Anyone own the Momitsu DVD-V880?
 

I'll be getting a Toshiba 46H84 very soon (within the next 2 weeks).

And as much as spending an additional chunk of cash doesn't appeal to me at all, I can't help but be tempted by the Momitsu DVD-V880:

http://www.hkflix.com/hardware/xq/as...qx/details.htm


Anyone have this beast? Pros? Cons? Any links to detailed online reviews would be appreciated too. Thanks!

Two peer reviews here. Couldn't find a review though.

I own one.

Its a temperamental machine, but when it works the picture is magnificent.

Most of my issues with it probably have more to do with oddities of my Sony projector. Others don't seem to have those problems.

Other owners occasionally run into reliability issues (particularly with the loader), but I would say that based on the many conversations I have read and participated in at AVS forum, the Momitsu is probably the best reviewed DVI player available for under $500, and most of its owners love it.

If your display takes DVI, I would recommend going for it, but keeping your current player available in case things go awry. An alternative is the Zenith 318, which also gets good word of mouth.

Visit www.avsforum.com and go to their dvd player forum. There is a ton of info if you run a search.

Everything Tom said is my experience too

Here's a review:

http://www.keohi.com/keohihdtv/video...pressions.html

Thanks for all of the responses. Sounds like I'm going to be a couple hundred dollars poorer in a few weeks. ;)

I wasn't blown away with mine. It makes really good-looking DVDs look even better. The not-so-good ones tend to look even crappier.

Yeah, I've noticed that on a couple of sites/reviews.

But I have a Panasonic DMR-E60 player/recorder too, so I'll have a standard 'backup' machine for those discs that look crappy on the Momitsu. I'll just have to get a feel through trial and error as to which discs will look best on which player.

i own one also. it's hooked up via component connections for 1080i output from a samsung crt hdtv. the picture is amazing indeed, and i've heard the dvi's picture is even better. the only complaint is the cheap build, when u move this thing around, do not shake it or rattle it. also do not put anything on top of it as it will interfere with the loader. it's kinda like a bmw engine wrapped in a geo metro shell.

Maybe it's just me, but I've got mine running at 1280x720, connected via DVI, and whilte it looks good, it's nothing mind-blowing. It's not a dramatic enough difference that any of my friends noticed and commented on the picture quality. Stuff like Shrek 2 and Monsters Inc. look great, but don't buy it thinking your going to get HDTV-quality images. Just my two cents.

Quite the oppisite here. My friends love my Momitsu and the picture quality. I have it hooked up to my Samsung DLP through the DVI connection. The picture is better than anything I have seen so far from a DVD player. Even my TV disks such as "Buffy" look amazing.
My only gripe is the cheap remote that comes with it. It is the worst remote I have ever had. But eventualy it will be replaced so I am not really worried about it.
I highly recommend this player if you have a DVI port.

Well, I've decided to finally order one... probably on Wednesday or Thursday. Anyone know of any great deals on this? I'll probably order from HKFlix (through DVDTalk, of course ;) ).

extremephono.com seems to be the preferred retailer for this player.

I bought mine at Extreme Phono. Very quick and smooth.

On quality, its often hard to figure out what people mean by "amazing picture". It certainly doesn't give you HD quality, but in a digital-to-digital environment like LCD, DLP, or Plasma, it made for a very noticeable improvement in the amount of detail that could be seen in long shots. The LOTR movies on my old DVD player looked a little fuzzy in long shots (with close-ups, the scaler filled in the detail), with the images indistinct (it reminded me of the way detail on VHS tapes is blurred). I found myself frequently distracted by the drop in image quality at such times. But with the Momitsu, the drop in image quality isn't as severe, and it ceases to distract me. For me, that qualifies as "amazing", as DVDs are now much more immersive, even though the actual quality improvement probably isn't detectable except on repeated close viewing.

I also noticed that some video artifacts vanished while using the Momitsu. On my Panny, Shrek always had a green halo.

The third advantage to the Momitsu is that it eliminates overscan on my display device. For some DVDs, it turned out I was losing 5% of the picture due to overscan.

Mileage varies. I have read some reviews from Momitsu purchasers that were tepid, or negative. But they do seem to be the exception.

Good luck.

i really like mine. so far, i haven't had any issues like on avsforum.

the remote really sucks... but, frankly, every oem remote i've ever had sucks. i bought a sony remote 3100 which i really like and programmed it to control the momitsu.

when i watch finding nemo, i see little halos around all the fish... not sure if that's normal.

i use 1080i b/c i think it looks better via hdmi. i like how i can compare directly by switching the output between 720p, 1080i and a bunch of others.

How would yous ay this player is compared to the 318 ?

I just posted some problems I've been having with this machine in the international forum:

1) won't play dual layer recordables

2) freezing up on some regular recordables

3) audio drop-outs throughout (not matter what you're watching)

4) screen/audio freezes at certain moments (not as regular as above problem)

5) RCE warning comes on for certain discs.

WHAT'S THE DEAL????

I recommend loading new firmware.

Already has the latest firmware. Should I re-load it??

the only problem that i have had is that some RCE discs won't play. other than that, my dual layered dvd-r's play without any problems.

Saturday night, we had a TON of audio drop-outs. My friends that were watching it kept asking me what the problem was but I just kept going with the movie. It stuttered a couple of times but that was it. Just the occasional audio drop-out.

"tried" to watch a movie last night. Throughout the first 90 minutes, it kept "clicking" and pausing. The pause would last about a second to a half a second and then keep going. Sometimes it would click...other times, no. I'm so ridiculously upset with this purchase. HKflix isn't being of much help either.

Dyer, what blanks are you using? Who knows if any of the other problems I'm having are contributing to it not liking the dual-layer blanks.

Assuming you have checked for bad connections and dirty/scratched discs, it sounds like a broken machine. Good luck.

I've watched about 6-8 discs and something has happened (either the audio drop-outs, skipping or both) on all of them. Nothing has played perfectly. I'm assuming it's the player. And the fact that I heard the clicking noise inside the machine during the skipping confirms that it's not a connection. Plus I used the same cables with the malata and again, never had any problems whatsoever.

my dual layer blanks are from verbatim. the regular dvd-r's or dvd+r's that i use are usually the generic Comp USA discs that i bought at their store. i have never had a problem with them. i have used fuji and sony's blanks as well. the only blanks that have not worked on the player are memorex's dvd-r's.

Your TV has HDMI, why not the Panasonic S97S?