Pioneer DV-420V overview

Firstly, the DVD player itself. It’s from Pioneer, which means it’s going to be good. The sound quality is apparently the best feature,with 24 bit DACs doing their best to make your tunes and your DVDs sound even better than the real thing (not sure why I’m quoting U2 there – it is late, though!)

The picture quality should also be top rate, as the DV-420V replaces the DV-410V, which was already a bloody good DVD player.

My personal favourite, though, is the CD ripping feature, whereby the DV-420V will rip tunes from a CD, turn them into MP3 files and then dump them on the USB-equipped device of your choice. Certainly not what you’d expect from a DVD player, but a welcome addition nonetheless.

Confusing Engdaget

In its write-up of the DV-420V, Engadget completely missed its ability to rip tracks from CDs, and concluded that:

“…the front-panel USB port enables playback of DivX files and JPEG shots if you find that of interest. We’re thinking not, so you can feel free to save your $90 when it ships this summer.”

This implies a cursory scan over the DV-420V at best, which isn’t what you’d expect from Engadget. Thank gods for the concept of blogging, though, as several fans of Pioneer not only corrected Engadget, they added how great they thought the previous versions of this DVD were.

The moral of the story – sure you may only have ten minutes to write a post, but if you’re not sure about a DVD player that’s standing there in front of you, at least ask the kind gentleman or lady who’s there to answer your questions! Really, Engadget, you should know better by now

[Source: EngadgetHD]

As such, it acts as an extension to the humble DVD player by playing your films, videos and tunes through an audio-grade 5.1 surround sound amp, letting you hear your media in ways you’ve probably not heard for a while!

Indeed, this is one of the problems with digital media. The boxes on which it’s stored (e.g. your PC, MP3 player, USB stick, etc.) are all very clever, but they don’t go out of their way to provide an enhanced listening experience.

This is somewhat ironic – we’ve freed the music with digital technology, giving us a much broader range of tunes to listen to, but restricted its quality, certainly when compared with previous Hi-Fi units of old.

The Sony DAVDZ260 and other DVD receivers like it aim to change all that by providing a central hub that plugs into your TV and your speakers, and lets you listen to your digital content in glorious clarity – and at 140Watts per channel, your neighbours will hear it too!

Sony DAVDZ260 Overview

Briefly, the Sony DAVDZ260 comes with a DVD player that plays virtually all formats; 5.1 surround sound; FM radio with RDS; a USB port, into which you can slot your MP3 player or mobile phone; and support for Sony’s Direct Port adaptor.

This latter device is an optional extra that lets you not only connect your devices to the DAVDZ260 using a variety of different connectivity options (including Wi-Fi), it also lets you control those devices (well, at least the Sony ones!) via the DAVDZ260′s remote control.

Why you should buy the Sony DAVDZ260 DVD receiver

The Sony DAVDZ260 isn’t perfect, and there are many other competitors out there, but the reason you should go out and get one for Christmas is that’s just had something of a price reduction! EmpireDirect, for example, are currently selling the Sony DAVDZ260 for just

Japanese researchers have been hard at work fiddling with discs and they have come up with a way to multiply the capacity of a CD or DVD by 9 fold. The researchers have managed this magnificent feat by reshaping the pits on the media surface, which are normally flat, into ‘v’ shapes.

Unfortunately you won’t be using discs based on this method any time soon as it renders them incompatible with current players, and worse still, the process cannot be applied to Blu-ray discs. This particular piece of research is unlikely to amount to much, at least for consumers.

[Source: Engadget]