A review of Shinco's DVD player. It looks like a SONY LSI chips set, without chips from the company called LSI.............
china-shinco.com
HOME CINEMA CHOICE (December 99),Europe's largest Home cinema journal
Tomorrow's DVD has landed
by John Bob Tomalski
In the world of home cinema each month brings an expensive new gizmo. With it, comes the nagging suspicion that you should defer purchase until the market settles down. Such leaps and bounds in technology are especially spectacular in the field of DVD, thanks to a synergy between consumer and computer electronics and the influence of the movie industry.
Consider how rapidly this new video format has evolved since it was first launched in Britain back in 1997. With the first European decks, MPEG digital audio was a must. Then Dolby made its mark upon Region 2 and AC-3 was all the rage. Later, we saw players with multi-channel digital decoding on-board. Now to be street credible, a DVD player must sport all this - plus DTS digital outputs. In fact the latest models have DTS decoding, avoiding the need for an expensive home cinema amplifier.
Technology aside, consider the other groundswell change in DVD - the price of an entry-level model. The first players cost ˆ200 or more. Now if you shop around you can find DVD decks with basic facilities for ˆ200 or less.
All this begs a few questions. What next? How will DVD evolve? What will mass-market decks deliver one year from now and how much will they cost?
HCC could usually make only an informed guess. But this month we don't need a crystal ball to predict the future, because we can EXCLUSIVELY show you tomorrow's deck today.
Although (as yet) unavailable in Britain, this new player heralds a new dawn for DVD players in terms of its origin, unique facilities and (not least) it's bargain-basement price.Sound a fanfare for the Shinco DVD 8320. Made in China, using core technology from Sony, it plays virtually any 12cm disc you can throw at it, including MP3 data CDs, Super VCDs and (of course) Dolby Digital and DTS DVDs of any region code.And the price? In Hong Kong, it cost me the princely sum of ˆ145. No it's not a misprint. I said ˆ145.
Read on for details of how this machine - and other inexpensive aliens like it - are being readied to invade the European market.
MADE IN CHINA
To understand the Shinco phenomenon you need to understand the evolution of the Asian video market.It's all a matter of climate. In many Asian countries there's no Winter - only Summer. Much of the year sees temperatures soaring above 30 degrees Centigrade and the humidity exceeding 85% Unless you can afford air conditioning in every room (unlikely in working-class families) video cassettes soon die a sticky death, wrapped around soggy head drums.Hence VHS does not enjoy the unchallenged acclaim it does in Britain. For the past five years, the mass market has been getting its movies from another medium - Video CD (VCD).
Using MPEG-1, VCD delivers VHS-grade performance and is both cheap and available. In Main Street stores, movies such as Armageddon, The Full Monty and Titanic sell for around ˆ4-ˆ8 for a legitimate copy. Down the local bazaar, counterfeit (but perfectly viewable) 'fakes' can cost as little as 50p per title. No wonder the rapid growth of watching Western (Chinese subtitled) movies on CD-sized discs.
Along with this culture comes locally-built VCD players. ˆ60 or less buys a 3-disc changer with karaoke facility that is both PAL and NTSC capable. ˆ70 buys you a portable player. It is these local manufacturers that are now moving on to the more profitable - and global - market for DVD decks. Companies such as Jiangsu Shinco Electronics Group (to use its full title) are a good example.
Based in Changzhou, Shinco was set up in 1980 and now occupies 150,000 square metres and employs over 4800 workers. Since 1996, the company has been the leading maker of VCD players in China and has been awarded an ISO 9001 certificate for its manufacturing standards.
Recently the company has invested in developing its Supreming Digital Lab, a research facility that brings technical support from software companies in Silicon Valley in the US as well as hardware companies in Hong Kong and Japan.
Such know-how brings DVD innovation along with keen prices, given the relatively low costs of manufacturing electronics in China.
TOMORROW'S DVD PLAYER TODAY
This is not the first DVD deck from China or Taiwan to be featured in HCC (see the review of the Comet-exclusive Proline on pxxx). However it is the best-looking. The champagne finish and panel layout would do justice to any deck from Sony or Pioneer and it presents a perfect match for gold-liveried home cinema receivers.
Up-front is a mid-mount mechanism, multi-coloured fluorescent display and conventional transport keys, plus a jog dial for manually searching discs. There are also gold-plated mic inputs and rotary volume/echo controls for karaoke use. At the back are two sets of stereo audio and composite video outputs, plus S-video providing a higher-quality feed. Digital audio is provided via TOSlink (optical) and coaxial terminals.
Given this player's ability to handle MP3 CDs as well as conventional DVDs and CDs, we couldn't resist peeking inside to discover whence such technology came.In the centre is a low-cost transport mechanism fitted with a single 650nm semiconductor optical block. The upside of this is that it's optimised for DVD playback. The downside is that it won't play CD-R/RW media.
To the left is the main digital circuit board. At its heart is a Sony LSI chipset (CXD1866R/CXD3008Q/CXP912P) which performs the MPEG video and MP3 decoding. Nearby is another LSI developed by Shinco's Supreming AV Labs.
