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| Posted by | Seán Byrne |
| Posted on | 25/05/06 00:38 |
| Number of views | 16647 |
Playing back content through the Browser:
As with the NeuNeo, the playback of audio CDs, video CDs and DVDs functions pretty much like any other DVD player. When it come to data discs containing MP3 and WMA audio files, JPEG images or a combination of them, this player will present a browser as a directory tree. If a data disc is loaded without any playable content, the player will eject the disc after a short while without any error or other message given on-screen besides 'Open'. Unlike many other DVD players, this player does not automatically start playing music or showing images until the user selects something to play.
Playing MP3 and WMA audio tracks
When a data disc containing MP3 or WMA tracks is loaded, the browser is automatically shown. The following screenshot shows an example of the browser for a disc containing various MP3s and images. We used pretty much the same content as with the NeuNeo review in order to see how this player compares:
While it is nice to be able to see a folder based view of the disc, the first drawback we discovered is that it only shows the first 8 to 10 letters of each file/folder, which can make it quite tricky to distinguish between two or more files/folders if the first few words and last letter of each file/folder are the same. The following image shows an example of what happens if several MP3s with the same artist are listed. There is no way of telling which file is what song just by looking at them, at least without pressing 'Enter' on a song to select it:
When it comes to playing a file, one must first select the file to play by navigating to it, pressing 'Enter' and then press 'Play' to begin playback. If play is pressed without first selecting a track to play, the player will begin playing from the start of the disc or resume from the last file selected or played. On the other hand, if a song is already playing, then simply highlighting a song and pressing 'Enter' is sufficient to change to that song. While it is nice to be able to browse the disc while music is playing, it is not possible to view any pictures until the playback is first stopped. Browsing the menu is fairly straight forward - Right arrow navigates into a folder, left arrow navigates to a higher level folder and 'Enter' selects the song/image to play. If the left arrow is pressed while at the top level without any music playing, the player returns to the 'stop' mode. The following screen shows an example of what is shown on-screen while a track is playing:
After about 15 seconds of starting a track, the player automatically returns to the browser screen. While this makes it hander to navigate about, unfortunately the browser screen does not show the playback progress apart from the track name. The playback screen can be brought up by pressing the 'Display' button, however the browser screen will return after a further 15 seconds again. During playback, like most CD MP3 players, the player gives a choice of 'Standard', 'Disc Repeat', 'Folder Repeat', 'Track Repeat', 'Random' and 'Program'. The track program screen is shown below:
If a disc containing a combination of MP3, WMA and JPEG files is loaded, the player will only allow the playback of two file types. The playback file type is chosen upon loading the disc or once the disc is played from a complete stop:
While this may be seen as a drawback, it is not really much of an issue since the player cannot play music while images are being displayed. On the other hand, it is not clear why the browser cannot support the listing of all three file times. For discs containing a mixture of images, MP3 and WMA files, we would recommend selecting the 'MP3+WMA' option as this allows all the music to be played as well as makes it easier to navigate about the disc, since one does not need to skip over images.
Playing back JPEG images
The playback of JPEG images works pretty much the same as playing back audio files. Unlike with our NeuNeo review, this player has significantly improved the time it takes to display photos, but still not enough to make scanning through pictures a quick breeze. For example, the NeuNeo took 25 seconds to display a 1024 x 768 image; however this one only takes about 10 seconds to display the same image. The loading time significantly increases for larger images, which makes it impractical to browse through photos copied directly from a digital camera, except as a slideshow. On the other hand, like the NeuNeo, this player is capable of rendering the images in high definition when connected to a high definition display. While a JPEG is opened from the browser, the following screen is displayed:
Once the image finally displays, the screen blow gives an example of how it displays. The black border around the image is present except when zoomed into the image. When compared with the NeuNeo using the same test image, besides a faster loading time, this player's image seems to be more colourful and has a better contrast compared with the NeuNeo. Unfortunately, just like the time it takes to load an image from the browser, the player takes just as long to navigate from one image to the next, which can be quite tedious when looking for a specific image.
While the NeuNeo claimed to have a 9-tile image selection screen, unfortunately we were unable to find a way of bringing it up. However, with this player, it can be brought up by pressing the 'Title' button on the remote. The loading time per tile is about the same as the time it takes to display the image, so each selection screen can take a few minutes to display! The following screen took about just over 2 minutes to display 9 JPEG images (1280 x 851 @ ~220KB average) from the time we pressed the 'Title' button:
It takes just as long to navigate to the next set of tiles as well as to redisplay this screen after viewing an image. This basically means that while the tile feature may look like a nice way of navigating between images, there is no way we can see the average consumer being prepared to wait a few minutes for each image tile screen to appear!
While it is possible to zoom in on a picture, unfortunately like with some other DVD players, zooming in does not show any further detail, but instead stretches the image it originally showed. For example, it appears that when the player opens an image, it scales down the resolution to match the display, however when one zooms in on an image, the player is showing a zoomed version of this scaled down image. The following example shows a zoomed in version of the field with sheep photo:
When zoomed in, the on-screen information must be hidden in order to navigate about the image. Otherwise, the up/down arrow keys switches between the slideshow speed and the left/right arrow keys have no effect. The OSD can be hidden by pressing the 'Clear' button and brought up again by pressing the 'Display' button on the remote.
As we mentioned earlier, it is not possible to have music playing while showing photographs, whether individually or as a slideshow.
