Today's show has a couple of reviews to hopefully help with your Holiday shopping. We look at the Mvix MX-760HD and do a first impression of the Sony BDP-S1 Blu-ray player.
MX-760HD Review
If
you remember back in March of this year (Episode 76), we reviewed the
Mvix 5000U multimedia player. We really liked it, but were hoping for
the release of a wireless version. Well wait no longer, the wireless
version has arrived. But not only is it wireless, it also fully
supports high definition, so it's right up our alley. The basics are
the same, you buy the new unit, the MX-760HD, add any 3.5" HD and
you're set. But that's where the two units start to diverge. With the
760HD, because of the wireless (or wired) network connectivity, you
don't even need the hard drive.
While
the 5000U had composite, s-video and component video outputs, the 760HD
adds a DVI output. They both have stereo analog, digital coax and
optical audio outputs. In addition, the 760HD allows you to connect
external USB devices to expand its storage capacity, or to temporarily
connect another device, like a portable media player. Then there's the
network capabilities. The 760HD has both wired and wireless (
802.11g with WEP support) connectivity options. So you can simply plug
it in ... or not.
For
file types the 760 HD will play back just about anything. It supports:
DivX® (3/4/5), Xvid, MPEG 1/2/4, WMV-9, ASF(WMV9), DAT, DVD(IFO, VOB),
ISO, HD-level TP, TS, TRP, MP3, WMA, AAC, OGG, PCM, AC3, DTS decoding
including down-mixing, DTS pass through, BMP, JPEG/JPG, and PNG. There
really aren't that many formats out there that it won't play. Of
course, it won't playback protected content.
Setup
is pretty simple. To install the hard drive you just remove one screw,
pop the drive in place, plug it in and put the screw back in. It may
be a little advance for some, but the instructions are pretty easy to
follow. Once the drive is in, you can connect it to your computer as a
USB drive and transfer any files you want to store on it. Setting up
the wired network is as simple as plugging in the cat-5 cable, assuming
you use an automatic network configuration (DHCP). Setting up the
wireless network isn't as easy because you have to type everything in
- it won't discover the wireless networks for you. But if you know the
name of your wireless network, and your WEP key, it isn't very
difficult. That's it - you have access to all the files stored on the
device, as well as all the files shared on your network.
It
handled every file type we threw at it without problems, DivX HD, WMV
HD, XviD, WMA, MP3, you name it. The only time it struggled was with
content streamed over the wireless connection. It had trouble playing
a DVD from a shared DVD drive on the network using wireless, it also
struggled with WMV HD, 1080p was a complete failure and 720p
stuttered. But that's just a limitation with 802.11g, not the 760HD.
Using a wired connection, everything ran fine. While connected to the
wireless network, it was able to playback a compressed, backup copy of
a DVD that was on an external USB hard drive connected to a laptop that
was also connected to the network wirelessly. Plain and simple, it
just worked.
The NAS functionality isn't working yet, but will be enabled
with a firmware upgrade in the very near future. We also had a bit of
trouble getting the 760HD to find an external USB hard drive we had
connected to it. This should be addressed in a firmware upgrade in the
near future as well.
Overall the Mvix MX-760HD was a smashing success. We can't
wait to get the new firmware and try it out as a NAS device. That
should also allow us to update the files on the device itself without
having to USB cable it to a computer. Very cool feature. With that
enabled, one of these may work really well in the car as a mobile
entertainment center. It's really like a home theater Swiss army
knife, and would fit well in just about anyone's stocking.
You may or may not know that last week SONY released their
Blu Ray Disc Player
BDP-S1. The player has an MSRP and Street price of $1000US (
Buy it now at the HT Guys Store).
We were not given an advance demo version of the player and since Ara
used his one major electronic purchase without the approval of the
finance committee last March when he bough his Mac mini, we have to
give you an in-store first impression. This is by no means a full
review. But its more detailed than just walking by a demo at your local
retailer. We did make some adjustments to the TV that the player was
connected to and we brought in our own reference DVD. Consider this one
more resource in making your purchase decision.
We went to our local BestBuy to check out the player. The
people there were very nice and helpful. They walked us over to the
SONY player. It was connected to a 46 inch SONY
1080p BRAVIA LCD TV. We immediately asked permission to take the TV off
its default settings and do some very quick adjustments. Those standing
nearby made a comment on how the TV looked better. We almost started a
clinic on setting up TVs but we were guests in a store and we didn't
want to become unwelcome guests, so we dove in. We powered the player
off and started from a dead stop. It took the unit about 20 seconds to
come up. A bit slow but nothing that would cause you to say I can't
live with this player. Blu Ray and regular DVDs took about three to
five seconds to display their menus on screen. Navigation is quick and
snappy. On this particular unit it seemed faster than a regular DVD
player. When you hit play the movie would start immediately for both
Blu Ray Disc and DVD.
