Cary DVD 7 Upscaling DVD player Report
Home Theater TALK
by Mike Knapp
High definition video discs are here and causing quite a stir in the home theater enthusiast community. Some people are all over HD-DVD and others are touting the massive storage of the Blu-Ray model. But alas, they are not compatible with each other and both have a different group of studios behind them. So, in a perfect world we would have a universal player, a single format or all the studios releasing films on both mediums. But the world in which we enthusiasts live is hardly perfect. Currently, to view all the HD titles being released, we would need to own two players, and have HDMI switching on our processors or multiple HDMI connections on the display.
One of the major rubs that the long in the tooth enthusiast felt when the new formats were announced was that neither would allow the output of the new, glorious high definition signal to be passed through the widely accepted component jacks that we had been using for our HD content for 7 years or more. It was as if, suddenly, the studios just decided that the standard HD output was going to be done away with, no matter how many people had sets that used ONLY this connection for HD content. Well, the fan was spinning full speed when the shit hit it. The seasoned veterans that had bellied up to the bar for the newest in HD technology displays back when they cost 5K and up were not very happy with this announcement to put it mildly.
A storm brewed on the internet forums and sure enough, the studios backed down and did not implement the “flag” on their HD discs that would down-rez their component outputs, although they did leave the door open to do so later. Buying a new player that outputs HD over the component outs is like gambling. You are betting that the studios don’t disable that feature on the next blockbuster release.
But, there is a temporary victory. Chalk one up for the consumer! But not so fast…the mega enthusiast has a large collection of standard definition DVD’s. Collections in the 1000’s are not at all uncommon. The new players can up-convert those old discs to a great looking 1080I resolution but…not through the only input the people that bought into HD display technology early could use. Yep, they chose to allow HD analog to pass through but blocked upconverted images over the analog outputs.
So, are we back to square one? If you have a substantial collection of standard definition software and you want to watch it upconverted on your early display, what are you going to do? Well you have several offshore manufacturer options. I have personally had three players that upconverted over the component outputs in my rig. I had an early Zenith, a Neu-Neo and now the Cary DVD 7. I will simply state that I should not even be comparing the former players to the Cary. The difference between what they did and what the Cary does is of galactic proportions.
Let’s get the meat off the bone here and right onto the plate. The Cary DVD 7 produces the absolute finest image I have ever seen off a DVD player in my home by an infinite margin. The good news for me and my over 1K standard definition DVD collection is that it does this via a set of component jacks. Yes, component. Not only that but you get to pick your poison in resolutions as well.
There are two sets of component outputs on the DVD 7, one of them standard 75ohm RCA connectors and the other with BNC connectors. It also has and S-Video output, a composite output a HDMI output and an RGB output. The corresponding resolutions are listed below.
Composite: 480I
S-Video: 480I
Interlaced Component outs (standard RCA plugs) 480I
Progressive Component outputs (BNC connectors) 480P-576P-720P-1080I-1080P
HDMI/RGBHV outputs: 480P, 576P, 720P, 1080I and for fixed pixel displays 600x800, 1024x768, 1366x768.
 Here is the kicker; all the outputs are active all the time. You can drive 5 sets off this player at once into 3 different resolutions. It of course does all the available audio formats available currently. And to top it off, it is a world class CD player as well, containing the audio section of the highly acclaimed Cary 303/300 CD player. It weighs in at 35 lbs and of course is classic Cary in appearance. The DVD 7 has a brushed metal faceplate and subdued tactile buttons. It is pure class all the way. It has balanced and unbalanced stereo outputs for those wishing to utilize its well appointed musical capabilities. Coax and optical fiber digital audio ports are present as well.
The player allows you to adjust the contrast, brightness and color saturation within its menu making it easily compatible with your already ISF tuned set. I needed to use these adjustments to bring the player into spec. The other two up-converting players I tried did not have this feature. All the other standard DVD player set-up options are included as well, screen shape, language etc. It will play PAL videos. Region free out of the box.
In the picture settings area it has a few bells and whistles. In the interlaced component settings you can adjust the tint and gamma, and it allows for a Y/C time correction. So forget the chroma-delay.
In the progressive section you get contrast, brightness and color adjustments. In the RGB and HDMI area you can adjust the contrast brightness and color as well.
