detail information

• Supports a wide range of standard and high definition TV formats and standards, including progressive and interlaced scanning.
• Works on non-HDCP compliant TVs, making it compatible with older HDTV sets
• Very good upscaling when it comes to on-screen writing and certain fine detailed screens such as furry animals and action.
• Built-in DTS and Dolby digital 24-bit decoder, including the most customisable audio settings we have ever come across on any standalone player.
• Plays NTSC DVDs outputted as PAL video and vice versa.
• Supports the playback of DVD+/-R and DVD+/-RW discs.
• Supports the playback of CD-R/RW discs including Video CDs, Super Video CDs and Audio CDs.
• Very wide range of audio and video outputs, including VGA output to suit most projectors.
• Supports MP3 and WMA playback in a wide range of encoding formats.
• Multi-regional out of the box.
• Plays JPEG images in high definition.
• Plays HDCD (high definition) audio discs.
• Remembers the last point of playback, even after powering off the player or ejecting the disc.
• Upgradable firmware, which can be programmed using a disc containing an updated firmware image.

• Has trouble recognising DVD+R discs (plays the disc fine if it successfully recognises it).
• Does not support 6 Megapixel or higher resolution images.
• Very sluggish with JPEG images - takes 30 seconds to display each 1280x960 image, including picture to picture navigation and over a minute just to display a 4 Megapixel image!
• No 9-picture display mode despite the manual giving instructions (which we have no luck with)
• Does not support the playback of MPEG4, XviD or DivX content.
• Upscaling has the occasional issue with certain scenes, such as showing an image of dry hay and straw in a hayshed.
• Poor signalling quality on VGA output.
• Quite tricky to navigate through certain menus, at least from our first experience.
• No screensaver during the playback of audio CDs, MP3's or WMA Tracks.
• Images cannot be shown during the playback of MP3 or WMA tracks.
• Brightness level too high with weak contrast on HDMI-output (requires significant TV adjustments to compensate)

As this is our first review of a standalone high definition DVD upscaling player, we are unable to compare it to previous reviews.  On the other hand, this is certainly a well featured player, which handles pretty much any standard or high definition TV or amplifier one may ever come across.  It also supports the playback and upscaling of Video CDs, Super Video CDs and discs containing images. 

The main positive points:  Unlike most upscaling DVD players and set-top boxes, this player is designed to work with pretty much every standard and high definition TV and projector on the market, so while some of the earlier TVs may lack HDCP support or feature component input only, this player will be fully compatible.  When it comes to picture quality, we were very impressed with how well it handles certain scenes the projector's own up-conversion could not handle very well.  Finally, when it comes to speaker configuration, this player will also cater for pretty much any speaker configuration one may encounter also, including the earlier surround sound systems where large speakers were commonly used instead of a subwoofer.

The main negative points:  While this player has quite a lot of features for a HD upscaling DVD player, unfortunately it lacks a few features found with most new DVD players such as MPEG4, XviD and DivX playback, support for the playback of images with background music and the ability to play high resolution images (over 5 Megapixel).  We were quite disappointed with how poorly it handles image files also, where it takes around 30 seconds just to navigate between 1 Megapixel images, never mind over a minute just to display a 4 Megapixel image!  Finally, the player struggles with loading DVD+R discs, at least those recorded with our LiteOn LVW-5045 DVD recorder.

To sum it all up, this player looks like it easily do well in the time it takes for HD DVD and Blu-ray players to fall in price once they launch.  We would also recommend it to anyone who is looking for a decent high definition multi-regional DVD upscaling player where it is vital that it is fully compatible with their existing AV equipment and setup, particularly those with an earlier HDTV set with a non-HDCP compliant DVI input or who want to use it with a projector.

You may discuss/comment this review below or in this forum thread. This forum thread may also be used to ask questions around this drive or request additional tests.

Thanks to:

E-Net Distribution - United Kingdom for providing the RiDisc DVD-R,  Datawrite Blue DVD-R and Datawrite Titanium DVD-R media used in this review.

MMORE International B.V. - The Netherlands for providing the DVD-R media used in this review.

 

Sky Media Manufacturing sa - Switzerland for providing the CD-R 52x media used in this review.