I picked this DVD player up for NZ$500. I asked the salesman about the negitive reviews I had read on this site and he stated that he has owned one himself and had no trouble like anything stated.
I took it home. Setup is easy through the HDMI cable, and initial seetings were easy. In fact I was watching a movie in 1080p within five mins of getting it home. I found the sound quality from movies,CD and SACD to be excellent. The alloy face exudes quality, and the remote is clear and easy to use.
To quote another reviewer:>>>>
HDMI is not up to it yet, better to connect through your optical cable to get the best sound quality. Minor point is the lack of an eject button on the remote - really strange and not well thought out.<<<<<

This may be because your receiver is crap!

Strengths:
Value for money, 1080p, SACD playback, all the plugs on the back.

Weaknesses:
None yet.


Paradigm monitor 7 Fronts
Paradigm CC 270 Center
Paradigm Atoms rears
Yamaha DVD S1700
Yamaha RXV1900
Wireworld HDMI cables
QED speakers cables
Big Samsung TV Plasma
Velodyne SPL1200 Sub !!!!

I think Yamaha's intentions were in the right place. The DVD video quality (particularly with 1080p) is good and together with the sound quality does provide a good entertainment platform. The remote is easy to use and setup not difficult at all - a pleasant change compared to the AV and other recent Yamaha products that take a little getting used to.

This is the second new unit I had so maybe I am now a bit biased. The unit does not handle less than perfect DVD's or CD's often prone to locking up or at least giving you that digital effect. This is very disappointing since my $45no brand DVD does not have any problems with the same DVD's and CD's !

HDMI is not up to it yet, better to connect through your optical cable to get the best sound quality. Minor point is the lack of an eject button on the remote - really strange and not well thought out.

You really do need to step up to 1080p if you want to minimise any digital signal failures and locking, on any other setting the unit is less than exceptable.

Further enquirying indicate I'm not alone and maybe Yamaha has a real problem child which will not anhance its reputation - so basically stay clear as may it last you a few years but the disappoinment may not be worth it.

The Yamaha product was something I waited for some months. It was great in the short showroom demo and looked as though it was going to be a winner. Sadly, 2 units later, a series of frustrations and after 4 months mine is up for sale - I'm off to Marantz or similar unit. Look for mine on Ebay - it will go cheap.

DONT is the only advise I give you.

Customer Service

Slow.

Similar Products Used:

I tried a number of units including the better Marantz units. Prior to this its been the usual lower spec Denon, older yamaha etc but even these outperformed the Yamaha reading DVD's but not in sound quality.

The picture quality, I have a limitation on my Panasonic AE900U being only 720p and DVD-S1700 can do up to 1080p I wish I could see the missed quality. Remote control is now bad pretty easy to use. Great sound and easy to read display on the front panel. Plenty of hookups in the back. HDMI, s-video, composite RCA audio outs. Great CD playback, haven't tested the DVD-S1700 on CD SA but I am sure it is outstanding.

I 've had a few lockups, but all DVD players lock up from time to time as my last one did more then this one.

Great product "Thumbs Up" Yamaha, MAIN FEATURES
High Picture Quality Advanced Features

1080p video out
Noise Shaped Video
Faroudja DCDi processing
Progressive Scan
216MHz/12-bit video DAC
Numerous Video Picture modes
MP3, JPEG, DivX® and WMA playback
Bass Management
RS-232C interface for a touch-panel controller
3 wide screen modes

High Sound Quality
DVD-Audio and Super Audio CD playback
192kHz/24-bit audio DAC
Audio Direct mode

OTHER NOTABLE FEATURES
Gold-plated terminals for all pin jacks
Video picture modes: Brightness, Color and Sharpness
Picture CD playback
3-step dimmer modes
NTSC/PAL complete conversion
Multiple repeat play
Program play
Aluminum front panel
Discrete remote control commands
Screen saver
Disc lock function
with all this the DVD-S1700 was worth every penny

Customer Service

I pesonally have not ever used it, I cannot answer this question

Similar Products Used:

Harman Kardon DVD47, 50, Samsung HD841, Pioneer DVD
My receiver is an all powerful Harman Kardon 7300 with 110 watts x7, 130 watts stereo mode running 2 towers, Paradigm Studio Reference 100 v3, Polk Surrounds and Paradigm Studio Reference 470 center speaker all have OUTSTANDING sound quality.

- All kind of outputs that you can imagine
- Disc loading time
- Image and audio quality

- Very very picky about DVDs
- Ugly on-screen graphics

I was waiting for the product for months to reach shops since Yamaha introduced it last September. Sales started Dec 2006 and I received it few weeks later.

As expected, S1700 looks great and matches perfectly with Yamaha top receivers. No bunch of buttons or pointless lights (only HDMI indicator is one too many).

Positive surprise is the highly improved load speed of discs. The CD and DVD video and audio quality is superb and silent transport does not interfere. The DivX quality on the other hand is ... well, missing. I guess nobody cares, neither do I.

Negative surprise is the quality of menus and other on-screen graphics. The menus are ugly and inconvenient to use. The wallpaper is so compressed and squared that it really hurts eyes.
I also miss permanent information on screen during CD playback.

There is no "Multi" TV standard any more, you can just choose either PAL or NTSC. S1700 can convert video between the standards. Or at least Yamaha thinks, it can. In real life, you have to modify the setting by hand to match the video standard.

For me all previously mentioned negative aspects are not really important. But there is also one big problem. The device has serious temperature-compensation problem on data read layer. When the device warms up, it refuses to play any of my home-made DVDs. It also creates breaks playing factory-DVDs.
Tried another player, same problem.

What's the use of brilliant video and audio quality, if it is jerky?
So now I don't have S1700 any more...