Sony DVP-S300 DVD-player Review

There are two learning-curve strategies for product planning: 1) Build a simple product, then use the knowledge you gain to build more sophisticated models. 2) Build the sophisticated model first, then let the knowledge trickle down to simpler models. The second approach is attractive because your knowledge base allows you to make the subsequent models very price-competitive, but it clearly demands that you have the considerable up-front expertise to build the first model.

When it came time to launch its first DVD player, Sony used the second approach. Its DVP-S7000 was a high-end, flagship model that today, a year later, is still regarded as a tour de force and is used as the reference player by many reviewers. The pew DVP-S300 is a trickle-down player with elements from both the DVP-S7000 and the second-generation DVP-S3000. The question is, with its much lower price — $599 vs. $1,199 for the S7000 — how much less of a player is the S300?

The front panel follows the styling protocol common to most contemporary CD and DVD players, in which only the principal buttons are placed on the chassis and the others are moved to the remote. In this case, the front panel sports the usual power, loading-tray, and transport controls plus buttons to choose shuffle (random) play, chapter or disc repeat, and programmed playback. The Title button is used to select different programs stored on a DVD. Another button lets you call up the custom menu contained on most DVDs. There is also a headphone jack with level control.

The DVP-S300 features the jog/shuttle control used on almost all of Sony’s A/V products. A front-panel button lets you toggle between the control’s shuttle and jog modes. In shuttle mode, it can quickly select play, pause, or one of two slow speeds or three fast speeds (2X, 10X, and 30X) in forward or reverse. In its jog mode, the control lets you step though individual DVD video frames manually. A four-way cursor button within the jog/shuttle control is used to navigate through the on-screen menus and to select different functions.

Like all DVD players, the DVP-S300 has an on-screen graphical user interface. A setup menu lets you choose the language for the on-screen display, the dialogue track, and the subtitles. You can also select the aspect ratio for your TV screen (4:3 or 16:9), PCM stereo or Dolby Digital audio output, an audio dynamic-range control, or audio mute. You can even change the menu background color, turn off the screen saver, and dim the front-panel display. All of these settings are saved in memory and automatically recalled even if the player is unplugged. I was happy to see that if you choose the “priority” setup mode the player automatically selects Dolby Digital when it is present, along with the priority language track (usually English on Region 1 discs). This is useful because otherwise you might inadvertently leave the player in another mode and miss out on a Dolby Digital soundtrack.

Of course, you can check out information on track and chapter numbers, playing times, playback modes, and even the MPEG-2 video decoder’s bit rate. The basics are available on the front panel’s fluorescent display, but the TV-screen display is more comprehensive. The player will resume playback from the point where you stopped, even if power is turned off, as long as the disc drawer is not opened. The S300 supports parental control on appropriately coded DVDs.

The rear panel contains two pairs of RCA jacks for stereo audio output and one pair for composite-video output, two sets of S-video jacks, optical and coaxial digital outputs, and a pin jack for Sony’s S Link system control. The supplied infrared remote has forty-eight buttons, a four-way cursor, and a switch for selecting either TV or DVD control. It duplicates all of the primary functions and adds a few more, including A-B repeat and camera-angle selection for discs supporting that feature.

I auditioned the DVP-S300 with a wide variety of stereo music CDs ranging from A (Aerosmith) to W (Wagner). I could not detect any significant audio artifacts attributable to this player. Certainly, some recordings sounded better than others, but the DVP-S300 merely conveyed those differences with great linearity. A CD player like this one aptly demonstrates that CD player technology is reaching its zenith, as is the CD format overall. The minor deviations introduced by this player's mechanical and electrical components were indistinguishably small compared with the gentle limitations of the CD standard itself. It will take an entirely new format (DVD-Audio) to raise the sonic bar above this high level.

Next I switched the DVP-S300 into my home-theater setup, using a Denon A/V receiver and a suite of Carver speakers. I auditioned a wide range of DVD-Video discs ranging from F (Fargo) to T (Terminator 2). I was absolutely pleased with the video performance. The picture was crisp, with edges that were sharp but natural-looking and a good sense of realistic depth. The colors were vibrant and clean, with flesh tones that were finger-looking good.

Probably the only way to find fault with the DVP-S300 would be in an A/B comparison with a much more expensive player (such as the DVP-S7000), but I suspect that even then picture-quality differences would be small if the S-video connections are used. A more expensive player might give a better picture when connected via a component-video output, but in my experience that difference is not considerable and is really only noticeable on a well-calibrated, high-end monitor. In other words, the picture conveyed by the DVP-S300 through its 10-bit video digital-to-analog (D/A) converters will look plenty good to most viewers.

Like most DVD players, the DVP-S300 does not contain a full Dolby Digital decoder (Sony also offers a step-up model, the DVP-S500, that does have a built-in 5.1-channel decoder). Decoding was handled by my receiver, connected to the player by a Toslink optical cable. The receiver’s decoder had no problem handling the data provided to it and delivered excellent Dolby Digital sound. The DVP-S300 plays back DVD-Video discs with 96-kHz soundtracks, though I had no suitable 96-kHz DVDs to audition. And I am happy to report that it uses Sony’s dual discrete pickups for CD and DVD playback, which allows playback of CD-Rs.

All of the player’s various features worked like a charm, including very smooth forward and reverse slow motion. In particular, the reverse function, using Sony’s 32-bit microprocessor and its SmoothScan feature, provided accurate frame-by-frame slow motion without skipping frames as some players do. I was also pleased with the player’s ergonomics. Although the on-screen menu is somewhat spartan (how much more silicon does a good menu require, I wonder?) and looks low-tech, it is at least functional and easy to use. The other controls — the jog/shuttle dial in particular — are all very intuitive and easy to master. This player should not provoke the slightest panic in even the most technophobic family member.

The S300 performed impressively on the test bench as well. The CD playback figures were, in fact, close to their theoretical limits. Similarly, the video measurements were excellent. There were no significant measurable errors except for a slight rolloff in high-frequency response. No other defects were visible on video test patterns, even in a split-screen comparison with a test-signal generator. If this picture looks bad to you, call your optician immediately.

A final note: If you are thinking of paying a couple of hundred bucks to buy a single-disc CD player, I suggest that you pause and search long and hard for any reasons not to buy this DVD player instead. After some soul-searching, I think you'll find that its sonic excellence makes single-disc, single-format CD players completely obsolete. Moreover, this player need make no apologies for its video performance, converting DVD video data to the analog domain with great precision.

Whether it’s audio, video, or both that interests you, the Sony DVP-S300 is proof that trickle-down technology really works. While this player may lack some of the refinements and features of its higher-price predecessors (component-video output, lavish menus, and in-depth video controls), it has inherited the lion’s share of their performance abilities (excellent sound and picture quality). At this price, the Sony DVP-S300 is the best DVD player I have tested.

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