A 10-bit video D/A converter from Analogue Devices nestles nearby with control data, input from the laser and output to the audio/video buffers provided by ribbon cables plainly marked Sony Chemicals. Clearly, this high-tech, surface-mount circuit board is very much a collaboration between Sony and Shinco - although it's difficult to tell where the Sony technology ends and the Shinco design begins. The chipset and connectors are identified as Sony, yet the panel is labelled Shinco DS1,1. Is the board made by Sony on Shinco's behalf? Or do Sony merely supply the chipset? That mystery remains unanswered despite e-mails to both parties.
Otherwise the construction is unremarkable. The power supply is switched-mode, meaning that it can operate on 110-220V. Given that this player happily interfaces with PAL and NTSC TVs its the ideal companion for those that regularly relocate between European/American /Asian countries.
The panel layout is completed by a front panel mic preamp which sports a digital echo chip for the karaoke functions and an output panel that carries JRC buffer op-amps feeding the audio and video terminals. In layman's terms this player is of a construction quality that rivals any Japanese or Korean manufacturer. Don't believe critics that claim that all Chinese electronics are cheerless. In the case of this Shinco player, the build quality is excellent.
FEATURE FOR THE FUTURE
Although our DVD deck of the future has a Region Code 3 (HongKong) making on the rear panel, as standard
it plays any disc. There's no messing with region code keys as on Uk chipped players.However, the menu does allow specific region codes to be set in the preferences menu, lest you encounter a disc that refuses to play without one. Other choices include audio, subtitle and disc menu languages plus parental control. All this is governed by a password that can be changed at will.
In British high-streets, decks with such accessibility to region codes is virtually unknown. Yet in Hong Kong (an international trading area favoured by tourists) any product without it is at a serious disadvantage. Products need to be multi-standard, multi-voltage and multi-region code. Hence Shinco builds all in as standard. The main setup menu is just like any Japanese-made player you might buy today. There are settings for the TV display (4:3 pan/scan, 4:3 letterbox and 16:9) TV standard (PAL/NTSC/Auto) and angle mode (on/off). You can also engage a screen saver and switch the digital output on or off. There's also a Dolby Digital menu. In practice this does more than just manage the digital signals. Alongside the AC-3 dynamic range compressor (for late night listening) are options for feeding a single left or right channel out of the stereo terminals. Why? Because some Chinese VCD discs place Mandarin on one
channel and Cantonese on the other. And many karaoke discs have vocals on one track with music on the other.
Also on the Dolby menu is an Lt/Rt (Left total/Right total) mode selector. Once set, Dolby Digital is downmixed allowing a Pro Logic amplifier (more common and cheaper than DD in Asian countries) to decode 5.1 channel DVDs in the analogue domain.
One thing not mentioned in the menus, nor on the front panel, is DTS. Yet the showcard in the Hong Kong shop and the sales assistant where I purchased this machine, both proclaimed DTS compatibility. I was told that Shinco had yet to be officially licensed by DTS, hence no word of it on the product. Yet back in the UK I hooked it up to a Yamaha DSP-A1 and can confirm it streams DTS perfectly. You can be sure that the DVD deck of the future will offer every digital mode imaginable. And indeed some that are unimaginable - such as MP3 decoding.
MP3 CD playback is a feature yet to be seen on any DVD player in Britain or the USA. Load an MP3 disc into the Shinco DVD 8320 and you'll be presented with a display that identifies the presence of MP3 compression, shows the number of tracks and how they are arranged in sub-directories. Typically, MP3 discs group types of song together by genre. You might have a number of Country & Western, Soul or Big Band tracks divided into directories. Use the cursors to select a directory, then the forward/reverse keys to play a particular song.
In the MP3 mode you can toggle the output signal for analogue or digital playback. For the latter, the signal is streamed as standard 16-bit PCM at 44.1 kHz allowing the MP3 data to be heard at its best - using the DA converter in your home cinema gear rather than that in the player.
After some haggling, my '8320 came bundled with an MP3 disc of classics, pop music, disco dance and recent ex-chart music. The total of 145 tracks adding up to around eight hours on a single CD. The music was not by the original artists, so (presumably?) no copyright was infringed. Yet elsewhere in Hong Kong I spotted MP3 CDs carrying current popular hits.
As well as MP3, another unusual feature concerns the karaoke mode. The handset sports a 'key' control along with on-screen display to vary the pitch of the music. The idea being to allow a better match with your (off key?) singing voice. When applied to movies it brings hilarious results turning Bruce Willis into Boy George. More usefully, it could be the answer to lip-sync problems on movies such as Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. As the key is varied the sync between picture and sound is changed in plus or minus directions. It suggests that our DVD player of the future could deliver a cure to the lip-sync trait by building in a finely-varied key control, perhaps as part of the personal preferences.
And that's not all. On the handset you'll find a volume control. To my astonishment it affects both the analogue and digital feeds and fades to zero. You can match the level to suit other PCM sources on your home cinema amplifier or use it to fade CDs you're digitally dubbing to MD.
