detail information

In this page, we carry out various tests such as to see which audio codec bit rates the player supports and how well the player copes with HQV testing.  For those interested in playing discs from outside of their DVD region, we will also cover the testing of discs from different regions.

Audio File Tests:

As this player is capable of playing WMA and MP3 audio, some may ask about what bit rates and modes of each codec is supported.  For example, WMA could mean WMA standard, WMA professional, WMA voice, WMA VBR or WMA DRM, not to mention the choice of bit rates also. As this player cannot be connected up directly to a PC for Windows Media Player to authenticate it, this obviously rules out WMA DRM support. 

For these tests, we used Goldwave to create different Wave formats, LAME 3.96.1 to create different MP3 formats and Windows Media Encoder 9 series to create different WMA formats.

Wave Audio

While most DVD players support the playback of MP3 and WMA, apparently some will also play the basic uncompressed PCM wave format.  For this test, we created several wave files of different sample rates, bit depth, both stereo and mono.  However, like the NeuNeo, the DVD player would not recognise the wave files as playable files, let alone attempt to play any.

MP3 Audio

As MP3 is still the most widely used audio format when it comes to consumers carrying their music on the move or downloading it online, some may ask what bit rates it supports or whether it plays variable bit rate, etc.  When encoding MP3, we left LAME to decide on the sample rate and MPEG version.  We will also test free-format bit rates in which the MP3 is encoded at a non-standard bit rate, such as 125kbps for example. 

The Sample rates and MPEG Versions LAME used for CBR encoding are as follows:

The Sample rates and MPEG Versions LAME used for VBR encoding are as follows:

For the Free-format bit rate tests, we tested 88kbps and 152kbps to be in-between the regular bit rates and still be a multiple of 8, 125kbps to test a bit-rate that is both non-standard and not a multiple of 8 and finally from 328kbps to 640kbps in steps of 8kbps. 

The results of all the MP3 tests are as follows:

It is nice to see that the player can play all standard bit-rates in both constant bit rate and variable bit rate.  While navigating between the MP3 tracks, we also noticed that the player is very quick to navigate from one track to the next, much like with playing back an Audio CD in that the next track begins playing the moment we change track.  Please beware that when we attempted to play some of the higher non-standard free-format bit rates, we got loud abrupt noises from our speakers, so please do not attempt to play these type of files, especially with the speakers turned up as these noises could potentially cause serious speaker damage. 

WMA Audio

As pretty much everyone has Windows Media player installed on their PC and many use it to rip their music into WMA (often without realising it), it is handy to be able to play Windows Media audio also.  When WMA version 9 came out, Microsoft added a professional WMA format as well as a Voice WMA format to this version, so these tests will cover testing out these special versions of WMA. 

As Windows Media encoder gives so many combinations of bit rates, sample rates and options for encoding WMA, we have grouped bit-rates for a sample rate together to shorten the table when ever a group all passed.  For a few bit rates, Windows Media Encoder gave a 'Low Delay' option by default, so in these few cases, there is an '*' beside the bit rate.

The results are as follows:

Note:  * = Low Delay

While the player has no issue with the most common WMA bit rates one will likely encounter, unfortunately unlike MP3, it will not play audio encoded with sampling rates of 8,000Hz, 11,050Hz or 16,000Hz as with the NeuNeo.  However, it will play all standard bit rate encodings ranging from 16kbps (22kHz) all the way up to about 500kbps for the quality based VBR encoding and can play CBR, VBR, ABR Peak and Quality based VBR encodings.  Like most other DVD players supporting WMA, the player does not support the new Voice and Professional versions of WMA included from version 9.  Navigation time between WMA tracks is about 2 to 3 seconds.

Video File Tests:

In our last standalone DVD recorder review of the LiteOn LVW-5045, to our surprise the recorder was able to play MPEG 1 & 2 data files, including PVR content that was recorded from satellite.  However, when we tried loading a CD containing some MPEG 1 & 2 files with an .MPG extension, the player rejected the disc like with the NeuNeo.  The same happened when we tried an XviD AVI file.  In either case, the player would eject the disc within a few seconds of loading it.  When we combined the MPG and AVI files with MP3 files, the player only listed the MP3 tracks as if this was the only content the disc contained.

JPEG Picture Tests:

With the rapid growth of digital camera usage, it is nice to be able to show pictures on a TV for others to see.  A disc also takes up a lot less space than a photo album and it is much easier to show photos to a large group of people than with a physical photo album.  The advantage with this player is that it will also show photos in high definition modes, unlike regular DVD players which limit the output to 480i or 576i. 

