Slickone

Why does this player cost so much? Is it that much better than the Toshiba 4700? I read something about it having some kind of 4x3 or 16x9 zooming feature. Does the Toshiba now have this? These are the two I've been looking at.
I want P Scan, DVD-A, DVD-R/RAM, MP3...

Slickone

To the top.

palebluedot

I haven't seen the picture quality of the Toshiba but the RP-91 is excellent. I would stay away from the Toshiba because it has the chroma bug.

Xytraguptorh

I've always wondered why it's so high priced too. It entered the market around the same time as the JVC 721/723 models which were priced around $700 at the time. Unlike Panasonic, JVC quickly lowered the price and replaced them them with updated models with even lower prices. For around half the price of the RP91 you could get a 7 disc changer with DVD Audio, MP3, CD-RW capability, on-board DD and DTS decoders, Pal to NTSC conversion etc. I'm sure the RP91 is great, but part of its popularity has to be that it was one of the first progressive scan models that does scaling (the JVCs and Malatas also do this) of non-anamorphic DVDs which is a great feature to have.

The new Toshibas add black vertical bars to the sides of 4:3 material when watching on a widescreen TV. But unlike the RP91 (and JVCs and Malatas), they don't scale non-anamorphic widescreen movies to fit your screen.

Slickone

Using a 16x9 TV's zoom function to make non-anamorphic (letterbox) movies fill the screen, the picture quality is degraded significantly. Does the RP91 not have this problem? If not, how does it get around it?

Xytraguptorh

Basically you just leave your TV in FULL rather than changing the pic size on your TV. I don't know how they do it, but I think the picture is a little bit better by letting the player do it instead of the TV. I read that the RP91 had a slight problem with the picture shifting to one side when watching 4:3 material, but I think there's a fix for it. The JVCs don't have this particular problem. For both players, the auto-scaling probably works about 70% of the time on nonanamorphic discs. The other 30% of the time you have to scale it using either the zoom button on the player or the TV.

I've never owned a Malata player, but it's supposed to have even better scaling than the others mentioned. Maybe someone else can give you more info on that.

Frank S

As an owners of the RP91 I can tell you it is an OUTSTANDING player! These posts reporting $700 price tags for the RP91 are WAY, WAY off! They can be had for around $450 (if you can find one as they are discontinued because a newer model will be released in the next few months).

This slight shift of 4x3 material is a slight bug that only requires you to hold the Stop,Pause,Open buttons on the player and use the joystick on the remote to shift it over and you don't need to do it again. The newer firmware fixes this and even if you have an older firmware (as I did) you just update it with a firmware update image file (burnt to a CDR and placed in the DVD player) and your all set.

The auto scaling works for 99% of the non-Anamorphic DVD's out there and for the rare ones that are improperly flagged all you do is change a menu setting on the player from auto to zoom and that DVD will display the DVD correctly!

The RP91 is considered by most to be the best picture quality DVD player out there for $1500 and under!

TheKobra

I also have this player. It is a better player then Sony's , Denon's and Toshiba's top of the line players. It took me 2 weeks of reseach before I finally purchased this player. I picked it up at Ultimate Electronics for $349.00 after they pricematched a online retailer. They dont usually do this but I also purchased a $3500.00 big screen tv so they did it with no problems.

Xytraguptorh

Just curious, but does the RP91 auto-scale some nonanamorphic movies that the JVC doesn't? I thought the DVDs (improperly flagged) were at fault rather than the player. Here are some that the JVCs won't auto-scale (which forces you to use the manual zoom on the player or TV):

Titanic
Tremors (although Tremors 2 does auto-scale)
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Phantasm
The Doors (single disc)
Outland
Mimic

I'd estimate about a 70% success rate, so here' s some that do scale on their own:
The Abyss
Ravenous
Event Horizon
Brokedown Palace
The X-files (non-DTS)
Predator (non-DTS)
Trainspotting
Deep Rising
Dune
Thinner
The Thing
Speed (I think it's nonanamorphic)
Spaceballs

That's all I can think of right now. Anyway, I was curious if the estimate of 99% success was an exaggeration or not.

Frank S

Actually that is the one big difference between the JVC and the RP91 is the fact that the RP91 has a bypass setting (Zoom instead of Auto) to correctly scale all non-Anamnorphic DVD's that are improperly flagged! SO all non-Anamorphic DVD's will be correctly scaled on the RP91!

TheKobra

Thanks to Frank S this is the link to the new Firmware update. Took only about 5 mins. to burn and update it.
Thanks again Frank S.


http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...threadid=96646

Ernie6

The JVC players do an excelent job of converting 4 x 3 letterbox DVD's to 16 x 9 anamorphic. The picture quality definitely improves. Since all DVD's are not created equal some 4 x3 's are not flagged correctly and the player's zoom feature can be used to manually reformat to 16 x 9. The players include an excellent zoom filter eliminating distortion.

In my case I have a second option with the three Theater Wide viewing formats provided in Toshiba HD 16 x 9 TV's. The aspect ratio of the DVD will determine which of the three formats best resizes the movie to 16 x 9. Toshiba HD sets accept progressive scan signals on all 5 viewing formats allowing the best possible viewing of DVD's.

Slickone

TheKobra, who online sells it for $350? I know they're probably someone you wouldnt want to order from, but good for pricematching. Are there any reliable sellers that sell it for $450?