DID A-R EVP-203 review

What the maker puts in writing

• “Watch the latest Blu-ray Disc movies in Full High Definition quality… far exceeding that of DVD”
• “Slim size allows the Blu Ray DVD player to fit neatly in narrow spaces and on thin racks”
• “Offers full HD support, beautifully up-converting images to high-definition image quality (1080p), and boasts superior audio with Dolby Digital sound”
• “Comes with a Remote Control (Batteries not included), HDMI cable, AV Cable for projector, Smart TV, TV or other portable screen devices”
• “Supports Max 128G USB Flash Drive and all DVDs and Region A 1 Blu-Rays with built-in PAL/NTSC capability”
• “Plays a wide variety of disc formats including BD, BD-R, BD-RE, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD-Video, VCD, CD, CD-R, and CD-RW”

Both cables, and the batteries named

Remote Control (Batteries not included), HDMI cable, AV Cable.

Two small things worth noticing.

Two cables is generous on this shelf. The three Panasonics — at $117.99, $367.99 and $629.99 — state no cable at all, and so does the Sony BDP-S6700 at $399.99. The pattern here is consistent: the cheap players bring cables, the dear ones do not.

And it is the only listing on the shelf that admits the batteries are missing. A remote that arrives dead on a Sunday evening is a small, specific annoyance, and nobody else here mentions it.

The audio specification is the real gap

Superior audio with Dolby Digital sound.

That is the only format named, and Dolby Digital is lossy — compressed surround, the kind of audio a DVD carries.

What makes a Blu-ray sound better than a DVD of the same film is Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio, which are lossless: bit-for-bit identical to the studio master. A player that does not pass those sends your amplifier a compressed downmix, and most of the disc’s audio advantage goes with it.

Three players here at effectively the same price do name them:

N-NUTROMO, $99.99 — Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Tojock, $104.99 — DTS, DTS-HD Master Audio, Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD N-NUTROMO DVD, $104.99 — Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital Plus, DTS

Six dollars less buys the full path. That is the honest comparison.

And DVDs of any region will play

All DVDs and Region A 1 Blu-Rays with built-in PAL/NTSC.

Worth drawing out, because it is two useful facts.

DVD and Blu-ray region locking are separate systems. A player can refuse a European Blu-ray and happily play a European DVD, and this one says so — as does the Tojock (“Non-Blu ray Discs region free”). The two Sonys publish “Region Code: Blu-Ray Disc (A) DVD Disc (1)”, which implies a DVD lock.

PAL and NTSC are the older broadcast standards, and a disc pressed for Europe is PAL while one pressed for America is NTSC. Built-in conversion means a PAL DVD plays on an NTSC television.

Only the Sony All Region Free at $219 is open on both disc systems.

The height to treat with doubt

Catalog: 178 × 170 × 20 mm.

Twenty millimeters is thinner than most laptops. Inside a disc player that has to hold a loading tray, a spindle motor, a laser sled on rails and the clamp that keeps the disc flat at speed. The thinnest bare slot-load computer drives are around 0.50 in (12.7 mm), before any chassis, board or power supply.

The published 600 g (21.2 oz) — the lightest on this shelf — is consistent with a genuinely slim machine, so the body may well be thin. Take the 0.79 in (20 mm) as approximate and measure your shelf.

The one verified figure here is the Panasonic DMP-BD84P, which publishes 9.61 × 1.50 × 6.89 in (244 × 38 × 175 mm) in its own bullet and matches its catalog.

And the AV output will not show HD

The listing offers the socket and does not explain it. High definition is not permitted over an analog output — Blu-ray’s copy-protection rules forbid it — so a Blu-ray through that cable arrives at standard definition.

The N-NUTROMO DVD is the only listing on this shelf that says so: the AV link is “structurally engineered for standard-definition DVD, VCD, and CD media playback”.

Use HDMI for discs. Keep the AV cable for a CRT.