Blu Ray Playback
The
picture ranged from good to stunning. But overall everything looks
better than what we saw on the Samsung Blu Ray player when it was first
released. There are two reasons for this. First the original Samsung
player we looked at had the noise-reduction circuit in the player's Genesis scaler
chip enabled. This caused the picture to soften significantly. The
second issue was the demo DVD put out by SONY was not what you would
call a first rate transfer. We watched the new demo DVD as well as the
the Adam Sandler movie Click and the Fifth Element. The nice thing
about this was that the demo also included scenes from Click that we
compared to the full DVD. Both looked identical.
Click looked stunning. Maybe it was Kate Beckinsale in HD?
Attention Phillip Swann, you need to add Kate Beckinsale to the list of
celebrities that look great in HD! The interesting thing about Click is
that it uses the mpeg2 codec. So yes you can make an incredible looking
Blu Ray disc with mpeg2. By the way, newer Blu Ray titles are coming
out using the VC-1 codec that could further improve picture quality. We
noticed that the demo of UltraVilolet was much improved. The original
demo DVD was a very poor transfer for UltraViolet. The new demo disc
really showed off the potential of Blu Ray.
The
Fifth Element (which comes with the player) was what we would call
good. It was a definite improvement over the Standard DVD but not what
you would say jaw dropping. This was an early Blu Ray release and used
the mpeg2 codec. Its a shame that they don't recall these discs and
replace them with remastered ones. They definitely should not be
included with the player. Talk about a disappointing out of the box
experience. This disc will not sell one Blu Ray player. The picture
seemed fuzzy and noisy. But don't let that discourage you if you are
looking at a Blu Ray player. Newer discs look awesome!
Standard DVD Playback
We
took our old stalwart "Blackhawk Down", also available on Blu Ray
(mpeg2), with us and popped it into the player and immediately selected
chapter 22. This is a torture test for many players and TVs. This
chapter is very dark and much of it is shot through night vision
goggles. The player did a decent job with the content. There was a lot
of macro blocking visible in the night vision scenes. Detail was also
missing in some of the darker scenes. We needed more time to determine
if that was the TV or the player. We were hoping for more with this
disc. During daylight scenes the player did quite well with the DVD.
Good enough that if you purchase this player you will see an
improvement with most of your DVDs. Especially bright or well lit
scenes.
The Player Itself
The
player looks good and will enhance any home theater. Fit and finish are
up to typical SONY Standards. There are few front panel buttons, mainly
for transport control. The main control of this player is through the
remote control. All we can say is that it is a typical remote. If you
spend the money on this player you'll want to buy a dedicated home
theater remote like the Harmony 880.
Key Features
- Video Codec Format : MPEG2/MPEG4-AVC/VC-1
- Full HD 1080p Video Output through HDMI connection
- DVD Upscaling to 1080p3
- Uncompressed Multi Channel Linear PCM Output
- Dolby® Digital Plus(Dolby® Digital audio stream only), Dolby®
TrueHD (Dolby® Digital audio stream only) dts®-HD --- (dts audio stream
only) Digital Out and decoding capability
Specification
- Inputs and Outputs
- HDMI Connection1 Output(s): 1 (Rear)
- Component Video (Y/Pb/Pr) Output(s): 1 (Rear)
- S-Video Output(s): 1 (Rear)
- Composite Video Output(s): 1 (Rear)
- Optical Audio Output(s): 1 (Rear)
- Coaxial Audio Digital Output(s): 1 (Rear)
- Analog Audio Output(s): 5.1 ch; 1 (Rear)
- Analog Audio Output(s): 2 ch; 1 (Rear)
- IR Input(s): 1 (Rear)
- Dimensions (W x H x D)
- 16.9" x 4.1" x 13.9" (430mm x 105mm x 355mm)
- Service and Warranty Information
- Limited Warranty: 1 Year Parts and 1 Year Labor
Conclusion
Blu Ray has
come a long way since we first looked at the Samsung Blu Ray player.
They have made strides on the disc creation side as well as the
hardware. Based on our brief in-store experience with the player we
think it will enhance any HDTV. If you own a 1080p TV, this player will
let your TV show you what it can do!
