Whether your living room is currently home to an HDTV or you're merely thinking of "someday," the DVP-NC665P/B stands ready to deliver the full potential of your DVDs through Sony's Precision Cinema Progressive de-interlacer (scanning) with 3:2 pulldown processing. Progressive scanning, referred to as 480p for the number of horizontal lines that compose the video image, creates a picture using twice the scan lines of a conventional DVD picture, giving you higher resolution and sharper images while eliminating nearly all motion artifacts.

Precision Cinema Progressive technology uses a 12-bit video DAC (digital-to-analog converter) with 108 MHz processing to detect image changes at the pixel level, rather than at the level of whole scan lines. That makes this player's picture more faithful to the source--whether film or video--because it uses separate, optimized algorithms to handle different pixel behaviors. Separate algorithms are also used to process the moving and still parts of an image, resulting in sharp backgrounds with moving objects that are free from motion artifacts.

DVD mastering introduces a common distortion when adjusting 24-frames-per-second movies to 30 fps video; 3:2 pulldown digitally corrects this distortion, removing the redundant information to display a film-frame-accurate picture. Composite- and S-video outputs bring compatibility with nearly any television.

Both Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1-channel surround-sound signals can also be routed through the player's digital-audio outputs (one each of RCA coaxial and Toslink optical) for a simpler connection to a compatible AV receiver (but be aware that digital-audio interconnects are not supplied).

Precision Drive 2 provides a mechanism for reading DVDs that are in less-than-perfect condition, eliminating errors in playback due to imperfect, scratched, or warped discs. Past generations of Precision Drive technology were only able to compensate for warped discs by moving the entire optical block, which took more time and limited the amount of correction possible. This newer system simplifies the process by moving just the lens (instead of the entire optical block) for faster and more accurate error correction.

As soon as you hook up the DVD player, a special Quick Setup screen appears ready to guide you through configuration, step by step, screen by screen. DVD resume memory kicks in whenever you stop a DVD. Later, when you come back to it, the player will pick up right where you left off before. The player holds resume points for up to six discs.

Other playback features include 10-second instant replay, DVD/CD Text display (with applicable discs), a digital video enhancer, digital video EQ (equalization), custom parental control memory for 40 discs, as well as Advanced SmoothScan and SmoothSlow Modes.

What's in the Box
DVD player, remote control, 2 AA batteries, a stereo analog audio/composite-video interconnect, a user's manual, and warranty information.