Yamaha DVD-S1800BL 1080p Upconverting DVD SACD Player Reviews
by cts / January 14th, 2011
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January 14th, 2011 at 7:09 pm
Yamaha S1800 Upconverting DVD, CD, SACD Universal Player,
I’ve owned this player a good couple months now and have been very pleased with its performance. Very user friendly GUI and the machine operates easily. Discs load quickly and the transport is dead quiet. The picture quality is excellent be it composite (good), component (better) or HDMI (best). What’s even better is the sound quality of CD’s and SACD’s thanks to four, 2 channel Burr-Brown dacs. It has a nice array of features, such as Audio Direct Mode, SACD Bass Management, SACD On Screen Text, Display Dimmer and an above average set of picture controls. These allow the user to really fine tune the image for optimal picture quality. Furthermore, it does a fantastic job up-converting Standard Definition DVD’s to High Definition 1080P. It’s also compatible with DVD-A, mp3, wma, divx and jpeg discs as well. The remote, although it’s not back lit and lacks an eject button is still very user friendly, ergonomical and makes functional navigation a snap. The users guide is well laid out and easy to understand. Other notable features include, Dolby Digital 5.1 DTS built in decoders, gold plated pin terminals, one optical output, one digital coaxial output, Noise Shaped Video (NSV) with Faroudja DCDi processing that helps eliminate jagged edges and blurring, Wide Screen Mode selections, Screen Saver, Program & Repeat Playback for CD’s and Progressive Scan. You could probably spend hundreds more on a universal player and still be hard pressed to get the performance of the S1800. So, if you’re not ready to make the leap into blu just yet and want a great sounding CD/SACD and DVD-A player with DVD up-conversion for improved Standard Definition DVD viewing, consider the Yamaha S1800!
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|January 14th, 2011 at 7:47 pm
Great as an upscaling DVD and SACD player,
I bought this Yamaha to replace a nice upscaling DVD player from Toshiba which my son broke. I chose this Yamaha for both its upscaling reputation and its SACD support. Feature and performance-wise, I have been very happy with the product.
As a DVD player, the S1800 supports DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW and DVD-Audio well, in addition to DVD-Video. For DVD-Video, upscaling to 1080p appears to work really well, even though this is a model from 2007 (hence the big discount offered by Amazon.com). I have played a variety of DVDs from Pixar animations to old Disney classics to recent action titles and so on, and all look really nice on my Sharp 1080p LCD TV.
One good thing about the DVD player is it’s quite fast, at least compared to most other DVD players. From loading a DVD to recalling the menu, there’s no trying the user’s patience with blank screens. Another good feature is, as with other upscaling players, by default all 4:3 DVDs is displayed stretch on a 16:9 screen if you use the HDMI connection (and who doesn’t nowadays?), but there is a menu item (Setup -> Video -> Widescreen Format -> Pillar Box) that manually overrides the stretch, so you can make 4:3 content look right on your widescreen TV. Just remember to set it back to “off” for 16:9 content. Yes, this is a hassle (i.e., no automatic switching), but this beats the hell out of all those upscaling players on the market that don’t let you unstretch 4:3 content over HDMI at all. We watch a lot of kids’ TV shows, so this is a really welcome feature. (Maybe I should buy another unit and lock the widescreen stretch on each…)
As an SACD player this unit takes advantage of Yamaha’s experience in building hi-fi systems. Sound quality from my SACDs (classical music) is truly amazing, revealing subtle details that even my best CD deck failed to reveal before.
I have not tried the DivX playback feature, nor the VCD/SVCD support.
While the features and performance are laudable, the remote and the manual are truly miserable. The remote has a big round power button, but the idiot who designed this made it to *only* turn on the player, not turn it off. For the latter function you use the smaller Standby button, which *also* turns on the player! Most of the buttons are small, and there is no eject button on the remote. Must be a Japanese thing, since this seems common on Japanese-brand DVD players. The manual is very difficult to understand. First, it was written by some idiots. Second, it was written for the UK/Europe/Russia market. Luckily, you can figure out 95% of the features and connections on your own, unless you’re a complete newbie to DVD players.
As to the question why you should get a DVD player while you can now buy a low-end Blu-ray player for as low as $20 more, the answer is twofold. First, upscaling DVD players are still better at playing DVDs, especially one like this Yamaha which loads DVDs fast. Second, if you watch a lot of DVDs, you may not want to tax the laser mechanism in a Blu-ray player, which works better reading Blu-ray discs. Finally, for this model specifically, some of the extra features like DVD-Audio and SACD support are not found on Blu-ray players.
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|January 14th, 2011 at 7:47 pm
Best DVD Player I’ve Tried (and I’ve tried a lot of them),
This past fall I’ve “auditioned” six different upscaling DVD players (including the Oppo DV-980H, DV-981HD and Pioneer Elite DV-49AV). This is absolutely the best one and a definite keeper:
1. Very hefty, solid construction (as opposed to the thin, cheapish material of most new players).
2. Quiet disc transport
3. Intuitive remote
4. Excellent audio quality – easily matches or beats the Oppos or Pioneer Elite
5. Beautiful image quality
When I first got it I felt the color was a bit washed out, but after calibrating the player with a color meter (Brightness, Contrast, Color, Hue) the picture is flat gorgeous. Its easily better than the Oppo DV-981HD and Pioneer Elite DV-49AV and matches the Oppo DV-980H. While its not Blu-Ray quality (of course), its still so satisfying that I don’t feel deprived or like I’m missing anything when I’m watching an standard DVD. The upscaling quality is so much better than my Blu-Ray player that I’ll never use the Blu-Ray for DVDs – I’ll keep both players hooked up to the set. If it has a con its a minor one – the lack of an eject button on the remote, which isn’t that big of a deal since I have to get up anyway to remove the disc from the tray.
This player started out at $449 a couple years ago. I never thought I’d see it go as low as the $79.99 that Amazon is charging for it now. Its an absolute steal if you want a quality upscaling DVD player (that shames most Blu-Rays for upcoverted DVD image quality) and one that plays a wide variety of other formats (including Divx and SA-CD). It can also be made region-free for foreign market DVDs with a simple code hack. Can’t recommend it highly enough.
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