Home > Consumer Reviews > Panasonic DVD-S55S Digital Remastering Progressive-Scan DVD , Silver

Features & Great Styling Don't Translate To The Screen

I bought a Panasonic S55S with high hopes, based on reviews of the models it has just replaced, several of which used the Faroudja FLI2200 deinterlacing chip, without advertising that fact on the outside or tech specs. The RP82 and XP30 in particular had great pictures. Talk is that for the S55S Panasonic shifted to an in house produced deinterlacing chip.

The S55S has wonderful styling, a very good remote, and just about every form of setting, adjustment, multiple picture output profile (Cinema 1, Cinema 2, User, Fine, Soft, Normal, etc.), picture noise filtering, picture gamma and color adjustment and more informative pop up data bars than you could possibly want. It supports all kinds of other audio and video formats, including high bit rate DVD-audio, but not SACD. It's very reasonably priced. The LCD display on the front is sharp and easy to read and shows icons for all the various modes the player may be in. Faroudja FLI2200

Unfortunately, it also has a basically good but also very flawed picture, that has trouble delivering film like movement without noticeable artifacts and non film like blurring, and which is rather contrasty with plugged up shadows, even with full use of the picture adjustment tools provided.

The Denon DVD-910 by comparison has the styling of a brick, a very minimalist, uninformative and hard to read LCD display on the front panel, hard to read labels on the black face plate, a really clunky remote, hardly any adjustments at all, doesn't support many of the extended DVD and picture formats available on the S55S, and would appear to be inferior in every regard except one: the picture quality is outstanding and first rate in every way with none of the artifacts and picture gradation glitches visible in the S55S. The Denon DVD-910 is based on the same chipset combo that was used in the now discontinued and much sought after in the used market Panasonic RP-82.

Basically, any DVD player based on the Panasonic RP-82 "kit", assembled at the same factory in China for a number of manufacturers, will completely smoke just about any player at any price point out there. There are several currently avilable players from Denon and Yamaha at price points all the way from $200.00 to $999.00 that use the same combo, including the Faroudja FLI2200 with DCDi deinterlacing, but MOST IMPORTANTLY a 54mhz 12-bit video DAC.

So, don't buy a S55S? That depends on your set. The higher end and more unforgiving your set is the more the picture quality issues of the S55S become very important. If you're using a top of the line HDTV CRT or Plasma, you may be disappointed if you have experienced a better player to compare it to. If you're hooking up to a 27" or 32" conventional TV you may think it's an outstanding player.

It cannot, however, stand up to players using the Faroudja FLI220 or FLI2310 chips with 54mhz (or faster) 12-bit video DACs (including Panasonic's own model from just last year) that value picture quality above features when the output device is good enough to show the difference.

Big pluses imho:

1. Bookmarks
2. WMA support (in addition to MP3, etc)
3. Amazon's price was not just competitive, it was amazing.
4. Arrived to my door in great shape

All the other goodies are here too: built-in decoders (sometimes it's really useful to have these built-in), zoom support, simulated surround sound (which actually works), DVD Audio/VCD/JPEG/MP3 support, speaker delay setting, progressive scan, etc.

I personally found the on-screen display/setup to be easy to use & quite sophisticated for this level of price. Also, according to reviews elsewhere, this model is one of the absolute latest panasonics out there, with the latest/greatest firmware, etc. - in other words, people often thought that dvds look better played on this model, relative to other players in the same or slightly higher price range. Mine was built in June 2003.

For what it's worth, decide whether you need built-in decoders or not, if you want to save money. I personally wasn't willing to live without them or bookmarks, and amazon's price for them (and all of the above) was still amazing.

This thing hooked right up & worked flawlessly straight out of the box.

My family has been buying Panasonic products for years, but this is the first time I've ever bought one of their DVD players. I've previously had a Sony and a cheapo KLH Home Theater in-a-box. When I was looking for a new player I knew that I wanted something that looked nice, had progessive scan (for the future), could play DVD audio, photo CDs, and MP3s. Oh yeah, and should be affordable for a college student.

Enter the Panasonic DVD-S55S.

1. DVDs boot up quickly and it plays them perfectly. I've tested a few movies out and I don't even notice layer changes (a BIG problem with the KLH). There does seem to be a fair amount of flicker with contrasting colors on some menus.

2. Photo/MP3 CDs play well and are easy to navigate. However, vertical photos don't seem to play and MP3 filenames can be cut off if they're too long. The flicker shows it's ugly mug again on photos, but is easier to ignore.

3. Features galore! Progressive Scan, DVD-A (don't assume that all players can play these!), Dynamic Range Compression (kind of evens out the louds/softs of the movie), Optical audio output, Component video, and several ways to tweak audio/video for better quality.

Overall, I'd give this player 4.5 stars but had to round up. The flicker problem could just be my TV or the way I'm hooking it up, I don't know. My only other real criticism is the remote. It's just kind of there. A little ugly but very usable. So, if you're looking to get into DVD or looking for a cheap player that will be able to keep up with you for several years, look no further than this one!

We waited and waited to get our first DVD player - and this unit was worth waiting for. For the price, this unit has more features and flexibility than most other units currently available within stores. Most importantly, this Panasonic unit produces a super quality picture on our small 27 inch SONY television and should do even better with the Panasonic Plasma unit we hope to acquire shortly. But wait, the WOW is in the sound. We really enjoy superior sound reproduction through our home movie/music surround sound system. This unit takes full advatage of our system to envelop us in each movie. We couldn't be happier with the ease of set-up, operation, picture quality, and fantastic sound.

I bought this DVD player after I bought a new computer. I wanted to burn a few DVDs and VCDs on my own and watch them on my TV. I researched DVD players and found this one, at a price I could afford .... It was money very well spent. This is a great DVD player. It will play regular, store-bought DVDs, burned DVD-Rs, burned VCDs, store-bought compact discs, burned CDs. I think it would play a piece of toast if I stuck it in there! The DVD also is very customizable. There are almost too many settings. I can be a bit confusing. But you can, using the user's manual, configure it any way you like. I found the options a little confusing at first, but useful in the end. You can program this thing to work with a surround sound or a simple two-speaker system. You also can set it to tone down the sounds for midnight viewing. I leave this midnight viewing option on all the time, because I get annoyed by DVDs with REALLY LOUD MUSIC and very soft dialogue.