It's a digital world. A world where sound surrounds you and pictures dazzle the imagination. It's a world where the excitement of the movies is captured and brought to life on a simple five-inch disc - the size of a CD. Welcome to the incredible world of DVD. As a leader in digital technology, Panasonic made possible and forever changed the face of home theatre. Panasonic has packed big-screen excitement into the world's smallest and lightest DVD player.
The Panasonic DVD-F87K five-disc DVD changer offers progressive-scan playback, Dolby Digital and DTS Surround Sound compatibility, and a slim design that makes it a perfect fit for any entertainment system. Other features include compatibility with DVD Audio, DVD-RAM, DVD-R, and CD-R/RW discs, as well as MP3 and WMA digital audio playback. This model also comes with a silver finish.
The five-disc changer allows you to keep up to five discs of any format in your player at the same time. A front-loading rotary carousel lets you change any of the four not-playing discs without disturbing what you're watching or listening to. The Audio/JPEG onscreen navigation menu enables you to quickly search for MP3 and WMA audio files or view JPEG images recorded onto CD-R and CD-RW discs via an onscreen menu. This feature also works with CD-R discs that feature multisession recordings.
The HighMAT (High-Performance Media Access Technology) feature, codeveloped with Microsoft, is a digital-media standard that provides a dramatically improved method of storing, arranging, and playing back personal digital photo, music, and video collections on recordable discs such as CD-RW media.
Panasonic's Depth Enhancer noise-reduction feature only processes an image's background, helping to leave the delicate details of the main subject intact and providing sharp images with incredible depth. The DVD-F87S uses a 54 MHz/10-bit video digital-to-analog converter, which reduces digital artifacts to give you a better picture.
When you play DVD movies encoded with DTS or Dolby Digital soundtracks, the built-in decoder processes all six channels of audio information (left front, right front, center, left-surround, right-surround, and low-frequency effects) without the need for an external decoder, and with the right audio components, lets you enjoy the amazing fidelity of discrete 5.1-channel surround sound. The decoder also allows you to control speaker configuration.
Other features include picture control (brightness, color, contrast, gamma correction, and sharpness), disc program play, and disc random play.
Tech Talk Progressive scan: Progressive scanning, otherwise known as 480p ("p" for "progressive"), creates a picture signal with double the scan lines of a conventional interlaced picture, or 480i, to create a noticeably sharper image. Standard DVD-Video players use interlaced scanning to produce a picture. Interlaced scanning combines two fields to generate a picture of 525 scan lines (480 of which are displayed). Your television projects an interlaced image by first scanning the 240 odd-numbered lines of one field (in 1/60th of a second), followed by the 240 even-numbered lines of the other field (in 1/60th of a second). A progressive video processor enables all 525 lines (480 of which are displayed) to be scanned at the exact same time. A television with 480p component inputs can completely scan the entire image in 1/60th of a second, so it only takes one field to build one frame of video.
What's in the Box
Panasonic DVD-F87K 5-disc changer, remote control, 2 AA batteries, AC power cord, composite A/V (RCA) cable, and printed operating instructions.
1 Frustrating, but good sound
The good news; the sound is surprisingly good, and far better than even expensive players from very few years back. It's darn cheap. It plays many types of discs. There are many useful features, including the dialog enhancer, a setting that lets you "recover" information lost in the digitization process (not sure I got that right, but that's what the manual seems to say), and a 5 disc changer. The bad news; it has the single most frustrating, counter-intuitive, and simply poor user interface of any CD/DVD player I've ever seen. I spend more time swearing at this player than I do in the rest of my day put together. It has many settings, which it forgets when you turn it off! Very often, it simply locks out options for no apparent reason; I can't get from one setting to the next, and I fail to see the logic. I could go on, but only buy this (or any more modern descendent from Panasonic) if you place $$ far, far above ease of use and overall satisfaction. I would only recommend this to a complete and utter masochist; I leave mine on 24x7 and avoid switching settings, just so I don't have to drive my self crazy dealing with the poor design. But the sound is, as I said, quite good. And it was cheap! But I certainly would not recommend it for most (any?) people. I intend to give mine to charity and buy something else when I find a newer machine (from someone other than this brand) that I like more. But it will tide me over until then, so it was probably worth what little it cost in $.
2 Good, But............
This player has good sound and picture. It is comvinient to combine the cd & dvd players to save room. However like another reviewer said the manual sucks. I have had this 2 months and I still havent' figured out how to shuffle and program cd's. The manual says you can. But it doesn't say how!
It also doesn't have a counter like every other cd and dvd player I have had. So for these 2 reasons I can only give it a 3 star rating.
3 good, multifeatured product
Reviews trashing this item appear to be the work of a few diehards that got burned at some point. This is a good machine that has so many bells and whistles they can't be listed here. Poor manual given the "bells etc" but you can get there.
I got mine for CD play primarily. DVD is a freebie in my mind. I used the $30 discount for signing up for a Amazon credit card. A no-brainer at $80. total!
Panasonic is a good brand, other reviewers (Consumers Reports for one) give it good marks. And, yes, it does play DVD+R discs although not listed on the box.
