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Panasonic DVD-RV41 DVD Player With Dolby Digital Decoder, CD-R, CD-RW and MP3 Playback
Date of Review: Jun 5, 2001
The Bottom Line: The Panasonic DVD-RV41 is an excellent choice if you need a DVD player with a built-in Dolby Digital decoder.
The Panasonic DVD-RV41 is a DVD player with a built-in Dolby Digital decoder and MP3 playback. It also plays CD-R and CD-RW discs. At less than $250, this model costs about the same with previous generation RV30, which didn?t play CD-R/W or MP3 and had no Dolby Digital decoder.
The RV41 also costs about the same with Sony NS400, and in this review I will urge you to go with RV41 instead of Sony?s offering.
Looks
The RV41 looks nice and solid; the front panel features a shuttle control so you can adjust playback/scan speed and joystick to control menus. The same shuttle controls speed for DVD-Video, CD-Audio and even MP3 playback (see below)!
The tray looks very solid and its operation is very smooth. The word ?flimsy? does not belong here; everything is rock-solid (except for remote ? see below). The player plays DVD-Video, Audio CD, Video CD and MP3 discs. Both CD-R and CD-RW are also supported.
MP3
You probably know that Apex, Samsung and some other manufacturers offer DVD players with MP3 playback. But neither Sony not Toshiba offer MP3 playback in their inexpensive DVD players. Panasonic does, so you don?t have to settle for Apex or other player from the manufacturer you know nothing about with questionable reliability. Now you can have an MP3 playback without sacrificing reliability, ease of use and picture and sound quality.
The player plays both CD-R and CD-RW discs, so I copied several albums of Nirvana on an Acer CD-RW disc on my computer (disc-at-once method, disc was closed). The player reads the file structure and displays the number of songs on the disc. The only problem is that it does not show file names when playing MP3s and there is no way to program the MP3 playback. The existing file structure gets "flattened" - you see the song's number but not the name (i.e. "5 of 105").
Manual says that the playback order depends on file names. I didn?t really pay attention, but the sound quality of MP3 playback seems to depend on the bit rate with which the file was encoded (I usually use at least 128Kb/s). You can cue/review with several speeds using either remote or front panel shuttle control.
CD-R and CD-RW
The RV41 plays CD-R and CD-RW discs. It employs twin-laser pickup (for CD-R/W playback) and built-in stabilizer. I tried disc-at-once recorded ?finalized? (closed) CD-R and CD-RW. Both worked fine. I also tried Video CD CD-RW.
Video CD
I used Adaptec Easy CD Creator Deluxe 3.5c to create a test CD-RW VCD. The MPEG files have to be converted to 352x240 pixels at 29.97 fps frame rate. Stereo sound at 224 Kb/s is preferred. The player has no problems with VCD (although the playback control is somewhat limited).
Performance
The player produces excellent picture and sound quality. The picture quality is the best I have ever seen from the non-progressive-scan DVD player. You can barely see the scan lines and the details are clearly visible, even in the dark areas.
Panasonic CD and DVD players are known for ability to play scratched CDs and DVD discs much better than other players, and this one is no exception. The operation is superfast. There is no delay after you press a button, everything happens immediately, unlike my old Sharp DV-600 DVD player. The disc is also very quick to ?load?.
Features
The player remembers where you stopped and can resume from that moment (make sure you press ?Play Mode? if you decide to turn the player off). If you press ?Play? to resume the playback, you have an option to press ?Play? again to see the ?Chapter preview? ? preview 3 seconds form the each previously seen chapter. There are also 5 bookmarks you can return to and you can go to any moment on the disc by entering the time.
The player employs ?soft? Power button, unlike some models from competitors. The OSD messages are somewhat small and pictograms take some getting used to.
The player features still and frame advance (both directions) modes, chapter preview mode. As every Panasonic DVD player, this model features high-speed, five-step, smooth-motion scan, which provides crystal-clear forward and reverse scan in five speeds. The front panel has a jog/shuttle control to allow you to adjust the scan speed.