Unlike MP3 and WMA audio files which have specific standard bit-rates, JPEG images can consist of virtually any dimension, quality or file size.  So, the purpose of this test is to see which common resolutions can this player support as well as the length of time each image takes to load.  We started with a 6 Megapixel image and used Jasc Paint Shop Pro 9 to resample the image to each resolution shown in the table below.  For each Megapixel rating, we adjusted the size such that it would have roughly the number of pixels as the Megapixel rating.  For example, for the 3 Megapixel image, we resized the image to 2000 x 1500.  All the images have an aspect ratio of 4:3. 

Like the NeuNeo, this player will only load photos up to 5 Megapixel in size.  But then again, with the extremely long loading time for a 5 Megapixel image, it is impractical to use this player for displaying such high resolution images.  Despite the lengthy loading times, this is a significant improvement over the NeuNeo, however we still find the loading time unacceptable for images of a Megapixel or higher.  We got our best performance once we dropped the image resolution to below a Megapixel.

On the other hand, the player would still work well for playing back automatic slideshows using high resolution images where the user does not mind the player showing each image for 15 seconds or longer.

Disc with combination of MP3 + WMA + JPEG:

While we are unable to playback JPEG images while playing MP3's, let's see what happens when we load our test disc containing a mixture of MP3's, WMA's and JPEG images.  For this test, we put our WMA, MP3 and JPEG samples all on one disc in separate folders.  When we loaded the disc, we were presented with the following screen:

Like the NeuNeo, this player gives the option of selecting a choice of MP3+WMA and MP3+JPEG, which seems like that the player does not support the listing of all three formats in its file structure listing.  This makes it also pretty clear that the player will not accept any other file extensions either.  When we choose 'MP3+WMA', we are presented with the following screen:

In the above image, we can see that the directory structure only lists the MP3 and WMA files on our CD, but not any images.  The player has no problem playing MP3 tracks followed by WMA tracks and vice versa.

To return to the file format selection screen again, we have to press 'stop' to fully stop the CD and when we press play, we get that initial file format choice screen again.  When we select 'MP3+JPEG', we are presented with the following screen:

In this case, the pictures are shown in the listing, while the WMA track and folder listings are no longer present.  Unfortunately as we mentioned earlier, it is not possible to show images while playing MP3's at the same time.  In fact, it would probably be better if the player just showed photos, as this would save the user the need to navigate over any MP3 files (if present) while looking for a particular photo.

Playback of Recordable Discs:

With the widespread use of DVD writers in PCs to write video DVD's as well as the increasing use of standalone DVD recorders, the ability to play back recordable discs is pretty much essential no matter what type of DVD player one may go for.  For this test, we used recordable DVDs that were recorded in our Lite-On LVW-1105HC+ DVD recorder review and recordable CDs that were recorded in our Lite-On LVW-5045 DVD recorder review.  Each DVD recording contains at least an hour of recording in HQ mode, broken up into 20 5-minute chapters to completely fill the disc.  Each CD is recorded as a video CD.  For each test, we play each chapter of the DVD for a couple of seconds and for the video CD tests, we jump to a few time-spots throughout the disc using the players 'Direct-time' entry feature.

The results are as follows:

Notes:

*1 - This disc was recorded in 6-Hour 'Super Long Play" mode.
*2 - Plays most of the disc apart from a known problematic spot.
*3 - Disc is only partially filled.

While the NeuNeo we previously reviewed struggled a bit with certain DVD+R media, this DVD player has excellent media handling capabilities with no playback issues on all but one disc.  Even the Smartbuy disc which gives hassle in most of our standalone DVD players plays back without a flaw.  The Lite-On disc that gave issues will not play properly in any player we have tried, so this clearly indicates the disc is at fault.  However, the main purpose of testing it here is to see how the player reacts to a problematic spot.  Unlike many DVD players which get stuck repetitively attempting to play the bad spot, this player skips over it after a few seconds. 

After testing 29 different brands of DVD recordable media and 6 brands of CD recordable media, this clearly indicates that this drive should give no hassle when playing back recorded DVDs, at least those written in Lite-On standalone DVD recorders.

Hollywood Quality Video (HQV) test:

In our tests carried out on the HD upscaling tests page, we paused the disc at various scenes throughout a DVD to see how well the player is at upscaling certain scenes.  However, these tests do not reveal how well player handles under certain conditions such as dealing with artefacts resulting from moving objects, 3:2 Film detail, complex motion (such as a waving USA flag), noise reduction, cadence tests and scrolling video titles. 

The following HQV benchmark score card has the results for the different tests presented on the DVD and have been carried out according to the scoring guide.  For this test, we set the player to 720p output and used our 19" TFT due to its 8ms response time for all but the Color Bars and Detail tests, which were carried out on the projector.

