Sony DVP-NC615 5-Disc CD/DVD Changer With MP3 Playback
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Author's Rating:
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Pros: Price, looks, picture and sound quality, some TV/receiver control from the menu, MP3
Cons: Limited set of connections, no DVD-A or SACD playback, no WMA playback, limited scan speeds
The Bottom Line:
The Sony DVP-NC615 is a good choice as an inexpensive 5-disc DVD/CD changer with CD-R, CD-RW and MP3 playback.
Author's Review
The
Sony DVP-NC615 is a five-disc DVD changer that plays CD-R, CD-RW discs and discs with MP3 audio.
The NC615 looks solid and very stylish. The front panel has buttons for basic functions as well as 5 buttons for direct selection of the appropriate disc and other functions. The display is located above the disc tray.
Inputs
The NC615 is well equipped in terms of connectivity options: it has a composite video out, S-Video out and a component video out, as well as coaxial digital audio out (Dolby Digital and DTS compatible) and analog stereo audio outs (left and right channel).
Performance
The changer produces picture and sound of excellent quality. The picture does not loose detail even in dark areas and has good sharpness and contrast. The S-Video or component video out improve the edge definition and contrast relatively to composite video connection.
Additionally, using ether S-Video or component video connection allows you to avoid rainbow-like Moire patterns and other cross-luminance artifacts, which are usually introduced by the TVs comb filter while processing the composite or RF-derived signal. The sound quality, like virtually all DVD players, is excellent if using players DAC and analog outs.
Features
The 5-disc changer features twin-laser pickup and can play CD-R and CD-RW discs. It can play MP3 audio and features nice MP3 playback interface. The multi-disc resume remember the location where the playback stopped for up to 6 discs and can resume from that point, which sometimes is helpful and sometimes a bit annoying.
In addition to DVD Video and Audio CD, the changer also plays Video CD (VCD) and MP3 discs. Frame-by-frame,
SmoothScan and
SmoothSlow (three speeds for high-speed and two speeds for low-speed search in both directions) allow you to study your favorite movie fragments.
The screen saver can be turned on and off and preserves your TV screen when the player is on pause or stop mode for 15 minutes or more (or when it is in CD or MP3 playback mode for 15 minutes).
The Instant Replay function allows you to see the last 10 seconds of the program you are watching by pushing the replay button. You can program the playback of up to 99 chapters, tracks or titles.
The player also supports standard DVD features (soundtrack select, menu language select (English, Spanish, French, Portuguese), subtitle select, 4:3 and 16:9 support (4:3 pan and scan, 4:3 letterbox, 16:9 widescreen), multiple camera angles, etc.). The changer has the disc exchange feature that allows you change up to 4 discs while the one is playing.
It also features repeat mode (disc, A-B), shuffle (random play) and you can program the order in which the tracks will be played. There is advanced parental control, Digital Cinema Sound modes, TV Virtual Surround Sound (simulates surround sound using 2 speakers).
TV Virtual Surround Sound
The TV Virtual Surround Sound, when switched on, has 4 different settings, all of which are no replacement for the real surround sound. There are TVS Standard (creates several virtual rear speakers when your pair of stereo speakers is far from each other), TVS Night (suppresses very loud sounds), TVS Wide (should be used with speakers that are close to each other, creates several virtual rear surround speakers) and TVS Dynamic (the same as the previous one, but creates a single set of virtual rear surround speakers).
You can use the coaxial digital audio out to transfer the sound digitally to your Dolby Digital or DTS decoder for the real surround sound. You can also use analog audio outs to connect the unit to a Dolby Pro Logic decoder.
Remote Control
The remote control supplied with the changer, as majority of Sony remote controls, is quite large and unfortunately not backlit. The remote allows you to control different brands of TVs and receivers, which is convenient there is no need to use two different remotes all the time. This makes the remote better than Panasonic remote controls for comparable models they have no TV control.
Bottom Line
The Sony DVP-NC615 is a good choice as an inexpensive 5-disc DVD/CD changer with CD-R, CD-RW and MP3 playback.
