I want to buy a DVD player, and I want it to play SVCD's. Af

[vinnyracer]

Thanks guys for the info,

I got a Panasonic A120 DVD player about 2 years ago when the Matrix came out, my DVD player plays Real VCD or VCD on CD-RW, not CD-R.

Probably going to get a new DVD player pretty soon, probably a Hitachi.

Again, thanks.

_________________
The things you own, will end up owning you.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: vinnyracer on 2001-07-01 13:48:54 ]</font>

[Blacklotus]

Its too bad the 111 reviews of players have not been added yet, cus you'd see my stinking review of the Hitachi 415U. Sure it was a sleek silver (also comes in black) but have fun playing SVCDs properly in it. The hitachi that i bought and brought back, and exchanged for a Pioneer, had alot of kool features, but hicupped on my SVCDs after about 6-8 mins into the video. Now, ofcourse, you might be wondering - hey u had a bad disc, bad encode, bad source, etc etc etc. NO! because i used 2 different CDr media, 2 different sources encoded to SVCD and a few different SVCD settings. STAY AWAY from the debut version of the 415u. Other hitachi's might be good and play svcd well, but the 415U was BS!

ALSO I called tech support and they told me that the Hitachi 415u DOES NOT support SVCD. When I asked them WHY it was that there was a LED light which lit up when a SVCD was inserted which said "SVCD" they said that was irrelevant because the player does not support it. And sure enuf, it was not in the manual. The hitachi techs i called were CLUELESS, and didnt even know that there was an LED light for SVCD! I went back to the store, got the Pioneer, and the problems miraculously disappeared - discs that had trouble in the hitachi played PERFECTLY - even some VCDs i had which were problematic on the Hitachi (screwey captures) played without a hitch (heheh get it, a HITaCHi!) in fact, I even had an incomplete MPG movie which i resumed in a download with the .DAT (yes DAT not the MPG!!!) = on the hitachi and Apex (which i tried as well) VIDEO STALLED!!!!!!! With the Pioneer, no problems whatsoever. the Pioneer was the best $299.99 Canadian i've spent in a long time. It was also cheaper than the hitachi which was sweet

also, Without napster, who cares about mp3s!!! support for mp3 doesnt matter to me. But some of you might want it, but have to sacrifice SVCD reliability.

on the downside, i liked the remote layout on the hitachi better and the picture seemed a little brighter too (making the "macroblocks" in dark parts of VCD movies more noticable but nonetheless brighter!)

BTW, If Pioneer needs a PR person, I'm yur man!

[Iview]

Blacklotus,
Was the Hitachi you get a black one? need to know.
Thanks!

[Blacklotus]

It was the silver one, but I'm not sure that case colour has an effect on playing performance

[Iview]

Sorry, just had to ask to confirm. Hitachi DVP-415U only come in silver, the black one is 315U. All the 3 series are your cheap basic no thrill DVD player that only play commercial DVD/VCD/CD and that's it and nothing else.
I was helping a friend to shop for a DVD player today, so arm with a stack of test discs, went to an electronic store and check things out.
All decked out in front are the big brand names Pioneer, Panasonic, and Hitachi, did not include Sony and Toshiba though, known fact that they have difficulties.
Results:
They all played CDR and CDRW, VCD, SVCD and of course CD and DVD. No DVD-R or miniDVD was tested here.
Panasonic and Pioneer both choke on first XSVCD.
Pioneer didn't play MP3 either.
Hitachi (415U) kept going until I ran out of test disc, my last disc was a 3800kbs XSVCD .
To top it off, the salesman dug out a first generation Hitachi Ultravision (means top line) DVP-250U from somewhere, and we tested it, guess what? it played everything else except MP3.
Which player did my friend purchase? need I say?
This bring me to a question, Blacklotus, did you test the players properly or did you not do your SVCD correctly? Strange thing, none of the other users on the DVD compatibility list have any problem with it except you.
another thing,I stand to be corrected, 415U is NOT a replacement for 505U, because 505U is an Ultravision, the 415U is not, so probably performance wise won't match 505U, but will still out-perform the other big brand names.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Iview on 2001-07-05 23:15:23 ]</font>

[HeeD]

I have a Hitachi DV-P250U. It plays every brand of CDR and CDRW media I throw at it when playing VCD or SVCD. The SVCD have to be burned using the Chinese spec (ie. MPEGAV instead of MPEG2 directory etc.) but I-Author does this by default and you can use broken-svcd option in VCDImager. Latest Nero also allows to adjust these settings but resulting SVCD do not FF/REW correct in all players.

