Re: fansubs on a off the shelf dvd player!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- From: Abraham Evangelista <daken@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2005 03:26:53 GMT
On Sun, 27 Nov 2005 05:02:43 GMT, Abraham Evangelista
<daken@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>On Sat, 26 Nov 2005 21:55:02 -0600, "Bob Clark"
><bclark@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>>I was at Best Buy for the 3ed time today and saw a DVD player that said it
>>could play MPEG4. It turns out they have 3 like animals in the store. I
>>went home and burned a sample dvd with 8 different fansubs. We could not
>>get the Liteon unit to work at all. They said they had opened 3 boxes and
>>could not get them to work. We then tried the Toshiba SD-4980SU. It played
>>the first program. There was no remote out, so we could not try any of the
>>other test programs. It was however a small test, so I took one home. At
>>home, the unit played all but one program at near perfect quality. The only
>>defects so far are from the original encoding. I had picked up a ATI card
>>and was playing fansubs on the TV via VLC and the ATI card, but this blows
>>that away. If there are 3 in the store now and one online for Best Buy,
>>imagine what will happen by next Christmas. Now if it only had a region fee
>>hack.
>>
>>Bobby
>>
>
>I had been considering the SD-4980SU, but it's upconversion only works
>throug the HDMI out, and my TV has only component input for HD.
>
>Were you able to test the LG LDA-511? I picked one up, but havent'
>opened it yet. At $150, it was pricier than the Philips or Toshiba
>DIVX capable units, but it appears to do HD Upconversion through the
>component.
Okies, just tested the LG LDA-511 myself. One word...
SUGOI!
This thing totally outperforms the Philips DVP-642.
PROS:
HDMI output. The DVP642 lacks this, and has no DVI, and for HD, the
Xbox is Component only.
720P and 1080i via HDMI.
720p and 1080i via component, For all MPEG4 files and DVD's too *IF*
the DVD lacks copy protection. The Xbox is 720p only, and the Philips
doesn't do HD.
Full support for long file names. The Xbox supports this, but the
Philips is 8.3 only.
An adequate remote. Unlike the philips, this one has several
glow-in-the-dark buttons, and the important buttons are sufficeintly
differently shaped to allow navigation without eyeballs. Both are
better than the Xbox controller, and the Xbox wireless remote
conflicts with my TV remote, making it a non-option.
FF speeds up to 100x. The Philips only supported to 8x, and the Xbox
"only" supports to 32x. That having been said, nonlinear access is a
lot faster on the Xbox, which has conveninet keys for 30 second and 1
minute skips in both directions.
Physically smaller. It makes the DVP look FAT, and the DVP was
already the smallest device on my shelf. Insert Xbox is HUGE joke
here.
CONS:
Retail cost is $150. Philips units can be had for less than $60 if
you get a good coupon, and a used Xbox can be had for about a hundred.
Slot Load. Some people like trays.
More LEDs. The philips has no LEDs enabled during playback, the LG
has 2. The Xbox has one too, but it can be disabled in the XBMC
menus.
My current AV setup consists of an Advent 27" Model HT2751A, and a
Sony 6.1 RDTS reciever, model STR-DE597. All video was compared using
Component inputs, since my TV lacks a DVI or HDMI input.
For DVDs, the LG is the best player I've ever used. It's noticeably
better than the Philips and the Xbox for DVD playback, and thanks to
component input, it beats my notebook output through the same TV via
S-video.
Subjectively, at 480p, I saw little difference between the two
standalone players. The Philips did exhibit slightly more
macroblocking on poor encodes, but on a good encode it shouldn't even
be an issue. 720p was visibly better 480p. 1080i was amazing. Color
saturation in all cases was markedly better with the LG player.
It's a tougher call compared to the X-box. The only resolution Xbox
Media Player will support is 720P. I see slightly less blocking
coming from the LG, and its output appears slightly sharper at 1080i
OTOH, the Xbox offers more resolution and aspect controls.
I am however a bit confused as to the difference in performance for
the various HD outputs. I always thought that if the file was encoded
at 640x480, that there should be little to no difference between the
same file output at 480p and 720p, or even 1080i. But I could see
visible differences between the three resolutions.
Menu response time was much better on the LG machine. In addition to
a much higher contrast color scheme, the LG displays the entire
filename. Navigation is faster as well, especially in the file
selection menu. Where the Philips would pause to scan each file as
you accessed it on the menu, the LG appears to pre-scan the disc, and
then allow navigation without disc access, making the whole affair a
much quicker process. Comparing again to the Xbox, the LG is faster
with menus, and an entire world faster in reading discs. I've had
discs take upwards of a minute to read for my Xbox, where the LG
managed to read in less than 10 seconds.
That having been said, the Xbox wins for network support. Not having
to burn a disc obviously beats the DVD burn time of 4 minutes at 16x!
Playback noise from the LG is noticeably quieter, which is surprising
given its smaller form factor. The Philips has a noisier drive, and
the Xbox has that horrible fan, both of which contribute more to
ambient noise.
Time will tell if the slot load mechanism will prove to be a problem.
Some folks dislike slotload. I personally have no preference. At the
least, with no tray, there's no change of damaging a tray. Those with
Kids in the house may like the slot better; it's that much more
resistant to having unauthorized objects (like bread, or chips, or
FINGERS) inserted into the mechanism. The downside is of course that
if you DO manage to get an offending object into it, you're gonna have
to disassemble the player to get it back out.
I'd rate the unit slightly worse than the Philips in terms of
distractions. While it's timer display is smaller and less
distracting, it has 2 LEDs lit during playback, and they're both very
bright blue. In mysetup the player is not visible from the usual
sitting position, but for those who are easily distracted this could
be a problem.
For format support, I'm at a loss, it's ever so slightly a win for the
Xbox. Neither the Philips nor the LG will playback files in quicktime,
Mkv, or OGG. All of these containers are supported by the Xbox.
None of the three players will do H.264, which is unfortunate if not
unexpected. (I have a LiteOn in a box that Bob says will handle it,
but I'm debating on returning it, since it doesn't do hd upconversion,
and I already have a DVD Recorder.) The LG when it runs across a file
containing a video codec it cannot decode, will still play audio,
where the Philips will simply skip to the next file.
In the end, I will most likely end up retiring the Philips player.
There's nothing it does that that LG doesn't do better.
The case for replacing the Xbox is more difficult. While I'd rate the
picture from the LG to be slightly better, it has no network access.
Having a network connection makes the Xbox much more convenient for
playback. Since it's a video game player, and I keep my MP3 files on
my PC, not on discs, the Xbox will probably get to stay.
In the end, if the $150 cost isn't an issue, the LG is easy to
recommend over the Philips, especially if you already have or are
looking to upgrade to an HDTV unit. Given it's HDMI output and HD
upconversion, its feature lifetime is definately longer.
--
Kyzoku ni naritai...
Abraham Evangelista
.
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