The Sony SLV-D300P is a Progressive DVD Player with a HiFi VCR!

Author's Rating:

Pros: It is a space saver with the DVD and VCR all in one!

Cons: No built-in dubbing from the DVD to VCR!

The Bottom Line: 
Overall if you are looking for a combo DVD and VCR unit, then the Sony SLV-D300P will not disappoint you.

Author's Review
The Sony SLV-D300P gives you a great progressive DVD player that will play DVDs, CDs and VHS tapes. The SLV-D300P is a progressive DVD player that will play on both an analog and an HDTV ready TV. Quality is great on any TV but the HDTV gives you the best quality with this player.

With this unit you can watch a DVD movie and record your favorite TV show at the same time.

DVD Player
Facing the Sony SLV-D300P the DVD/CD player is on the left side and is made for Region 1 coded DVDs. The player is a selectable interlaced/progressive scan player with a 54MHz/10-bit video Digital to Analog converter and a 96kHz/24-bit audio digital-to-analog converter. Interlaced-scan splits the video signal picture frame into 2 sequential fields at 30 frames per second into 60 fields. Progressive scan displays the entire frame in a single sweep with a display of 60 frames per second; this gives you better detail and less flicker. Your TV must be HDTV or HDTV ready for the progressive scan.

In DVDs it will playback DVD-R & DVD-RW, DVD+R, & DVD+RW and your DVD movies.

It will playback CDs, CDR & CDRW and CDs with JPEG video and MP3 music files.

You can zoom in a picture up to 4 times and move around the screen to view what area you wish to view. As long s the disc is left in the tray the player will resume to your last location and you can bookmark up to 3 places at a time.

MP3 playback is achieved by using CDR and CRW discs using the ISO 9660 level 1/level 2 or Joliet formats. The player recognizes up to 200 tracks and up to 100 albums at a time.

JPEG playback also works on CD-R and CD-RW discs using the ISO 9660 level 1/level 2 or Joliet formats. Some of the playback features are, a slide show, rotate an image, and a 2x/4x zoom.

VCR
Internal dubbing from the DVD player to the VHS recorder is not possible!

The VCR is on the right side of the unit, it has 4 video heads with HiFi stereo with MTS decoding. It has a built-in 181-channel tuner with an 8-event/1-month timer.

It also has Quasi S-VHS playback at standard VHS resolution.

The front-panel A/V inputs provide an easy connection for something like your video camera.

Recording time can be set to turn off automatically at different times from 30 minutes to 4 hours. With the timer you can record programs on a daily or weekly basis as far as a month in advance with up to 8 recording settings at a time.

The index function automatically marks the beginning of each new recording. You can scan to a new index point or have is playback a sample of about 5 seconds to find what you are looking for.

You can auto play a VHS tape and automatically repeat it when the tape is done and rewound itself.

If you record in the SP mode and the recorder detects that there is not enough room on the tape; then it will automatically change to the EP mode so it can get the entire program on the tape.

Remote
The Sony wireless remote PMT-V501A is a multi-brand preprogrammed for this unit and different TV brands.

It is a simple looking remote that is easy to use and understand. My only complaint is the buttons are too small!

What You Get
The Sony SLV-D300P progressive DVD player with a HiFi VCR
The wireless remote with 2 AA batteries
A 75 ohm coaxial cable and a RCA video/audio cable
Instructions
A warranty of 1 year for parts and 90 days for labor

Overall
The video is excellent in the DVD player connected to my Mitsubishi 73 inch HD-Upgradeable Television. Now the VCR part looks as good as any good VCR I have seen but when displayed on a 73 inch screen it shows that it does not come close to the DVD quality.

DVD and VCR connections are done easily through the RCA and RF connections. To get the best picture and sound for the DVD you need to connect either to the S-video or Component connection and the optical connection to a receiver made for Dolby 5.1 and DTS sound.

I still prefer a separate DVD and VCR because I would rather pay extra for the DVD player with the features I want and pay less for a VCR that doesn’t get much use these days.


Here are some of my other DVD Player reviews!
Apex AD 703 DVD Changer
Audiovox DVD 1500
GoVideo DVR5000 w/ Built-In Dolby Digital/DTS Decoder
Hitachi DV P505U DVD Player
Kenwood DV 403 DVD Player
Kenwood CD-3280M 200-Disc CD Changer
The Mitsubishi DD-6030 DVD Player
Panasonic DMR E20 DVD recorder
Pioneer DVR 7000 DVD recorder
Pioneer DV 354 DVD Player
Pioneer Elite DVL-91 DVD Player
RCA RC5240P DVD Player
RCA RC5255P DVD Player
Sony DVP S530D DVD player
Sony DVP CX850D DVD changer
Yamaha DVD S700