DVD-player Sherwood SD-871
Solid shell thickness not only inspires respect to the product, but also gives certain advantages to designers in the layout of the device - there is no need to stamp firmly components, creating the risk of interference and mutual influence. For the player who claims to quality playback formats DVD-Audio and SACD, it is not unimportant. "Incarcerated" model music manifested, in particular, the ability to disable the video path (function PURE AUDIO) - if activated indicator lights on the front panel.
Remote control is not as impressive as the player itself, but I can assure you that he is very comfortable - I especially like the transport control buttons in the form of symbols - they are easy to find in the dark to the touch.
By switching capabilities is the richest in the test apparatus. Its main advantage over other players - available professional connectors BNC, which component video output (in addition to the usual RCA). The remaining analog interfaces (composite and S-Video) is also presented in a double quantity of - guess it can be useful in multiroom systems. For such installations and serves connector RS-232C. Another control interface - RCA pair with the inscription "DIGI-LINK" - used to control other components of the joint Sherwood.
Deinterlacer - Faroudja DCDI. HD video output is available only on the HDMI. Resolution on it switches through the menu, the maximum value - 1080i. But TV system may vary directly with the remote control - this is important because the transcoder nondisconnectable and has only two positions - NTSC or PAL.
Judging by the typical graphical user interface, the player is built on chipset ESS. Its features are implemented adequately, in particular, there are very detailed image settings, including switching the black level as well as several factory presets. However, they operate only with analog connection - picture transmitted over HDMI, can be adjusted only in the display.
Unit plays back files with confidence DivX, prepared codec v3.11, but fast on them available. The remaining "problem" media is tolerance.
Strip PLUGE confident and visible component, and HDMI, so that problems with the calibration of the display will not arise. Comparison with a reference DVD-player revealed reduced sharpness in SD-871 - as it turned out later, the fault active transcoder. When you install it in the correct position for the TV-system disk image acquired the required detail. And since the component connection (especially BNC) become available advanced adjustment SHARPNESS (separately for low and high frequency), then they can be used to ensure that the image will be on analog visually sharper than HDMI.
At first the sound seemed a bit player sharper than the reference Denon DVD-2930, but a careful study of the settings possible to find the cause of this phenomenon: it turned out, the machine was set to 5.1 multichannel audio. After the transfer of stereo stiffness is gone and Sherwood SD-871 was playing no less comfortable than a reference source. At the same time as detailed and expressive.