The fast scan can be performed at 5 speeds with the fastest one being 100x, which is very fast. There is also slow playback at several speeds in both directions. Everything can be controlled from both remote and front panel.
I was surprised to find out the shuttle works in CD-Audio playback as well as in MP3 playback. That is you can adjust the ?scan? speed in audio playback modes also. Very nice feature.
During DVD-Video high-speed scan at 2x you can hear audio. You can hear sounds and some short words. There is no zoom mode (but I don?t care). The player also has shuffle/random mode, direct track access. The menus can be switched between English, Spanish and French.
The menus are very intuitive with descriptions of what buttons to use. The onscreen displays allow you to control everything, but pictograms take time to get used to.
Connections
The player comes without an S-Video cable, so if you have a TV with an S-Video input, I suggest you don?t use A/V (composite) connection and get an S-Video cable. Any S-Video cable will outperform the most expensive ?premium? composite cable. The use of S-Video (or better yet, component) connection allows you to avoid Moire patterns, dot crawl and other ?cross-luminance artifacts? that even most sophisticated 3D comb filters in your TV might introduce.
The RV41 has analog audio outs (left and right - RCA-type jacks) as well as an optical digital-audio output (both Dolby Digital and DTS compatible), which you can use to connect it to Dolby Digital or DTS receivers or mini-systems. Optical digital out is immune to the electromagnetic interference.
The 5.1 analog audio out can be used with the built-in Dolby Digital decoder, if you have a Dolby Digital Ready amplifier. You can control the delay and other parameters through the onscreen menus.
A standard for Panasonic DVD players dialogue enhancement feature boosts the volume of the center channel by 6 dB when playing a Dolby Digital 5.1 disc so that the dialogue doesn't become drowned out by the left and right speakers. This helps you to be able to keep the volume level lower while still being able to hear what people on the screen say. I never used it, since my neighbors did not complain yet, but if they do, it is a nice feature to have.
Video outs: the RV41 has S-video output and component video out (some other players lack the component outs). You can use either S-Video out to connect the player to your TV or, even better, component video out, which is the best possible way to connect DVD player to your TV.
The component out digitally separates the video signal into its luminance (Y) and separate chrominance (PR and PB) elements, allowing delivery of a reference-quality picture with precise color reproduction. (Of course you have to have a TV that is compatible (has component inputs) to utilize the benefit of this feature.) But you will have to deal with 3 cables instead of one S-Video cable.
VSS
As other players on the market, RV41 features Advanced Virtual Surround Sound (VSS) circuitry that simulates the "presence effect" by downmixing Dolby 5.1 signal to two channels, so you can enjoy audio effects with just 2 speakers. But RV41?s version also includes an additional channel for subwoofer (AVSS with Bass Plus).
Digital Cinema Mode ? I don?t ?Dig? It
The RV41 features the Digital Cinema Mode in which (in theory) the picture is enhanced by reducing glare, softening resolution, and improving visibility of details in dark scenes, resulting in a more realistic, cinemalike image. On paper.
For me it looks like the lightness is increased and the black areas become gray, so you have to decrease lightness on the TV. I don?t see why you would want to use this mode at all. You also have a ?User? mode, where you can control brightness, contrast and colors manually. However, I find myself using the standard mode and have no complaints whatsoever.
Remote
The player?s remote control is very easy to use. The remote is well designed and features intuitive button layout. But there are things to improve:
1. I occasionally notice that directional buttons take too much effort to push
2. It does not allow you to control your TV
3. "Eject" is located directly above "Play", so I pressed it accidentally a couple of times.
4. Remote is not backlit and the battery compartment door is flimsy.
But these are small things; overall the remote is fine.
Bottom Line
The Panasonic DVD-RV41 is an excellent choice if you need a DVD player with a built-in Dolby Digital decoder. Excellent in both picture quality and ease of use, plays MP3 and CD-R/W discs, superfast operation, excellent looks, inexpensive... What else can you ask for?
