The perfect DVD Player? - Koda 2233

[puntloos]

OK maybe Im dumb, blind, or both, but I can't seem to find the option to add a new player brand in the DVD player list. And this one truely deserves a spot since its near perfect! So admins, go add this one

The player is the Koda 2233.

Basically I found this player to be appearing in various stores all over holland, but the web support (hardly ever mentioned in forums etc, web site: english? what be english?) is .. em. sub-par.

Anyway the origins of this player are perhaps a touch suspect (I'll get into it later) but its definately real (I own 2) and its definately worth the $$$. I dont claim to be an expert in all this, so I might get terms mixed up, but this player pretty much meets every demand I personally had (Im an audiophile, but never went for DVD since there's only so much money to go around )

Let me just dive in.

The specs:

Player: Koda DVD 2233s
Physical: full size (42cm width), slim height (5.5cm), silver finish.
Supported media: DVD (duh), DVD-R, DVD-RW, CD, CD-R, CDRW
Supported formats (officially): DVD up to 18G, Audio CD (CDDA), SVCD, VCD, MP3
Extra's: Progressive scan, Macrovision disabled, Region Free, Code free, DTS, AC3, Karaoke, MP3. Dolby Digital, 96khz audio, PAL/NTSC, Dual laser pickup
Outputs: AC3 decoder (8 analog audio outs), RGB out (s-video cable), Composite out (RCA), scart (1x), digital out (RCA, optical)
Inputs: Microphone
Price: E150.- (that's about $130 I guess)

OK, as you can tell, this player got pretty much everything, doesn't it? I suppose in this time and age you can start to hope DVD players will support mpeg4 (most notably divx) but as far as I know all dvd players that claim to play back divx are vaporware so far. I have no idea if this player can do DVD-A, it wasnt explicitly mentioned but maybe it's just a normal extention of DVD and should work on any player. Anyway I have no way to test it.

Now let me list some impressions, pro's and cons.

First of all I ran across this player purely by accident. Basically what I have been looking for was a player that, next to the standard functions of course, played MP3, SVCD, VCD and would have analog outputs for all channels (i.e. have a built-in ac3 decoder), and according to VCDhelp, -NO- player had all that at the time I checked (this was 3-4 months ago). Only the Pioneer 444 came close, but it had no built-in ac3 decoder. Drat. One day I was just browsing a shop, killing some time, and came across the DVD player section that had this player. Guess I was lucky.

Now, let me just make a brief statement about that pioneer 444 and this one.
My conclusion is that physically they are IDENTICAL for all intents and purposes, with the Koda 'winning' because it has more features. Or rather it seems to me that Koda has taken Pioneer's design, disabled all industry-imposed locks like macrovision and regions, and put it out there. I have seen some websites on how to unlock pioneers so Im just assuming the factory has done this for you

For those interested I will elaborate this comparison closely at the end of this story.

Impressions:

Well, found it, bought it, hooked it up, played with it. Let me just summarize what I tested, and let me write up what the pro's and con's are of this thing.

I've tried and tested 4 DVD's, lots of CD-Audio, 4 SVCDs, 2 VCDs and 10 MP3 cd's. All played. One exception was that the player crashed (yes crashed, froze, only powercycling helped) on one mp3 cd. I have no idea why, it starts to play fine but if I seek forward to a particular album I have on there it just freezes. I can't reproduce this with any other MP3CD so Im assuming it's a glitch, or perhaps a fault in the CD itself. If someone wants me to test more formats, send me a CD image (dont have a dvd burner btw) and I can try, for now I don't have any xvcd's xsvcd's, minidvd's etc.

Playback quality is just fine, but I have little means of comparison. Artefacts are no more noticable than on my computer screen (usually less), sound playback is just fine, but then, Im using the digital out to send the data directly to my professional Digital to Analog Convertor, thus bypassing any analog circuit in the player itself so I don't really know how good the analog outs are in comparison to other players out there. I tried them for a while and they sound just fine to me. My DAC sounds better, but it sounds better than a lot of high-end cd players so no surprises there. (the DAC is worth $4000 or so).

