Oliver Schembri(Harmless) posted this on Tuesday, 14th November 2000, 19:31
I live in Malta and there is a scan outlet here that is selling SC2000 players, but I need to know that the player I`d buy is from the new batch, with the new decoding hardware, released after October. How can I identify between a pre-end-of-October and a post-end-of-October SC2000 player. ¤Thanks in advance¤.
—P.S. please don`t give me any bullshit about hitachi or other players all I need is a cheap but trouble free player. I am not that finicky on superb, perfect picture quality, I believe that kind of quallity will have to be many years in the future with really high definition and high frequency screens. I`ve seen several DVD at stores and trade shows none have impressed me, they are only a minor improovement on VHS, and I can`t understand the fuss. All that I appereciate about DVD is that there is no need to rewind and the media is smaller. Just my two cents.
RE: How do I ident pre and post Oct SC2000
Microstar(Competent) posted this on Tuesday, 14th November 2000, 20:21
`Mark 1` SC2000`s have Macrovision disable from the secret menu; `Mark 2` SC2000`s have no Macrovision disable facility.
RE: How do I ident pre and post Oct SC2000
;-David(Mostly Harmless) posted this on Tuesday, 14th November 2000, 21:19
Sorry to take issue with your posting, but you did give us your two cents, so here goes..........
I have no intention of suggesting an alternate player, but you did mention "trouble free" in your P.S. Good luck with the Scan, but most of the budget players refered to in this forum suffer from reliability issues. You simply do not buy reliability for <£200. Corners have to be cut somewhere. I do own a budget player though and I am happy with it.
Re picture quality. DVD has twice the resolution of VHS no matter what you watch it on, even ignoring the fact that one is analogue and the other digital. You must been watching excellent VHS gear not to notice a significant difference. I watch on a cheap 14" portable set and there is a noticeable improvement between VHS and DVD. The fact that VHS degrades with use is also a consideration.
IMHO the features you mention are certainly valuable but do not justify the switch to DVD alone. That is what all the fuss is about...... The media might be smaller, but have you seen the boxes ;-)
Save your money and stick with VHS.
This item was edited on Tuesday, 14th November 2000, 21:24
RE: How do I ident pre and post Oct SC2000
Oliver Schembri(Harmless) posted this on Wednesday, 15th November 2000, 19:58
>Sorry to take issue with your posting, but you did give us your two cents, so here goes.......... :-) ok fair enough...
>most of the budget players ... suffer from reliability issues I`m confused on this from what I read roughly as much people complain as there are ones who did not find problems.
>I do own a budget player though and I am happy with it. I`m curious if I may ask, what make and model is it?
>twice the resolution of VHS no matter what you watch it on AFAIK TV screens have only one resolution. I forgot to acknowledge wear on VHS tape, and the fact that the colours from VHS pictures are a bit smudged.
>do not justify the switch to DVD alone actually I`m not switching I am buying a player for myself, besides with all the mechanisms in VHS we have gone through three players in a couple of years because of mechanical failures, DVD have much less mechanics (I never had a CD drive break down for instance)
P.S. thanks anyway for replying
RE: How do I ident pre and post Oct SC2000
nelley(Elite) posted this on Thursday, 16th November 2000, 17:27
Scanmalta will have the older versions but with macro disable,but you need to speak to mario about this. nilesh scan
RE: How do I ident pre and post Oct SC2000
;-David(Mostly Harmless) posted this on Friday, 17th November 2000, 13:33
>P.S. thanks anyway for replying No problem.
>>most of the budget players ... suffer from reliability issues >I`m confused on this from what I read roughly as much people complain >as there are ones who did not find problems. Exactly. I did not mean most owners, just that most budget makes have issues. It is a bit more of a lottery than buying a quality branded model. If reliability is a concern a budget player is higher risk. (Not unique to DVD players of course). Cheaper and more feature rich though :-)
>>I do own a budget player though and I am happy with it. >I`m curious if I may ask, what make and model is it? Cyber Home AD-M212 German Parent, Chinese build (surprising, eh ;-) http://www.cyberhome-europe.de
>>twice the resolution of VHS no matter what you watch it on >AFAIK TV screens have only one resolution. It is not the screen that is the issue. It is the signal being fed to the TV. This is governed by the format, PAL 625 lines and NTSC 525. The extra bandwith of DVD allows more faithfull reproduction to the original. I can`t find the reference, but I remember reading that DVD is about 500 lines, and VHS was about half that. You are correct though about it not being ready for HDTV. Has anyone ever seen a production HDTV ?
>>do not justify the switch to DVD alone >actually I`m not switching I am buying a player for myself, besides with >all the mechanisms in VHS we have gone through three players in a >couple of years because of mechanical failures, DVD have much less >mechanics (I never had a CD drive break down for instance) I would agree, but interestingly enough I only ever had one VHS machine break, and I have two broken CD players ;-)