Sadly, one thing missing on this deck of DVD destiny is the ability to play CD-R/RW media. So you can't download MP3 files from the Internet, burn them to CD-R on a PC and play them on this Shinco - at least not yet. However, in future you will be surely be able to do this, as Shinco and other Chinese brands introduce DVD mechanisms with lasers capable of reading recordable media.
CHINESE TECHNOLOGY ON TEST
By looking at the picture and listening to the dynamic sonics, you would never guess this player's low-price pedigree. It delivers the same performance as any mid-price deck typically reviewed in HCC.
Connected via the S-video terminals to a Yamaha DSP-A1 amplifier and Mitsubishi 37 inch TV, the pictures were bright and sharp with low fizz in saturated areas of colour and no cross-colour bleed. Using the composite output resulted in a slight loss of fine detail and a perceivable lessening of contrast, but overall the signals seemed excellent.
Audibly, the Dolby Digital playback is on a par with players costing five times as much. You get the same superb separation and skull-denting dynamics on actioners such as Daylight and Outbreak. I sat back in awe as tunnels were whooshed with fireballs and thermo-nuclear explosions cleared the jungle - occasionally pinching myself as a reminder that this deck cost me just ˆ145.
The DTS playback was equally good. The Digital Theatre Systems trailer making me look over my shoulder as the gold DTS logo enters the screen from behind. A DTS copy of Antz gave wonderfully pervasive music, especially when played via our reference KEF THX speaker system. Put in perspective, there was no hint that the source of this startling performance was a deck costing less than the speaker cables used to wire up the system.
As for MP3, again more astonishment. How could such compression sound so good? Past experience with a Rio MP3 portable connected to the same Yamaha amplifier had convinced me that MP3 equalled ultra-low-fi. OK for headphones on the train, yet far behind CD in terms of fine detail.On the Shinco, sure you noticed a slight dulling of treble compared with CD, yet the loss of detail was nowhere near as drastic as on the Rio. We're talking a tad less treble than MD, but far finer than compact cassette. Such performance is ideal for during dinner muzak where you don't want to be continually changing CDs or tapes.I couldn't resist putting the Shinco through the same stringent lab tests as any other HCC review sample. The results were typical of many first generation DVD decks - a technical hotch potch of fair and foul.
The video jitter (horizontal stability) was excellent at 4 nanosecs. The video signal path was also very good, having a high signal to noise ratio of -75.9dB and a frequency response at 5.8 MHz of -8.53dB.Where the Shinco fell down (as indeed did many first-generation DVD players) was in chroma signal processing - the handling of colour. The chroma crosstalk of -42.1dB was not a patch on the latest players tested and the chroma AM/PM figures of -25.9db/-51.1dB were hardly inspiring. The digital deviation (digital audio jitter) of 1027.7 picoseconds was also rather high, reflecting the low cost transport mechanism upon which this product is based.
Putting these results in context, this player is technically not the best, yet neither is it utterly disgraceful. Looking back over HCC's files, many first-generation Japanese brands fared far worse, especially in terms of mechanical stability where the digital deviation was in the order of 5000 picoseconds or more.
THE FUTURE OF DVD?
So what is the forecast for DVD? If you read our feature about the debacle over DVD recording on pxxx you might be forgiven for thinking that's where the future lies. Indeed it does - but only in terms of high end products. For the mass market, budget-priced machines are of greatest significance in increasing the user-base of DVD in the UK.
I predict that prices of entry-level DVD players will continue to fall and features improve because of the continual competitive pressure of companies such as Shinco upon traditional brands such as Sony, Panasonic and Pioneer.
It's also my guess that the future will see such players arriving in Britain with greater region code accessibility - perhaps protected by a password. This would allow importers/retailers to stay within the spirit of regional coding, yet release the passwords 'unofficially' - perhaps on the Internet?
Given that the Shinco uses a Sony chipset it's also a fair bet that Sony and others will introduce a player with MP3 playback, or perhaps even a model designed to accept Memory Stick - a solid state audio format that will be used on its new Walkman.
As for how low prices can go, just consider the facts. In Hong Kong the Shinco DVD 8320 sells for around 50% less than a Japanese model with similar features (yet minus MP3). In the UK this player might cost ?200 or less, depending on how high (or low) a margin the dealers and distributors will accept and taking into account import duty and VAT.
All this begs the question why leading Japanese brands can't compete on price? After all, many are setting up factories in China, where labour costs are less than Malaysia and Taiwan.
Or perhaps such brands can compete in terms of manufactured price, but the local marketeers fix a value according to what they think the market will stand?
Either way, the way forward for DVD is plain. More machines from a variety of 'unknown' brands offering a welter of new facilities at bargain prices. Such players are likely to be imported by companies such as Kingfisher group (Comet and Woolworths), DSG (Dixons and Currys) or entrepreneurs such as Richer Sounds who have made affordability their crusade.
China will become increasingly important as an innovator and exporter of DVD players and other home cinema products. More so than Korea. Let Japanese brands ignore this at their peril. Tomorrow's DVD players are here today, albeit 6000 miles away in Hong Kong. |
