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 Panasonic
A350
Review written by Craig McKinlay on 15-Jan-1999
Well, how do you review
a DVD player?? I pondered this question for a while, then decided that I
would attack this by highlighting the main features which you would use
on a daily basis (or at least each time you watch a movie) and focus my
attention on them. The results of that are listed below.
Overview
When I bought this player back in June 1998, my main consideration was
'How easy can I modify the machine I buy?'. It was of paramount importance
to me given that the Australia region 4 titles totalled about 15 at the
time. Next consideration was brand name. I've had Panasonic and Technics
gear for a long time and I've never had any problems with any of it. I've
seen two dodgy Pioneer CD players, and the Pioneer hi-fi gear has never
really inspired me. So after hunting around the web for modification kits
for the Panasonic and finding one not too expensive, I bought my
very first DVD player (from David Jones on the Gold Coast if anyone cares,
for $1400). I then promptly ordered my modificaton kit from the UK Company,
Techntronics for £34 pounds and ordered my first region
1 disc, Terminator 2 from DVD Express.
The player itself arrived about a week and a half later (the wait nearly
killed me!), so I promptly plugged it in, took off to the video shop and bought Jerry Maguire and Jumanji to play.
Brilliant. It was great fun. You remember when you first played with a CD
player and could so easily swap tracks etc? Well that's how i felt all over
again with a DVD player. Wow, going to the end of the movie by just clicking
a button - no rewinding, this is great! I tried Terminator 2 on my as-yet
unmodified player and of course it informed me I couldn't play this disc
in this region. Oh well.
About a week later the mod kit arrived. I quickly installed it (a piece
of cake if you know what a soldering iron is) and I've never looked back
since.
Layer changes
All DVD players seem to handle layer changes a little differently. That's
not to say some are better than other. In fact, it is widely accepted that
individual players can behave slightly differently. The laser alignment
on DVD needs to be very accurate (they tiny little pits you know :).
The A350 does what I describe as a stirling job of handling the layer change
of most discs. I have tested it with Terminator 2 (the first commercial
RSDL disc ever), Contact, Godzilla, The Peacemaker, Small Soldiers, The
Postman and Tomorrow Never Dies: SE. Each disc does the layer change a little
differently too, but in all cases it changes layer with about a 1/4 of a
second pause to both picture and sound, then continues on it's way. I have
never come across any disc where the player exhibits any problems changing
layer.
Fast forward
One of the options within the players "setup" menu, is whether to have audio
during 2x fast forward. For some reason, I can't switch this off, but it's
not too much of drama (better than not being able to turn it on :)
DVD introduced me to the 'jumpy' fast forward option. You don't get a continuous
blurry stream of images as you do with video tape due to the nature of encoding
DVD's. This is very perterbing at first, but after a few discs you soon
get the hang of it. The A350 does a sturdy job of fast forward and reverse
(no audio in reverse), it responds quickly to remote commands and you get
insant return to normal speed when you hit play.
One thing to remember is that the more you press fast forward, the faster
it goes, up to the point of blindingly going through a whole 2 hour movie
in under a minute.
Freeze frame/Pause
Perfect. I've tested many discs, both PAL and NTSC, even Video CD's and
they all display a perfect pause. There is an option in the setup menu to
set 'Still Mode' to either 'Automatic' or 'Field'. I'm not clear on the
difference suffice as to say that I've never found the need to change this
setting.
Disc Memory
The only memory functions this DVD player exhibits, is the ability to place
'markers' during the play of the movie. You can store up to 5 of these markers
at any one time. These can then be used like chapter numbers to instantly
return to later. These markers are lost if the disc is removed.
Inputs/Outputs
The back panel looks quite littered with spots to plug this in. You get
1 s-video, 2 composite outputs, stereo analogue outputs, 6 channel analogue
outputs, 1 optical digital output and 1 coaxial digital output. What is
definately missing here is a SCART connector, which curiously is included
on the European version of this player.
A consequence of this is that we completely miss out on having any type
of RGB or component video output. This seems silly because opening the cover
reveals an empty connector on the main board, which is no doubt, where the
external SCART connector plugs in.
Remote Control
The remote provided with this unit is a piece of cake to operate. It has
a joystick in the middle which you use to navigate around the menu systems
of each disc. Beside the joystick are nice big buttons for TITLE, DISPLAY,
MENU, SUBTITLE, AUDIO and ANGLE. The standard stuff like Play, Stop, Pause,
power, eject and fast forward etc are all nicely positioned and easy to
operate.
