Neuston Maestro DVX-1201 Multi-Format Player

[sunni9676]

I just learned about this multi-format player, the Neuston Maestro ( www.neustonusa.com ) that will play .avi (divx/xvid) and many others. In the U.S. its a pretty new thing...I did a search and only found one other (Kiss?) being sold.

Has anyone bought this Neuston player yet? I'm really interested in getting one for myself and would love to hear some review of it first. Right now I've got a multi-region/macro-free player, but I'd really like to have something to play my .avis on without conversion. I've got the slowest pc (450mhz pIII).

Sunni

[Rygel_XVI]

Hi!

It's kind of a funny coincedence, I just bought one from them. So far I would say that I'm very happy with it. Bought it, upgraded the firmware (they promised to add some more formats soon), it went smoothly. Now this baby reads all the versions of DivX and even Russian subtitles! It played all the movies from my collection flowlessly: avi-mpeg4-DivX or XviD, vcd, svcd and dvd of course. And yes, neustonusa.com provided me with the hack for the region selection.

One more thing I liked about the player a lot is that it shows the full name of all the files it plays. Shows ID3 tags for mp3. And you can make up a custom playlist too.

I would recommend this unit for all the movie-lovers who prefer the quality and all-in-one solutions.

[nille]

Is it possible to play mp3 files on a cd or a dvd in a random order?

Nille

[Rygel_XVI]

Yes it does have the option for the random playback. They (Neuston) also just released a fresh firmware update. Now my Maestro supports the Ogg Vorvis audio codec, 3viX and Microsoft's MPEG4v3 video codecs and also all the major subtitles formats:
SAMI (.smi)
Subviewer 1 and 2 (.sub)
SubRip (.srt)
Substation Alpha (.ssa)!

[soundforbjt]

The lite-on player (LVD-2001) is about half the price of this unit. $122+ shipping. Is this thing worth twice as much?

[Rygel_XVI]

When I was initially seeking a multi-format player I considered the Lite-On. The first turn-off is not only its cable-box cheap-looking appearance and a 'cheesy' remote that looks like it time-warped from the 80's. I've also heard people complain about its interface, that the on-screen menus were not user-friendly.

There is a fellow who posted a review of the Lite-on pretty recently on here and he mentioned that it doesn't have subtitle support. This is an important feature that I was interested in. Their site states that it officially plays Divx 4.11 to 5+, but there is no mention of playing Divx 3.11. Maybe the newer firmware includes this currently, but the site has no info. on exactly what the new firmware does.

What sold me on the Neuston:
*Excellent manufacturer support - when I contacted them on several occassions with questions they responded extremely fast and curteously.
*The player supports subtitles, as well as multi-languages, multi-region.
*Plays all versions of Divx and XVID, MPEG4.
*Firmware upgrades - They seem to be releasing them frequently and give details about them on their site.
*The detailed review on Nordic Hardware, by Anton Nilsson was extremely encouraging in my decision. You can read it at: http://www.nordichardware.com/reviews/Multimedia/2003/Neuston/

Also I received the information that these Sigma8500-based series of cheap dvd players that ebay is filled with (LiteOn, Elta and NeuNeo) come from the same Chinese manufacturer. The only difference is the casing and the brand name that is put on them. I personally tend to distrust the Chinese assembly, quality-wize and I've heard much more positive feedback about the electronics made in Singapore. Neuston even has pics on their site of their manufacturing plant.

Overall I am happy with my purchase. I believe that you get what you pay for with electronics. I think ultimately you have to decide your priorities when making such a purchase, such as what is more important -quality/versatility or finances. In my situation is was worth the investment to get a player that would handle all the changing codecs and has the features I wanted.

[Rygel_XVI]

Hey, here's a cool little online video about Maestro:

http://onezine.s-one.net.sg/_Thur/04092003/NeustonDVD/