The 505 had problems with the MPEG2 decoder in regards to picture quality so in Hitachi's latest model, DV-P705, they use same guts as the old 250 but it is compatible with all SVCD formats (unlike the 250). I have temporarily flashed the 705 firmware on my 250 and this allows me to play SVCD without the workarounds I mention above, but will not play DVD on the 250 hehe!

[HeeD]

Here is good information on Hitachi DVD players...

http://www.theironduke.plus.com/HitachiSyndicate/index.html

forums, reviews and has latest firmwares on there too.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: HeeD on 2001-07-06 00:29:44 ]</font>

[Iview]

The Hitachi first DVD player DV-P250U had problem with some CDR, not too many, they are light silvery green, namely ACER. It simply will not play it.
DV-P705U is not new, like the others in the X05U series, will be discontinued, it was released (in Canada anyway) around the same time as 505U, 305U. may be they try to unload them in the U.K. True, the 705U were base on the old 250U, that's why they have the same problems, doesn't play MP3, and problem with certain light silvery green CDR. I bought the 250U 2 years ago but returned it.
The 505E is a different beast than the 505U. The E model was only available in Europe, and is inferior than the 505U. The 505U had no trouble with the MPEG2 decoder, may be the 505E did. The user ratings put 505U quite a bit ahead of the 705U and 250U, the 505E was not even close at all. The new series are the X15U series, with 415U and 315U (315U only play commercial discs, no CDR or CDRW). Hitachi also dropped the Ultravision designation on the new line-up, which means all the gold plated connectors (they were on 250U, 705U and 505U) are gone, replaced with normal cheap ones, and did some other cost cutting to keep the price competitive. The 415U won't be as good as the 505U, with that being said, it is still ahead of a lot of players.

[C53248]

I've been using the Pioneer DV-C503, a 5-disc relative of the 343 (similar, I think), and had nothing but good luck with XVCD's and XSVCD's playing well. I've played 2800 Kbps video + 192 Kbps audio XSVCD from with no problem. If you don't have a big or high definition TV, I think that's already overkill for quality, as I can't tell the difference from DVD on my 25" at lower bitrates than that.

I just put the MP3s to AudioCD format if I want to play them there. It would be nice.

The main points I dislike are the somewhat crude, non-continuous fastforward/rewind and the plain, un-ergonomic remote which I always push the wrong buttons on. But just watching a movie straight through, those aren't terrible.

[ZUKI]

I have the DV-333. Love it, I've hearddd that ppl w/ the 343 have had problems w/ different resolutions, and the ones they had probs w/ on it, played fine on the 333.

[cephraim]

Anyone know where the 505u can be purchased? Can't find it anywhere online.

Also, I see the DV-P605u multi-disk from Hitachi. Does this have the same lasers and same compatibility list?

Thanks.

[cephraim]

bump...

Any help?

[Sepi]

Does anyone know about pioneer dv-340? What are the differences to dv-343?

[rdad]

Does anybody know if the Hitachi 415U display song titles/file-name when a mp3 cd is in it? Or does it only display track numbers? If it displays title/file-names, does it only list certain amount of characters? Thanks in advance.

Also, does it support random play of mp3 songs?

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: rdad on 2001-07-28 19:14:41 ]</font>

[TPW]

i hate my hitachi with a passion

[rdad]

TPW, what model do you have? And if you have the 415U, why do you hate it?

[Trifu]

Hi, I find this debate about whether getting a pioneer or hitachi to be very interesting.......seeing that I am about to get a dvd player in about 24 hours. I had narrowed it down to the Panasonic RV31, and the Pioneer DV 343, but now I'm starting to consider the Hitachi too.

The reason I'm getting a new dvd player is cuz my old one (pioneer dv414) is choking while playing my vcds, and it does it like half way through the cd, it's almost like as soon as my pioneer dv414 starts heating up......it can't play vcds anymore, but when I stop it, and start again where it choked last time.....it doesn't choke anymore...so that proves that there's nothing wrong with the disk or my encoding.

But when comparing the DVD players, Pioneer 343, and Panasonic RV31, I didn't know which one to choose...one plays MP3s, and the other SVCDs, now I know that I don't care about MP3s, but I heard the Panasonic was a better quality player (made in Japan and all), but the pioneer plays SVCDs however, since my old pioneer hiccuped with VCDs, I'm afraid this new one will too......, so maybe I should just get the Panasonic and use XVCDs to simulate a SVCD? any advice?
But since the Hitachi player came up a few times now in this forum.....can anyone tell me if it's a solid player like panasonic? is it as reliable? and where's it made? (my guess is china?), how does it stand up to the Panasonic in terms of quality?
thanks a bunch!