One hitch and a happy ending. I noticed that whenever I set the C/B/C parameters and then changed discs, the player defaulted back to the factory settings. It would not lose my settings, but it ignored them. I called Gregg at Cary, told him of the issue and the next day in my e-mail there was a file that I burned to CD and flashed the player with. Solved! How’s that for customer service? I felt good to be of service as well.
There are a plethora of other settings, including some audio ones that I won’t go into other than to say, if you want it, this machine has it. It can even disable the video circuitry when you are using the player as a music component.
OK, here we go into how it looks and performs. The transport is smooth as a newborns ass and extremely quiet, the display is a deep black with blue letters and of course the power on light is a blue LED. Robust would be a good word for the build quality of the machine. It just looks beefy. The remote is pretty standard, no issues with its functionality. It has a nice powerful signal and wide dispersion.
I did run into one slight issue during the initial set-up. The progressive video outputs are factory set to 720P (which my display will not accept) so to use the OSD-GUI (on screen display graphic user interface) I had to hook up the interlaced component outs to change my settings and then swap the wires back over to the progressive outputs. I also had to purchase 3 BNC/RCA adaptors (very cheap at Parts Express). Then I was on my way. What to put in first? T-3 was the winner. I know it to have a great transfer and the soundtrack is full spectrum mayhem…why not give the machine the full boat right off the bat.
Wowzers! The other up-scalers didn’t do this. Not even close. The image I was seeing was stunning to say the least, and this was before I even calibrated it. Once I looked at the hot terminator chick for a little while I dragged out my copy of Digital Video Essentials and tuned her up. How does this get any better? The image looks almost as good as my HD broadcast material. So close that I would be hard pressed to tell a difference on film based material (video based material in HD is still the king). The colors held vivid and strong and the black level (it passes blacker than black) was on target. The upscaled NTSC signal does not have the color spectrum of a native ATSC signal, but it still looks very, very good.
The increased resolution provided by the Faroudja scaler made the image smooth, free of any jaggies or motion artifacts. I’ve been around scalers a long time. I remember when scalers were really interpolators, and quadruplers were really doublers. I also remember when the Dwin scaler was all the rage, and it did a fine job, but the scaler in this player is simply a cold 40 can of whoop ass. I sat in amazement for several hours playing scene after scene of my most familiar discs looking for some small chink in the armor. There was none to be found. The image was flawless.
Disc after disc my mind was continuously blown away by the image quality I was seeing from my standard definition DVD collection. I came to the conclusion that I could now safely wait out the HD disc format war. This player is that powerful. It was the answer to my quest for a player that would do justice to my collection and provide me with a pristine near HD experience from my existing library. No, you can’t make resolution that is not there, but this scaler comes very close.
I can’t let the audio section go unmentioned. It is simply awe inspiring. I have never experienced film audio so dynamic and clear. The unit has superb separation and steering and a presence that must be experienced to be believed. I have no idea what they did but they did it right. In addition to producing the best image I have seen from a DVD player, it also produced the finest audio.
I have since gone back and watched a few of my favorites and enjoyed them as if I was seeing them for the first time. This player introduced as large an image quality improvement as going from 480I to 480P did back those years many ago. A huge, huge video step forward.
I have heard the "but Mike, you can buy two HD players for what this cost you", and that is true. But that would not solve my issue. I could not upscale my current collection with either of the HD formats on my current display. And...From the examples I saw of budget minded onboard scaling I wouldn’t be interested after seeing the image the Cary produces anyway. I suppose it is possible that a 500 dollar player with brand new HD technology aboard may very well upscale as well as a 4K machine designed specifically to upscale at a premium quality, but that seems highly unlikely to me. The upscaling of the HD players would seem to be an "add on" feature where as with the Cary, it is the primary one.
I (and the folks at Cary) know this player will not be for everyone. They aren’t trying to reach everyone with this machine. The DVD 7 is a player intended for people that wish to wait for the HD format war to end, those that have a large current library and for those that want uncompromised audio from their DVD player, even if they are just using it to play CD’s. It is designed to serve the custom installation business as well, with the machine being so flexible in its outputs and able to feed so many different display types at the same time.
To get this level of performance from a player is not cheap. The player retails for 4K and can only be purchased from an authorized Cary dealer. Check Cary’s website for the dealer nearest you, if for nothing more than to see what this modern marvel is capable of. You will walk away impressed, I assure you.
Happy viewing everyone.
Mike
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