As I mentioned it accepts a lot of SVCD's, even ones that are set up a bit sloppily, basically look at the Pioneer 440 review, I believe it is safe to assume that anything said there applies to this player too. (i.e. it isnt picky about what it plays and what doesnt, I guess I was unlucky with that one mp3 cd). It supports VBR and CBR mp3's up to at least 320kbit.

I heard that this player supports progressive playback, but there's no way for me to verify this. I don't have a TV that supports it. I have also heard that some Pioneer 444's don't do it, so my guess is that the progressive playback is just a feature of this player pioneer can dis- or enable at its leasure, and since Koda has disabled all other locks I think its likely this one does progressive. Don't shoot me if it doesn't.

So there we go. When all is said and done, and you have this thing playing your media this player is just perfect. But now it's time to adress the 'weaknesses' of this player.

First of all, the manual is miserable. I got two A4-sized booklets of about 20 pages each, but they only name the buttons on the remote and the player, and give some diagrams on how to hook it up. No mention of how the mp3 interface works, no mention of specs, no mention of how the remote works. Ugh. Anyway most things are intuitive enough so you can find your way around if you're familiar with this kind of device, don't give this to your mom and hope she'll figure it out. (sorry for the sexist remark but Im sure you catch my drift)

Second, the remote is mostly OK but has one very very stupid feature: it has a 'mode', '+' and '-' buttons for all the following functions: search, skip, volume, keys. Sooo 8 buttons are mapped on 3. For example during mp3 playback, the arrow buttons (up down left right) are disabled, while to get to the 'skip to next track' function you have to press the mode button twice, and then hit '+'. -sigh-. Also, I've tried if my programmable remote can pick up different codes for different commands, but evidently the signals the remote sends if you push a particular button are the same, regardless of the function it is in. You get used to it, but it's dumb.

Also mp3 playback and menu system isnt too smart.

First, if there are no files in the main directory it will not automatically start playback.
Second, it will only shuffle or randomize files in one dir. If you have put all your files in the main dirs, it will shuffle just fine. I chose to design my cd's in the artist/album/01-trackname.mp3 so for me it's no good. It will play the entire CD, but this is one standard order, so it always starts with album A.. track A.. - gets a bit boring to always hear one track first.
Thirdly, it won't remember if you told it to randomize, it will revert back to folder playback after you turn the machine on and off.

Basically -the- way to fix this is to make a skwewy CD. Some cd programs (mostly linux) allow you to make one big directory that contains all files on the CD, next to your normal directory structure.

Lastly the player freezes DVD playback inbetween chapters if you have subtitles turned on. I hear this is common for many players, but it is slightly annoying. I dont use subtitles much so it doesn't bother me.

Well that's about it. The interface has some quirks as I explained but other than that there's little more to wish for in any DVD player.

###########
You can skip the last part if you're not interested in a close comparison of the Koda with a Pioneer 444.
###########

I saw on vcdhelp that the pioneer 444 was one of the top picks but as said, cause it was expensive and didnt have analog ac3 out, I didnt go for it. Now when I went back into the shop this one was right next to the pioneer 440. And guess what, physically they are -near identical- And you can take that literally, I'll try to put up pictures for comparison.

The differences:
-The brandname (duh)
-Koda has karaoke controls
-Koda has ac3 analog out
-Slightly different locations of some buttons on the front panel, analog power button on the Koda, digital (microswitch) button on the Pioneer
-Different remote.

Now this marked similarity leads me to a hypothesis that Koda is the in-house brand name of the plant that has received Pioneer's designs. This is often what happens, medium-sized companies dont make their equipment themselves, they just design it and then send the specs to some unknown korean/japanese/whatever factory to actually build the things. Now I didnt have a pioneer to play with so I couldn't compare the guts of the things to see if Im right about this, but I know a lot about systems design (Im a microelectronics student) and since even the screw locations are the same on both systems I think there's a very high probability that the internals of the systems are identical. I've looked through the air vents on both brands and they certainly look it.