[orbit7]

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: orbit7 on 2001-07-29 01:08:00 ]</font>

[orbit7]

Im sure all the above models are great. frankly I gave up with big names last year and swapped my toshiba for a Chinese model called "Lenoxx dvd9000" which cost me 299.00 australian dollars. It plays dvd/vcd/svcd/mp3 on all media (cdr/cdrw/dvd/dvdr). Ive tried everything to make this unit fail. Ive created svcd's upto 9000 kbps and vcds upto 3000 kbps and it never dies. Multiregion (of course) and macrovision? whats that lol it doesnt even consider it.

Digital 5.1 decoder built in (of course) and the only svcd player ive seen that doesnt have issues with 48000 khz.

It was mentioned once before on this forum that the cheaper china models have greater potential and less restrictions.

My toshiba couldnt even read a cdr. yet alone play 180 mp3 tracks in program mode.

My 2 cents

[rdad]

Can anybody out there answer these question:

Does anybody know if the Hitachi 415U display song titles/file-name when a mp3 cd is in it? Or does it only display track numbers? If it displays title/file-names, does it only show certain amount of characters or the full track info? Also, does it support random play of mp3 songs?

Thanks in advance.

[TPW]

I have the old DVP-305, it's utter crap... and I got a Samsung one that looks like it and has the same remote which is also crap

[Greg12]

APEX 660

It handels XVCD and XSVCD well.

[Iview]

Just tested the big brother of Panasonic RV-31, the RP-91 (Progressive Scan), rated pretty high in the HDTV community in terms of picture quality. It plays DVD/DVD-A/DVD-R/DVD-RAM/CDR/CDRW/VCD/XVCD/SVCD(not XSVCD, over 2600k starts skiping)CDA/MP3(no title, just track numbers) nice picture and at $500!!!

Trifu:
I believe I tested the Panasonic RV-31 at the same time when I tested the Hitachi DVP-415U. Hitachi performed better than the Panasonic in the audio department, produced about the same picture quality and has enhanced MP3 support. The Panasonic will only play low bitrate SVCD just like the Pioneer. Hitachi, made in Korea. Reliability? I know of a 2 1/2 year old Hitachi DVP-250U still going strong, My Hitachi DVP-505U about a year old and my friend's 8 months old no problems yet. However, I know of a brand new Panasonic RP-91 crapped out in 2 weeks and another Panasonic RV-30 went wonky in 8 months. This all may be isolatd incidents, and I'm not saying Hitachi is perfect, far from it, but it is very versatile.

rdad:
If my memory serve me correct the Hitachi 415U displays 10 or may be 12 tracks to a page and supports 8 characters file name. You can select track by keying in track number. It's been awhile since I tested it, if I'm wrong please somebody correct me. Best thing to do is take your discs with you when you go shopping for a player.

TPW:
You get what you pay for! the 305 is the lowest line of the Hitachi DVD players. It just play store bought DVD, VCD and CD period, nothing more and nothing less. Wonder why the remotes looked the same? Because for cost reason it is made by Samsung and re-badge for Hitachi!

As for a Hacker's DVD player, I prefer the Sampo/Afreey because of the miniDVD feature. I have a Sampo DVE-620 with a swapped drive for increase performance.

[luser]

Where did u find that Lenoxx? Got a website that sells it?

/luser

[orbit7]

no i just bought it in tandy electronics after testing 8 different formats in the shop, I consider this one of the best ways of finding your perfect machine.

[Greg12]

from a tech standpoint, Napster was a flawed p2p

Napster's Flaws
Mp3 only
Centeral Server
lack of resume support


THeir r better p2p programs now like Kaza and Morhpeus and Gnutella.

[Chaotic_Fury]

Hi I've been looking around the last few days comparing DVD players and it looks like I want to get the Pioneer DV-343 as well...

But I have some important questions that I don't think have been answered too well

1. I subtitle anime so I'd like to know if the Pioneer has any problems with SUBTITLES (SUBTITLES meaning subtitles burned into the video, which means they are NOT selectable)

2. I know this has a region hack, but does that mean it can also disable Macrovision?

3. Lastly, with 480 x 480 resolution on SVCDs, does it display them FULL-SCREEN??

Any help is appreciated...