Made in Singapore vs. China so, hopefully, it won't be a 6 month throwaway.
4 Do They QA These Things?
Like another reviewer, I had a Panasonic 5 disk DVD player but that one lasted 5 years. Based on that experience, I purchased this one. Unlike my previous model, this one's metal screw that holds/spins the turn table is raised above the height of the 5 DVD slots. If one of the DVDs pops out it will be ruined by that screw head...as what happened to a disk that is no longer sold. It is experiences like this that will prevent me from buying from a particular manufacturer like Panasonic again.
5 Be ready to throw it away in 6 months to 1 year.
I have got this player and I have started getting H07 errors too as mentioned by others in their reviews. I thought I needed to clean the lens or something. But researching this problem on google basically tells me that this player is no more than a paper weight for me now. Buy this only if you want to invest in a dvd player every year (which may not be such a bad idea given that the prices are droping at an alarming rate)
6 Another H07 warning for this DVD player!
I have owned numerous Panasonic electronics items over the past 30 years. This includes radios, phones, 3 VHS players, a VHS camcorder, boombox, TV, answering machine, and Mini-DV camcorder. I also own a 5-disc Panasonic DVD player, which is a inoperable piece of metal and plastic occupying my entertainment system shelf.
Soon after the warranty expires(if not before), your Panasonic DVD player is LIKELY to develop a malfunction which is displayed on the DVD as an "H07" error. This code is well known to owners of Panasonic DVD players. It is a signal that the spindle motor has failed, or is failing, not turning the DVDs enough to be "read" by the laser.
PLEASE research well on Google, Metacrawler, or your Internet engine of choice on the dreaded Panasonic "H07" code. I HIGHLY recommend against buying a Panasonic DVD player until the company acknowledges and corrects their manufacturing error in these machines. Even if your machine is still under warranty, you will need to ship it to Panasonic at your cost, and if it is past the first 90 days of ownership, you will pay $90.00 per hour for repairs.
This DVD player is NOT recommended.
7 Panasonic MP3 playback
I purchased the Panasonic DVD-F87 player in part because the literature said it played MP3 files. Unfortunately, the player inserted an audible blip between many of the MP3 songs, so I returned it and got the Panasonic S47 model. It had the same problem. MP3 discs that played fine on several computer drives, a Sony DVD player and a Phillips portable CD player would hiccup between songs on the Panasonic. Panasonic denied they had a problem, and tried to blame it on Roxio's MP3-burning software, but one of Panasonic's authorized repair facilities told me that Panasonic's MP3 reader is buggy and that Panasonic has not provided a fix (as of September 2004). So, if MP3 playback is important to you, steer away from Panasonic players.
8 A pretty darn good space saving, high performance machine
I picked up this little beauty to replace both an ancient and cranky 5-disc CD Player and a single disc DVD player. I now have breathing room in the old entertainment center, so even my antique turntable can take a creaky spin every now and again.
Seeing that I can't connect a toaster without help, I called on my trusty better half to unravel the mystery of setting it up. In non-technical language, a.k.a. plain English, this is what you need to know about this mighty machine:
1. The manual needs a lot of work. It's neither user-friendly nor idiot-proof. Ditto for the boxy silver remote.
2. It is easy to set up if you already know how to do that sort of thing. (We have component video connections to the TV and digital coaxial connections to the receiver.)
3. It gives excellent sound from both CDs and DVDs. With the benefit of 5.1 surround, movies like Master and Commander can literally move you, and CDs have never sounded better.
4. It is as convenient as a 5-disc CD changer as it is a 5-disc DVD player, except that when you're playing more than one CD you'll need to put it in "CD Mode" first.
5. It can easily play different types of media, such as audio Cds, MP3s, DVDs and those other mysterious formats - just put in the discs and play away.
6. The video quality is very good on a regular TV. You can set up different pre-defined picture quality modes, or customize to suit your own taste if you're a techie or a buff. If you have difficulty making up your mind, ignore this option.
7. The player is chock full of options, but you have to explore for yourself, which can be a bit confusing until you get the hang of it. Read the manual, you say? See Item 1 above.
8. There's on-screen information for MP3s and photo CDs, with different views available for the contents. (Groups/folders or entire playlists)
9. I can't comment on the progressive scan feature, since I don't have an HD or HD-ready TV - yet. (Still waiting for that lottery win)
10. It is supposed to play DVD-Audio discs, but you need 6.1 channel inputs on your receiver to play them. Unfortunately, our receiver is lacking these inputs, but then again, I am also lacking any DVD-Audio discs.
Electronics buffs will probably say that it needs a bit of "tweaking" to get it to look and sound just right, but it looks and sounds great to me. All in all a very good player, perhaps excellent when you factor in the price.
Amanda Richards, October 1, 2004
9 Woa...
This is one of the best deals on the DVD player market. First rate sound, video, and features with a bargain price. I own a Go Video D2730 networked DVD player also and I thoght it is a decent one. Bought this one just for some dialog enhancement. Never imagined this Panasonic one makes so much difference in sound and video quality. One of my best buys ever!