While a long string of Fails is not something the average consumer would like to see, let's not forget that very few players on the market pass many of these tests, particularly the noise reduction and cadence tests.  In fact, as DVDs are targeted at the average consumer market, generally any noise that would be present in the source would be dealt with long before the movie gets released on DVD, so the noise tests would be more specific to those who record terrestrial analogue broadcasts or VHS recordings to DVD.  Even though the 3:2 cadence is the most widely used on NTSC movies and most recognised cadence in DVD players, it is a pity to see the lack of support on this HD upscaling player.  Even if a consumer's HDTV supports this cadence, this can only be put to use by setting the player's output to legacy 480i or 576i, which would defeat the purpose of having a HD upscaling player in the first place! 

Multi-region, PAL & NTSC testing:

According to the manual that came with the DVD player, the player is multi-regional and will play DVDs with any region code from 1 to 6.  So, for this test, we tried three DVDs we have handy that are from three different regions.  The following table shows the region codes printed on the back of each DVD case as well as the movie titles:

As our TV Tuner will only accept PAL with the current configuration, we have the player set to PAL output.  Interestingly, it plays the region 1 NTSC disc without any issue and the picture comes out fine with the output set to PAL.  During playback, there is noticeable effect on the motion due to the frame rate conversion, but on the other hand this player does not require a TV capable of accepting 60Hz, unlike the output from most PAL DVD players during the playback of an NTSC disc:

Now, on to our region 2 PAL DVD:

Finally, our region 4 PAL DVD:

As this player has no problem accepting DVDs from different regions, this makes it an ideal player for those who have an existing DVD collection from different regions and wish to upgrade from their existing region free player or plan to purchase DVDs during their next holiday located in another region.  The advantage here is that the average consumer will not need to worry about finding out what the 'secret remote' key is, not to mention encountering a DVD player which requires a physical hardware modification or add-on to make it multi-regional.  While we don't have any Region Code Enhanced protected discs handy, according to NeoDigits, this player is capable of playing such discs.

When connected up to the projector (which supports both NTSC and PAL), the player has no problem outputting PAL DVDs in NTSC either, however we recommend setting the TV format before loading the disc.

Smart Play: 

Any movie fan who regularly watches DVDs (particularly DVD rentals) is well aware of how lengthy the advertising can be before the feature starts.  Back in the days of VCRs, the obvious way to get around this is to skip over the ads.  However, most DVDs feature some sort of control locking to prevent consumers simply skipping over the certain footage at the beginning of a DVD, particularly any copyright warnings or anti-piracy advertisements.  For those who are interested in watching the commercials at the beginning of a DVD, there is usually no issue, however when one watches a lot of DVDs which have pretty much the same ads or titles that are several years old where the advertisements are no longer relevant, it can be quite annoying to be forced to watch these all over again!

Smart Play aims to help out by jumping straight to the beginning of the movie.  In this test, we will try out 10 different DVDs and time how long it takes us jump as quick as we can to the beginning of the main title without Smart Play and then try the discs again with Smart Play enabled without pressing any keys, with the exception if the title screen appears in order to start playback of the feature.  We tested discs including lengthy commercials, anti-piracy advertising and even titles which have control-locked ads even after one selects 'Play Movie' from the title menu! 

The results are as follows with the timing given in Min : Sec:

Notes:

*1 - This disc plays control-locked advertisements after the title menu.
*2 - The title menu can be brought up by pressing 'Next Track" to skip the copyright notice and then 'Menu" to bring up the title menu.
*3 - It is possible to jump straight to the feature by pressing 'Menu", 'Next Track" and 'Previous Track"
*4 - It is possible to jump straight to the feature by pressing 'Next Track"

On seven of the discs we tried, the Smart Play worked perfectly, with the main title beginning to play back once the disc loaded, in a few cases cutting a minute of the time it takes us to try and jump straight to the feature the moment the control-locks are lifted.  The Brainiac Science Abuse disc has to be the worst disc we came across for control locking.  This disc not only restricts the 'Fast-Forward", 'Next Track" and 'Menu" keys, but also restricts pretty much every other key on the remote besides the Power and Eject buttons!  For example, during the initial anti-piracy advertisement, even the stop and setup buttons are disabled.  Unfortunately, Smart Play has no effect on this disc and we still had to wade through the ads before we could begin playback of the main title.  On the other hand, so long as we did not bring the disc to its 'Complete stop" mode, we could resume playback of the disc even after powering off the player.

On a few discs, we were surprised to be able to skip most of the copyright notices and advertising without the Smart Play feature enabled; however despite the lack of control locks on these discs, we still saved more time by simply enabling Smart Play.  Interestingly, the Smart Play feature even skipped the advertising that was present after the title menu on one of the free newspaper DVDs. 

While Smart Play may need a little work to function on all DVDs, it certainly is a very useful feature with most DVDs.