First Look
The player is very easy to look at with its simple black exterior, no Contrasting streaks running down the edges or buttons that seem to jump out of the front panel to grab your attention. Everything has been kept to a bare minimum. You will like the simplicity. That includes the perfect 'matchbox' height of the player as well. The loading tray has been positioned on the left of the front panel next to which is the eject button. The display is kept at the centre and the transport functions to the right, in between is the very convenient USB port. The SP406 is available in silver as well.
Technological aspect
DVD players now-a-days play all forms of discs that are out there, besides Blu-ray as that's a little too expensive to implement with as much ease as say DivX playback. HDMI, regardless of Blu-ray playability, is present on all DVD players coming out into the market. Including the DV-SP406. This Is capable of upscaling your standard DVDs to 1080p for your digital television sets, keeping the quality to its optimal at all times.
The audio goes through a top-of-the-line 192kHz/24-blt DAC along with a 108MHz/14-bit video DAC, which is the primary reason why this player has been priced as high as it is. The OSD is very easy to navigate through with its Disc Navigator system that ready simplifies your controllability of the DVD.
Remote control convenience
The remote is slightly less sophisticated than the new Onkyo receiver remotes, however, it does seem to look a tad overcrowded. The buttons could have been spaced a little further apart by removing the 'one-remote-for-all' aspect of it, and getting rid of some of the buttons such as the volume control for an Onkyo receiver if you have one. It makes more sense for a receiver remote to have controls for a DVD player rather than the other way around.
Viewing experience of DV – SP406
When connected with usual HDMI cable from the DV-SP406 and performed some color calibration, like most DVD players in this range, the lowest black did make it through the video DAC. You will get a decent brightness-contrast balance and will be pleasantly surprised to see the high frequencies being handled well.
While watching DVD-video, the quality will remain as crisp as one could have asked for even though the edges may blur at times.
Upscaling capacity of the SP406 is fine to boost the resolution to fit LG LCD. However, there were some potholes along the way, especially in the darker sequences, that took a beating in pixflation. DivX quality is satisfactory.
The real good part was the short time the player takes to read the film off the USB drive — Indexing the entire 700MB file took not more than the time the player takes to spin and read a standard DVD.
Bottom line
To take into account that the PlayStations is also available for around the same price, the DV-SP406'S Rs 17.500 price-tag is sensible. Yet, if you were to go in for the DV-SP406, we would imagine the companionship between you two would be a long lasting one. Well, there might be a rough patch between you and the sharpness of the video at times or the remote controller for that matter, but that isn't a strong enough reason to not to go for it.