Hence my conclusion:

Physically this thing is built after the design of a pioneer 440 (read: decoder hardware, optical systems etc) which has been reviewed excellently on this site. The firmware, or 'operating system' might be different. Things like menu interface could be different, I haven't been able to see what a pioneer's menu looks like. It is also possible that it uses different quality materials (i.e. cheaper), but consider this: There are very few plants that have individual components as the raw materials (i.e. resistors, IC's, lenses, leds, servos, transistors) and build the entire player from scratch. Instead, most plants use 'subcontractors' for entire systems. They get delivered the entire optical system, the entire ac3 decoder board, the entire drive and the entire output amps, and assemble this, and tack on a case. In the case of this system, especially with this exeptional design (very slim case with specific dimensions) I would be highly surprised if more than a few interconnection subsystems could be replaced by lower-grade parts if the plant wanted to skimp.

Also, for the same reasons Im not completely sure if this CD player should be out there for legal reasons, since as I've effectively (right?) argued, this is principally a pioneer design with the imposed limits taken out. Fact is, I dont care, the player is out there.

edit: it was the pioneer 444s, not the 440. Sorry. Also I added a few features I forgot.

[Baldrick]

http://www.vcdhelp.com/newdvdplayer.php

[puntloos]

Thanks - couldnt find the link. Dumb and blind, evidently. Sorry

Anyway here's the images.. Compare if if you want

Pioneer 444:

Infopage:
http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/Pioneer/CDA/CompanyOverview/PressDetails/0,1479,2295,00.html

Koda 2233:


Note: obviously the Koda image is kinda crap, but I've just scanned the box of my player, which is bigger than my scanner size, so rotating, photoshopping etc etc

[VCD-Trading]

Very nice!!

Wonder if I should get one, I already have 3 now.







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Join up and start Trading Today!

[puntloos]

Heh well apart from the interface design flaws it was kinda perfect for me so I went ahead and bought 2 myself. One for my dad, one for me.

But yeah, so far I -highly- recommend it. On that note I hope VCDHelp will put the Koda brand and player in the list of brands in the DVD comparison pages, since there is no official webpage describing this thing. Partially cause it simply is too new. My player had an april manufacturing date sooo..

I did find a few pages at least mentioning the Koda brand and some DVD players it makes:

A distributor's site:
http://koda.polpak.com.pl

http://dvd.wp.pl/magazyn.html?art=2002_03&p=1
(the player is mentioned as the 631, the 2233 is indeed a bit different
but the display looks the same)

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=koda+2233&hl=en&lr=&selm=a3mj97%24ich%241%40reader06.wxs.nl&rnum=1

http://www.askanowner.com/levels/browse.asp?guid=&sid=1&lid=16592

http://forum.fok.nl/showtopic.php/142848/1/250
My own post, but it also says some people have seen the player out there, not just me

I know these arent official brand pages, but I think I've moreorless proven that there is a brand out there called Koda that makes DVD players, so my claim that this player is actually out there is mostly proven Id say.

[puntloos]

An addendum to my notice that it froze, it turned out that it does not freeze, but it takes a long time (20 seconds!) to seek to an VBR mp3 in certain cases. Weird. Basically if you put all your MP3's in the root of the CD this problem is not there! If you have subdirs with vbr it is. Weird.

[chooea]

I bought the exact thing! But its marketed as a local brand in my country but it looks exactly the same. It cost something like USD80 and has all the features you mentioned, including karaoke. I assume it is also using the same ESS4408F Video Drive chip inside.

The problem is, I notice that the sound sucks....too much mid range, too little treble. Anyone know how I can inprove the sound a little? I gather there should be an on screen menu or something that allows me to access the chip to increase the treble or bass.....

[puntloos]

Sorry, I use digital audio and a hella expensive DA convertor. It sounds perfect. But, in normal audio I can't say that the system sounds too bad, inferior to my DAC, yes, but that thing is $4000 all on its own. It should sound good.

Sorry, can't help you

What brandname is the player in your country?

[chooea]

There are many of these bootleg DVD players made here in Malaysia and mostly for the market in South East Asia. The brand that I bought is Zapporo, while there are other brands which are just as cheap such as Topsonic, Hanabishi and a few more. They are widely available and provide a really cheaper alternative to the branded stuff (which costs umpteen times more!). All players sold here are multi coded anyways.

Anyone out there care to help on my audio sound problem??

Rgds, Jack

[adamthole]

Where did you buy these at? Are the available in the US of A?

[chooea]

Ok....anyone knows the hack to the Koda 2233 player??

[puntloos]

Hack? What hack? Its fully unlocked, isnt it?