DVD Video Control
Like most other DVD players as well as the NeuNeo, the majority of playback controls are present on the remote control including step (frame by frame), Slow Play, Zoom, Audio Track, Subtitle, Angle, Menu, Title Menu and Search. As the majority of these function the same as on virtually all DVD players, we will not discuss about them in this review.
While playing a DVD, the 'Display' button brings up a Navigation screen as shown in the following image:
The icons shown are in the order: Title #, Chapter #, Subtitle, Sound Track, Play Mode, Bookmark and Angle. The Title # and Chapter # icons allow the user to jump to a given Title or Chapter number, with the exception of if a navigation lock is in place at the current playing scene. The Play Mode gives a choice of Standard playback, A-B Repeat, Chapter Repeat, Title Repeat, Random and Program. The Random feature shuffles the chapters like with playing an Audio CD, which can come in handy when playing back music video DVDs. The Program features also works like an Audio CD where user can select which chapters to play. This option also gives the ability to select chapters from multiple titles, which can be useful for music DVDs which may have bonus tracks in a separate title. The timer on the right can be edited to jump to a given part of the current chapter.
By default, the player 'remembers" the last point of playback when a disc is ejected or if the player is put into standby. This works much like a VHS tape, since a tape does not automatically go back to the start just because it has been removed. For those interested in bookmarking one or more points, the player even has the ability to store up to 6 bookmarks. The following screen shows the bookmark display with a few bookmarks set as an example:
It is a pity to see that there is no backing colour or that a different colour has not been used for the bookmarks as it is quite difficult to read the blue lettering over the playback image unless the scene in the background is dark. The above image gives a clear example of this issue. The bookmarks are remembered so long as the disc remains in the player and the player is on, even in the stop mode. However, once the player is put into standby or the disc is removed, all bookmarks are lost. On the other hand, the player will remember the last position it left off. Finally, despite the message shown on in the above screen, there is no 'RETURN' button on our remote; however it is possible to exit the bookmark selection by pressing the 'Clear' button.
Unlike many DVD players, this player shows no technical information about the current playing content, such as the Audio or Video Bitrate, but then again this info would be of no benefit for the average consumer.
Video / Super Video CD Control
The playback of Video and Super Video CDs works pretty much like playing back Audio CDs, with the exception that there is a 'PlayBack Control" option and a menu:
During playback, the 'PBC' (PlayBack Control) option enables / disables the VCD 2.0 Interactive PlayBack Control, such as the disc menu. The Audio Channel option (3rd icon from left) gives a choice of Stereo, Mono, Left Channel and Right Channel. The Play Mode option (4th icon from left) gives a choice of Standard, A-B Repeat, Track Repeat, Disc Repeat, Random and Program. The Program Play Mode works the same as the Program for DVD playback. The rest of the Play Modes function the same as with playing Audio CDs.
Audio CD Control
When an Audio CD or HDCD (High Definition Compatible Digital) is loaded, the player begins playback as with most other DVD players. Besides the HELIOS logo, no other on-screen information is displayed during playback:
As displaying a continuous static image over time can lead to screen burn-in on CRT, Plasma and other Phosphor based displays, we left an Audio CD playing back for about 30 minutes, however even after that time, the above static screen still remained. With such as strong contrast logo, we would strongly discourage the playback of Audio CDs with the display switched on, unless the display is not susceptible to burn-in. During playback, the track and time information is displayed on the player's internal display:
Unlike the NeuNeo, the display on this player is totally the one colour, which means that the track number is no longer distinguishable from the time. In the above photo, the player is actually playing track 1, not track 10 as apparently shown above. The following screen shows the disc menu when the 'Display' button is pressed:
The CD Menu is much cut back in that it only gives a choice of Track and Play Mode. The Play Mode functions are the same as with Video CD and function pretty much the same as with the Play Mode controls for any CD Hi-Fi. Even though the playback information can be displayed, this disappears after about 15 seconds as with playing back CDs containing MP3 and WMA tracks.
Audio HDCD Control
Unlike many DVD players, this player has HDCD (High Definition Compatible Digital) Audio CD support. HDCD is actually an audio CD encoded using 20-bit audio, unlike traditional CDs which use a resolution of 16-bit audio. This effectively gives a more natural and accurate sound reproduction of the original recording. The extra 4-bits of information are encoded by using the least significant bit of each 16-bit sample, so when the disc is played back in a traditional Audio CD player, the disc plays as with any other Audio CD. However, when the disc is played in a HDCD compatible player such as this DVD player, it takes the last bit of each 16-bit sample in order decode the extra 4-bits of audio information.
The following image shows the playback of a HDCD Audio disc.
The navigation controls and play modes are identical to that of playing any regular audio CD.
HVD Video Control
HVD is a Chinese next generation disc standard which competes with EVD. Video is encoded in High Definition at 720p MPEG2 and carries Dolby Digital or DTS audio. Currently there are only a limited number of set-top players that support HVD and the range of HVD titles is currently quite small. No software players are available at this time to allow HVD playback on a PC and the disc is not backwards compatible with existing DVD players.
The following screen shows the display menu during the playback of the HVD NeoDigits kindly provided us for this review:
The playback navigation and play modes are pretty much the same as with playing DVD Video discs, with the exception that there is no 'Angle' menu and the Zoom feature is disabled. We will cover HVD playback in detail later on in this review.
Setting up the NeoDigits Player
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