Review:

Well, the player finally came out, and while it does not have any zooming capability (other than a simple “expand” mode that crops the sides of the picture and expands it to fill more of a 4:3 screen), it produces the finest picture of any of the Panasonic players using the Sage/Faroudja chip to date.

The RP-82 is also Panasonic’s first low priced player to offer DVD-A playback, and has built-in DD and DTS decoders for those who may not have receivers with these features built-in. Additionally, it has both optical and coaxial digital outputs for those who may have used all of the available inputs of one type or the other on their receivers or preamps.

The player only comes in the combination chrome and silver color seen in the picture, which is an unfortunate marketing choice in my opinion. While I don’t mind its presence in my otherwise all-black component stack, it would have been nice to have the choice. For those who must have black, the Panasonic CP-72 5-disc changer produces a virtually identical picture to the 82, and is available in black.

Build quality is about average for a player in this price range, which means a lot of plastic and lightweight. The disc tray has a nice smooth motion, actually better than a $1000 Toshiba SD-9000 I once owned. Disc loading and chapter access are a little noisy, but the unit is silent during regular playback. The remote, as many have observed, is pretty bad. The transport buttons are too small and the IR range is poor. After I opened the box and hooked up the player, the remote saw the light of day long enough to be learned to my universal remote, then was relegated to a drawer where it’s been ever since.

Well, so much for the preliminaries. Let’s talk about where this player really shines, its video performance.

Video
As was the case with its predecessors, the RP-56 and 62, the RP-82 uses the Sage/Faroudja (now Genesis/Sage/Faroudja) Fli2200 deinterlacing chip. The advantages of this chip are well known, so I wont go into them here. Where the RP-82 differs from the previous Panasonic players that used this chip is in the use of Panasonic’s high-end MPEG decoder, which is also used in the $700 RP-91. Panasonic’s MPEG decoders are well respected, are always chroma bug free, and as a result are often used by other manufacturers in their players (the Denon DVD-1600, which has an identical video section as the RP-82, being one of them).

Another change from previous Pannys is that CCS (cross color suppression) has been turned off on the RP-82. CCS is a feature of the Fli2200 chip that is intended to prevent artifacts resulting from poor Y/C separation in cheaper MPEG decoders. Since this is not a problem with the Panny decoder, turning CCS off prevents the flickering that can occur in scenes with saturated colors on the previous models (the red toy box top in “Toy Story” is one of the classic tests for this).

So, how does it look? In a word, outstanding! I used to own an RP-56, as well as some competing players by JVC and Toshiba, and the RP-82’s advantage is that consistently presents a great picture whether in Film or Video mode. I ran the player through many of the DVD tests (Galaxy Quest, Toy Story, Super Speedway and The Abyss) established by our friends at the Secrets of Home Theater Hifi, and, as you would expect, the RP-82 passed them all with flying colors. There’s no combing and the DCDi feature prevents the jaggies often seen in moving diagonal lines. Colors are true and transitions between bright, saturated colors are crisp and clean. Occasional drops into Video mode are unnoticeable if they’re not prolonged.

There are various Cinema modes, but the differences between them are subtle (as they should be), and I generally have the player set on Normal, as well as Auto 1 (which should be used all of the time except when viewing some rare discs that are at 30 fps).

The player’s layer changes are about average for the ones I’ve used. They generally vary between 0.5 and 1 second depending on the disk. On some discs they’re almost imperceptible. I’ve watched about 80 discs since I got the player, and only a copy of the Lord of the Rings made it freeze up in one section. I returned that copy and its replacement has not caused any problems.

Running the player through the Avia test patterns just confirmed its excellent performance. There’s no problem with the Zone Plate tests and the vertical lines in the 6.75 MHz circle resolution test were sharp and well defined. Y/C separation was excellent as well, with a well-defined transition between the yellow and red bars.

The overall video performance of this player is exceptional considering its price and is easily equal to or better than players costing much more. The only players I’ve seen with a better picture cost much more, and the differences would only be noticeable on a video system way beyond what most buyers of this player likely own.

If it had zoom or scaling ability, I’d give it 5 paws. As it is, the exceptional video performance earns it a 4.5 paw rating.

Audio
As my first player with DVD-Audio capability, I didn’t have the ability to make direct comparisons with other players on my sound system. However, I was able to listen to some of my favorite material on some highly regarded Denon players (the DVD-1600 and 3800) and would expect them to sound better on DVD-A and redbook CD playback through their analog outputs than they did on the RP-82. That’s not to say that the RP-82 was lacking in its audio capabilities however. DVD-A playback is very good, and just makes me want more than the dozen or so discs that I currently own. Whether it’s a two-channel Hi-Res audio disk (like Jazz/Concord) or a multi-channel disk (like Steely Dan’s Two Against Nature), the sound is exceptional compared with redbook CDs. The additional detail in the sound of these disks is the most noticeable thing to me. Whether that’s more from the meticulous remastering that some of these disks have had than from the additional resolution is a discussion for another time. In any event, the better disks are a joy to listen to, even on the RP-82. As is the case with all but the more expensive players, there is no bass management for DVD-Audio on the RP-82, but at its low price, you can pick up an Outlaw ICBM and still be under $500.

As far as CD playback through the analog outputs is concerned, the sound is very clean, but doesn’t have the warmth I’ve experienced with some of the better CD players. For a DVD player, it’s not bad, and certainly better than they used to be. I still use a separate CD player for CDs anyway.

DVDs and CDs output through the digital outputs sound the same as they did with my previous DVD players, since my receiver’s doing the digital-to-analog conversion. I find that players in this price range sound pretty much the same when using the digital outputs. I did not have the opportunity to try out the player’s onboard DD and DTS decoders, but I don’t foresee there being any big differences in sound between this and other players in that regard.

Without DVD-A capability, I would rate this player 3 paws for its audio ability. Having DVD-A playback kicks it up another half paw. The audio performance of the RP-82 earns it 3.5 paws.

Conclusion
I guess it’s no secret that I am very impressed by the RP-82. It would be a worthy addition to anyone’s system at double the price. You could combine the RP-82 with the Outlaw ICBM and an SACD player, and still not spend $1000. For anyone considering a progressive scan DVD player that provides superlative video and decent audio for a terrific price, look no further than the Panasonic RP-82.

Features:

• Hi-Speed Progressive-Scan DVD-Audio/Video Player
• DVD-RAM, CD-R/RW, MP3 and WMA Playback