A sliding cover reveals yet more buttons. How does an additional bunch of
buttons (0-9) for track selection, the repeat mode selectors and the player
setup button sound. You don't use these anywhere near as much as the buttons
they put on the main face and this shows good forward thinking.
But wait, there's still more. At the very top of the remote face are channel,
volume and power button which are pre-programmed to operate various brands
of TV (they work with my Loewe, so I figure they should work with just about
anything).
Build Quality
Gold plated connectors and an all-metal chassis. This unit impressed me
from the beginning. Take a look at a cheap VCR. You get plastic, plastic,
plastic. Not so the Panasonic, and thats why I bought it. All the buttons
have a positive feel to them, never cheap and they don't feel like they
are going to fall out of the machine.
The tray operates very smoothly an whisper quite. It is strong and sturdy
and doesn't feel like it's going to break off when you place a disc in it.
Picture Quality
What can you say. Breathtaking? Superb? Brilliant? All these describe the
video quality from pretty much any DVD player. I can't say I've sat to different
player side by side, put a the same DVD title and done a direct comparison,
but I have seen plently of other players output. There is no doubt that
this second-generation machine is superior to the first range of DVD players
we saw back in 1997. But is it any better than any other second-generation
players? I think it is. Other players I've seen have a bit of a 'digital'
look to them. To my eye the Panasonic picture is a little more natural looking,
and further departed from the old laserdisc look. I suspect the third generation
players, which should start appearing at the end of 1999, will be even better.
Sound Quality
Any 'normal' people out there will never hear the difference between this
DVD player or any other source of digital sound, such as a CD player. There
is a difference though. The DAC's for CD audio in the Panasonic do a good
job, certainly as good as any run-of-the-mill CD player on the market. Though,
if you have heard higher-end CD players or DAC decoders, you will hear a
difference.
As for audio from a DVD, if it's LPCM, MPEG or Dolby Digital, this unit
will handle it. I don't have an MPEG decoder to compare the unit with but
I do have a Dolby Digital decoder.
The decoded output for both stereo and 6 channels sounds great. If you have
a 6 channel amplifier, then this is all you need to experience 5.1 channels
in you house. No external decoder required, which would save you anywhere
from $400 upwards if you were buying a component decoder.
Bugs....
A fact of life : A DVD player will have bugs. The Pioneer is a bit partial
to some of the badly authored discs, the Toshiba in the US has audio drop-outs,
the Creative DVD ROM is picky about the discs it will play, and so the Panasonic
has a quirk of it's own.
First Knight has been the disc which I've had the most problems with. In
the last 15 minutes of the movie, the picture breaks up severly, pixellating
badly and eventually locing up the machine. I also initially had a problem
where the laser would appear to 'retrack' itself, pausing whatever movie
I was playing, every 10 minutes or so (though since I moved it off the floor
and into a rack this hasn't happened). That's it so far (fingers crossed).
All-inall a pretty strudy little machine.
The Region
Modification
The way of changing regions is simplicity itself. Turn the power off using
the remote or the power button, press either 1, 2, 3 or 4 on the remote,
turn the power on. That's it! The number you press on the remote relates
to the region you are switching to. But another bonus which I greatly undervalued
about this modification is that is allows you to make the player output
real NTSC instead of PAL-60 for NTSC signals. I have noticed that during
the conversion of the NTSC signal into PAL, some edge faults are instruced
making bright colours 'bleed' into darker colours. It's not overly noticable,
and if you were using composite input you would never know. However, using
the s-video out makes this quite noticiable. Again, the operation of this
function is simple. With the power off, press 8 for native PAL/NTSC or press
9 for PAL/PAL-60. Easy...
| Panasonic
DVD-A350A DVD/VIDEO CD/CD Player Features |
|
Video
output:
|
PAL
625/50, PAL 525/60 |
| S-video
out, 2 x composite out |
|
Audio
output:
|
Linear
PCM , MPEG-2, Dolby Digital (AC-3)
|
| Optical/Coaxial
digital output for LPCM, MPEG-2 and Dolby Digital |
| 2
channel analogue output for decoded LPCM, MPEG-2 and Dolby Digital
|
| 6
channel decoded MPEG-2/DD analogue output for decoded MPEG-2 and Dolby
Digital |
| 96kHz,
24 bit D/A convertor |
| Other
notable features: |
Virual
surround sound, 2 x fast forward with audio, universal remote
|
| Ratings:
|
Value:
7/10 Video: 9/10 Audio: 10/10 Features:
9/10
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