Harman Kardon DVD 22, full review
June 17, 2004
With HD-DVD months away by even the most conservative estimates a standard definition DVD player still makes a lot of sense. After all in 2003 a consumer electronics study showed only 13% of respondents were likely to buy a HDTV display device. So even at those numbers SDTV monitors are likely to be with us for some years to come, as well as standard definition DVD players.
The Harman Kardon DVD 22 is Harman’s latest DVD player (and at the time of this article the only one listed on their website) The DVD 22 is a progressive scan player that handles all the usual media, DVD,DVDR/RW and DVD+R/RW as well as CD, MP3, VCD and JPEG formats. This player is not compatible with SACD.
The first thing I noticed about the player was its slim design, it’s just under 2 inches tall, making it an ideal player if you have very tight vertical space considerations. The supplied remote was adequate, and had all the on-remote features you’d expect.
On to the Video and Audio features, all the normal features you’ve come to expect from a DVD player were present, progressive scan, 3-wire component, S-Video and composite out. As for audio coaxial, optical and analog outs are all present as well as Harman’s hardwired remote control pass through.
Menu navigation was simple and intuitive, especially if you’ve operated another DVD player from HK of late. All of the standard menu controls and navigation were present, such as language, subtitles, parental controls, screen saver and angle controls. Other controls such as audio dynamic range, PCM limits and digital output selection are included. Video menu controls consisted of default aspect ratio, scan type and video mode. One handy feature of the DVD 22 was the built in test screen, If you’ve ever needed some test material but didn’t have such a DVD handy you’ll appreciate this feature. Included in the Test Screen are settings and “how-To” instructions for brightness ,contrast and color, these features obviously wont replace test material such as Digital Video Essentials or The Avia Guide to Home Theater test disc but are handy to have nonetheless.
On to the visuals, test discs used for this review were Digital Video Essentials, The Avia Guide to Home Theater disc, and just for kicks the THX optimizer on the double disc edition of Finding Nemo. Reference films used were The Fifth Element Superbit edition, The Brotherhood of the Wolf, Matrix Revolutions and Finding Nemo.
Images as you’d expect were crisp and clear with little to no hint of visual ringing, via a component cable to my Monivision DM-6552SW 32″ direct view CRT. Colors were bright vivid and on par with the better DVD players I’ve reviewed. The dark shadowy “cave” scenes in Brotherhood of the wolf hinted and some lack of low level resolution in grey scales but nothing unbearable or distracting. One seemingly difficult color scenario to render in Matrix revolutions, is the super slo-mo over the top punch Neo delivers to Mr. Anderson toward the end, on low end budget players, the scene is often flat dull and has the all too famous “green” hue prevalent to the Matrix films, The DVD 22 rendered this scene quite well showing that not only are there indeed fleshtones in the shot but that the rain effects have unusual clarity.
Moving on to the Fifth Element a movie with particularly vivid colors, I didn’t notice any blooming in the many scenes with intense orange, something I’ve seen in other sub $300.00 players. In action scenes the motion was fluid and jitter free. I wanted to check out some animation so I moved onto Finding Nemo, one thing I use this disc for is finding that opaque milky sheen that one friend of mine called “wax paper” I know what he means but I’m not sure I’d concur with his description. Animation particularly animation with an excellent DVD transfer, is great at finding this, although I did see a few scenes where this was present it was only in the darker scenes where elements providing a higher degree of contrast weren’t present, in other words very dark scenes with little to no images to offer a competing light level, nothing I wouldn’t expect from a player of this price level.
That raises a great point at which to address price. The DVD 22 has a List Price of $249.99 (although easily found cheaper).There are several other DVD players available or soon to ship in this Price range. Most notably the Samsung HD-941 DVD player, expected to ship sometime in July. The 941 has several features the Harman Kardon DVD-22 doesn’t, such as a DVI output, Faroudja DCDi and SACD ability.
All in all the Harman Kardon DVD 22 is a fine DVD player and I’d have no problem recommending it to someone looking for a good quality user friendly, Home Theater DVD player. That said there are other DVD players available, and soon to be, that should be investigated in this price range.
Posted by B.Greenway | | Filed Under DVD Player Reviews
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