Home > Consumer Reviews > Yamaha DVD-S1700 DVD Audio and DVD Video Player with SACD - Black

I've had this unit about a month, and have played commercial (personal and Netflix) DVD's all day long with no problems, i.e., playing warm or cold, pristine or slightly used, through an HDMI connection. It has a very sharp "upconverted" picture, displays deep color, presents no motion problems (blurring), I've noticed absolutely no layer-change pauses through several disks, and have noticed no CUE or macroblocking issues, either. It also has a myriad of picture controls to fine tune the picture, although I've used my Sony XBR LCD to do most of that. And, in what Yamaha calls NL Stretch mode, 4:3 aspect ratio DVD's look pretty darn good when filling the screen; it basically stretches mostly the edges, so something like 80% of the center is relatively intact - that is, people don't look like blobs. So far it's played everything I've thrown at it, although I have yet to try every format. Also, it seems to be very well made and is very quiet. Some minor complaints: menu response times are slow (although DVD menu's seem to be okay), in that it takes a couple of clicks to get the menu to move; also, when you change DVD picture settings the player pauses the DVD to make the changes, then resumes where it left off, so you can't see it on screen as you're making them; and, the dimmer seems to have only two settings - bright (although it's not very) and dim - with no "auto" setting, as advertised. Overall, unless you're ready to camp with HD DVD or BlueRay, I recommend this pretty impressive DVD player.

It is an universal DVD player. It is not a High Definition version.

I did test it with DVD,DivX, SACD, MP3 and CD. And the performance with this kind of media is acceptable.

The multichannel output works very well. I did connect it with a Yamaha receiver RX-V861. DivX sounds very good.

The only detail I should mention is that the HDMI interface is not 1.2 then it doesn't pass DSD across high definition interface. I need to connect the 6 analog cables to listen SACD multichannel. But in my case it was not a problem.

This item looks great, set-up is simple, and has everything needed to operate right out of the box. The picture produced is terrific.

However, the DVD being watched had better be pristine, because if it has the slightest flaw, this player will lock up and will not get past the flaw (dust spot, small scratch, ding, etc.). It seems to have limited oversampling to manage defects in the DVD surface/data.

I bought two of these players and both hung up on the same DVDs at the exact same place, but the cheap player that I had been using, and which was being replaced with one of the Yamahas, played right over the defect without a glitch. So, I was disappointed right off the bat. But, with a new, unblimished, DVD, it plays great and gives a fantastic picture. Just hope I don't have too many flawed DVDs.

This is a great player but it fails to play some of my cds in mp3 format, recorded by myself. I bought it because it's hard to find one machine to play all the different formats including super audio cds. I use it strictly for music. I have a bunch of cds in mp3 format, these play in my car, play in the $49 Sony DVD player, but when I place them in this Yamaha, 4 out of 9 tracks goes in the fast forward mode, rendering it useless. The next track on the very same cd might play perfectly. I tried several cds, it has nothing to do with the quality of the disc or the recording. WMA files and Super Audio are OK. I wish someone at Yamaha would read this and reply. It is a real shame because the machine looks great and the controls work flawlessly.

Good DVD player, but a little bit big for my limited space. I would prefer a slim line for my space, but wanted the 1080p upconversion feature of this model.