and forth through a scene.

Also, when it comes to bookmarks, while adding a bookmark is easy peasy, viewingthem afterwards isn’t as that option is buried within a couple of sub-menus.Still, when you do view the bookmarks, they are displayed as frames from thefilm as can the chapters also be seen should that be desired. I’m sure thoughthat any decent universal remote should be able to get round both of theseproblems quite easily were you to use those as well. Might be a bit of a kludgeusing more than one remote, but if you’re surrounded by a number reachingdouble figures as I am then one more won’t matter.

Overall, the Sony DVP-CX860 comes highly recommended by me and I wouldlove one that plays all regions. Add to this the ease of use and excellentclarity of picture and sound and your friends will be mightily impressed.

OVERALL