It played everything I threw into it so far, including even Xvid movies with AC3 sound codec, which I know for instance many Philips models fail with.
However, I have an issue of other kind. Every time I play a CD-R containing either AudioCD material or DivX/XviD, I hear ticking sounds / clicks coming out of the player. When it comes to AudioCDs, only burned discs are effected of this - not originals.
If this is a normal thing with this player, then it doesn't really bother me, but if you can't hear this in your own player, then I'll return it and ask for a replacement. So please tell me about your experiences when it comes to this.
Also, is it possible to turn the CD-text option off on the player?
I'm a bootleg CD collector, and most of my recordings are burned with "Unknown song / artist" label. It's very annoying when playing these CDs to actually see those messages, especially if a CD in particular is burned using non-English burning program, so you see these messages in Spanish or German, or whatever......It just looks weird.
I've been really interested of this player as well, but haven't bought it yet. I've searched the internet for reviews on regular basis, but most of the hits are in German... doesn't help me much :/
LOL!
I'm that very same guy who posted the review on the VCD/DVDhelp.com website, and as you see, from what I've experienced (including my own DVD-+R(W) discs) this player is nothing but a crap.
I returned it and bought a Philips DVP-630 (European edition of 642) and I'm happy with it.
I strongly advise you to forget the Yamaha player! Then again, I might have got a faulty one, but it's still not worth of risk.
If you really want something like Yamaha DVD-S550, which means good picture + divx support (but no subs support), then I suggest Pioneer DV-470 (I tested this one as well). This baby is excellent. The only con is that it's pretty noisy during the playback of heavily scratched discs. But on the other hand - it plays them with no problems whatsoever. The picture quality of Pioneer is also one of the best I've seen in this class!
However, if you want a player that basically can play anything you pop into it, then there is only one choice - Philips DVP-630/642. It has pretty ugly menu and but hey - you can't have it all. The picture is very nice but still not as good as Pioneer (and even Yamaha), but you must consider the fact that it has 54mhz Video DAC while the other two have 108Mhz, so you get the point.
In my case, it seems like the expression "third time the charm" (or however you say it on english) is really true. I'm going to keep my Philips!
I wish you all best and good luck with your own search.
I was looking for a PAL/NTSC DVD player to replace my existing portable one which has a hard time with some DVD-R homemades. The Sony External 500a burner with the Pegasys TMPGEnc DVD Author software
sometimes stops at 99% burn with a strange error while writing VOB leadin. Sometimes these disks cannot be read by my portable DVD player yet they are read ok by my second DVD player which is a Sampo cheapo.
Considering the following models:
Yamaha DVD-S550:
Looking at the specs for this $150 player, this is a hot machine. However, due to the above comments by MheAd, I decided to keep looking. Nothing like experience from someone who has plugged it in and tried it.
Philips DVP-630/642:
This $70 player would probably solve the problem of the disks not being read but it only has a 2MB NTSC->PAL Buffer memory area which would probably lead to poor picture quality while playing NTSC DVDs on PAL TV. One website which sells it states they do not accept returns because of poor picture quality. So I chose the following $180 player:
Pioneer DV-363K: With the 10 MB NTSC->PAL Buffer. By the way, the specs I read said it had a 10 bit 54mhz Video DAC just like the Philips.
I should have it in a week or two. Hopefully it plays the homemade DVD-Rs ok.
My next purchase will be a new burner which hopefully will solve the burn problem. By the way, the firmware on the Sony burner was upgraded to the latest and tried on two different PCs. It still gave the error 80% of the time. The interesting thing though is that it will not work at all if the pc or the burner get too warm. It won't recognize the disk as writable during the heat of the day or after it has made a disk or two. Not sure if the problem is the USB or the drive itself. I will go with an internal next time. I originally thought I would need +R capability but was wrong.
