Sony DVP-NC85H Multi-disc DVD Player

Six months ago I donated my last Sony multi-disc player to one of my friends who needed a new DVD player and did not have the cash. Besides it had served me well for about eighteen months, and it gave me the excuse to buy a new toy for me. I liked all of the features that it had, but it was missing a few that newer units have.

So it was time to look for a replacement. You would think that with all the luck I had with my past model I would have stuck with Sony for my first choice, especially since I have tried APEX, Panasonic, Samsung, RCA, Cyberhome, Magnavox and looked at several other players that claim to play everything, and so far only the Sony units have lived up to the claim. But no, I had some sort of brain shutdown and went another way. My first choice was an Onkyo DV-CP702B player I saw at Circuit City that happened to be on sale. Until I looked a little more closely at the description and realized that it only played DVD-R/W recordable discs. Since I have not been overly concerned if I used DVD-R or DVD+R discs in my recorder and tend to use both medias in a random fashion, it was not a good fit for me. Next I looked at a Yamaha DV-C6760B player that I found on-line at B&H Video on sale. Everything about it seemed like a great fit for me. Including a few new features not found on my previous player such as MP3 DVD and DIVX. So I made the leap and bought it. For about two months it was everything that it was cracked up to be. Then it started to have problems playing DVD+R discs, and only DVD+R discs. Anything else worked fine. BUT, a player that can only play about half of my personal DVDs is not a great thing. So now my upstairs bedroom has a new DVD player since I do not watch too many movies up there anyway, and it was still a better player than nothing up there.

So back to the search; So yeah, I went back and looked at what was new in the Sony catalog. What I found was their new DVP-NC85H/B multi-disc player, a 2006 re-release of their DVP-NC85H that was released in 2005. The current version of the player has now has HDMI out, and can play MP3 DVDs; and like most of their previous models it claims that it can play everything else under the sun: DVD, DVD-R/W, DVD+R/W, VCD, SVCD, MPG files on a DVD, CDs, JPG slideshows about the only discs that it will not play are DIVX and any of the HD formats that have yet to be really pushed out on the market yet. Of course it being on sale because it was Father's Day weekend was also a big bonus. So I took the plunge and bought it.

Yeah, I wasted a whole lot of time looking at other brands. Like it was advertised the player plays everything that it says that it can. No need to play close attention to what brand of media you use. If it is a DVD or a CD you can probably use it in this player.

Using it is a snap, there is the usual first time you use a Sony DVD player setup program which will step you though the basic features including the audio and video outputs you want to use. What screen resolution you want to use for the HDMI output, black screen level, and how the unit interacts with you; English, menus, screen saver, shutdown timer, etc. You can always go back and manually tweak some all of the settings later, but it is nice to have it up and basically set up in less than a minute. This is not something new with Sony DVD players, it is just nice to see that they have kept a useful service that does work.

All of the basic features have worked like they are supposed to, and almost exactly the same way they did in my previous Sony player. I have been playing all of the old media that I was able to play in my last one, plus I have added an MP3 DVD that I always leave in slot number five. It is nice to have 173 songs ready to play through my stereo whenever I need to, without having to load it up with CDs. Besides I would need a ten disc autoloader to hold as much music as the one MP3 DVD. The only downside is there is no shuffle feature for MP3 playback; this is for both CD and DVD discs.

I am using the digital audio out to run it through my home theater receiver. The sound is as expected. I am sure that a true audiophile would be able to find fault with the output, but it serves me just fine. I guess what I am saying is that most people would find the audio out to be as good if not better than most movie theaters; but if you are trying to compare it to a $1500 THX DVD player then you will be disappointed.

The HDMI output is just great. If you have a TV that supports this input I highly recommend that you use it; just make sure that you select the correct resolution for your TV and test to see if should have it in YCbCr mode or RGB. I my case the HDMI RGB mode provided the best output for my TV overall for my DVD playback. It seemed to remove the occasional artifacts and made a richer black, and cleaner reds and flesh tones.

The remote that comes with it is the standard Sony DVD remote, only this one is light gray instead of black/dark gray like they were in the past. I used it for the basic setup of the unit, but have I am now using my universal remote to operate it. The audio cable that comes with the unit is the same basic audio/video cable that comes with every single DVD player on the market. I had probably ten of them lying around my house before I bought the player, and this one is number eleven in the collection. So in round-about way I am saying that it has the basic equipment that you need to hook the player up to a AV input on a TV or a home theater receiver. You will still need to buy an RF modulator if you want to hook it up to a TV that only has a coax cable connection.

About the only negatives that I have for the player is that it is slow from power on to playback, or for starting up a newly inserted disc. This for some odd reason seems to be the norm for DVD players both old and new; and the firmware for the player is not upgradeable, so the player that you take out of the box is the player that you will have until you retire it.