$99 STM based DVD player. Just not very good..............
Konka and Oritron decks are gutless wonders with only DVD drive and handful of ICs under hood -- including single-chip MPEG/Dolby decoders from C-Cube and STMicroelectronics, respectively.
Message 11327557
dailynews.philly.com
Oritron DVD player priced to sell cheap
THE GIZMO: Oritron DVD 100 DVD player, $99 (or less!) at major discount chains. Oritron Products Inc., 300 Alden Rd., Markham, Ontario L3R 4C1 Canada. Web site: www.oritron.com
WHY WE CARE: No consumer electronics product has ever achieved mass acceptance as quickly as has the DVD (digital versatile disc) format for viewing movies, concert videos, etc. More than 10 million DVD players have been shipped to retailers in just 31/2 years. (CD players took seven years to hit that plateau; VCRs took eight years.)
And in just this upcoming holiday gift-buying season, it's estimated that as many as 3 million more consumers will be taking the plunge, to enjoy the higher-quality pictures, super Surround Sound, freedom from wear and a host of program extras (alternative languages, director's commentaries, "making of" specials) that DVDs provide. Incidentally, that 3 million figure does not include sales of all those PlayStation 2 game systems or PCs, which also play DVDs.
Having a huge number of disc titles on the shelves for purchase and rental - now 7,000 and growing - is certainly helping to drive the conversion of home video watchers from VHS tape. The studios are fully behind the digital disc format - because its better quality is encouraging people to buy titles all over again, just as happened in the transition from vinyl to CD albums.
Now offering added incentive are dramatically lower prices for players sourced from mainland Chinese companies such as Oritron.
While the average DVD player today sells for about $235, Oritron's DVD 100 will be widely promoted on the day after Thanksgiving for no more than $99 and perhaps even less, as one of the big "come-on" products that mass merchants use to lure in Black Friday shoppers. "One retail chain alone has ordered 500,000 units," an Oritron spokesman told me. Why, that's as many pieces as Sony had for the entire, nationwide launch of PlayStation 2!
HOW DO THEY DO IT?: Discounters like to joke that they're "losing money on each sale but making it up in volume." In truth, merchants sometimes feature eye-opening loss leaders in their ads - selling for less money than the items actually cost. The anticipation is that customers lured in for that big score will get the buying bug, and pick up lots of other merchandise that the retailer has priced profitably.
The merchants' other secret of product price shaving is to have the manufacturer build them a special "derivative" model, which cuts corners here and there. The Oritron DVD 100 is a clear case in point. A couple of features were stripped off my "representative sample" so recently that the downgrades aren't even reflected on the packing box or in Oritron's online product description!
CHEAP IS AS CHEAP DOES: While certainly a better playback medium, the DVD 100 is sort of the video disc equivalent of a two-head monaural VCR (now available for as little as $79!). It has all the necessities to perform the basic job but eliminates some of the luxury features. For example - while specs printed on the DVD 100's box tout the presence of an on-board "Dolby Digital Decoder," in fact that feature is not being included in the post-Thanksgiving Day special.
What you do get is a coaxial output jack (RCA variety), which delivers the raw Dolby Digital or DTS digital Surround Sound data stream encoded on a disc. Frankly, that's sufficient if you're gonna plug the player into a multichannel Dolby Digital/DTS receiver that has a coaxial input and its own, on-board decoding. (If your receiver has only an optical "SPDIF" digital input, this disc player is not for you.)
Of course, the DVD 100 (like all other DVD players) also connects to a conventional stereo TV, stereo receiver or Dolby ProLogic Surround sound receiver, via its left/right analog audio jacks. In all instances - spinning both DVDs and audio CDs - the sound coming off this player proved full-bodied and pleasing.
I was a tad less satisfied with the picture. While the specs touted on the Oritron Web site promised a multi-pin S-Video output jack as well as the standard composite (yellow) video-out on the model, the seasonal special I tested actually has no S-jack. Now if your TV only features the standard A/V input jacks, hey, no problem. But if your set does have a higher-quality S-Video input, you deserve a DVD player that's equal to the mission.
S-Video separates the chrominence (color) and luminence (brightness) elements of the picture signal to reduce interference between the two. Specifically, this circuitry eliminates dot crawl - the moving edges visible around some objects. S-Video also greatly reduces the wavering image distortion seen in certain patterns - like a plaid jacket - or visible when the camera pans past Venetian blinds.
If you aren't a critical viewer or sit pretty far back from the TV (and the screen's not that big), these picture quirks pretty much disappear, and you'll be quite impressed by the other qualities of the DVD picture delivered effectively by this low-cost player - the excellent colors and deep contrast, the lack of picture noise ("snow") and the generally smoother, sharper images. (DVD is at a great advantage from the git-go, because pictures are built from twice as many scan lines as are used in VHS tape.)
Eyeballing close to the screen, I was also bothered by a small amount of picture ghosting that was faintly visible on the right side of some objects while watching my favorite (always bears repeating) test discs, "The Fifth Element," "The Matrix" and the first "Austin Powers."
FYI: If your TV has only an antenna input, you'll need to buy a composite video-to-RF converter - available at Radio Shack - to hook up the DVD player. The Oritron owner's manual incorrectly suggests you can feed the DVD A/V signal through a VCR and then out at its RF antenna jack. But the vast majority of movie discs encoded with Macrovision copy protection won't be viewable in this setup.
REMOTELY INTERESTING: OK, so the Oritron DVD 100 has one of the flimsiest remote controls I've ever tested. Buttons are small, often indistinguishable by feel and not back-lit. Still, the remote (and tiny buttons duplicated on the unit itself) does get the job done.
You can scan forward and reverse in multiple fast and slow-motion speeds, or freeze a picture on the screen, with nice, clean images. But you don't get the option to "step" through stills, or to hear sampled audio in normal pitch during double-speed scanning - features now common in DVD players selling for $160 and up.
Other buttons on the Oritron remote let you summon up subtitles, switch camera angles (where available on the disc) or call up a narrow, on-screen banner menu that shows chapter, elapsed play time and some settings. Another button, rarely found in DVD remotes, mutes the sound while allowing the picture to keep playing. A number keypad lets you go to specific chapters or song tracks or program a rearranged audio disc performance.
I also like that this player has a memory that stores the "last viewed" positions of discs you've recently stopped and even removed before finishing. Put one back in, and it's ready to resume play just where you left off.
CAUTIONARY NOTES: I somehow managed to lock up this player by asking it to switch quickly between trick play (search, slow-mo and still) modes. It took unplugging the player from the power outlet to reset the microprocessor, after which the unit operated just fine. (The lesson here - don't be too demanding!)
Also be aware - the manufacturer's warranty on this player is just 90 days for parts and labor. Most DVD players carry a guarantee of 90 days for labor, one year for parts, while a few brands (Samsung, for one) give you a full year's protection on both parts and labor repairs.
So if you do pick up this bargain player, I'd recommend seriously putting it through some paces right away, to be certain you don't have a dud. Run a bunch of discs (or the same one, over and over, if that's all you've got. There's no need to leave the TV on.) Or, leave the player "on" overnight so it gets nice and warm (but don't cover the top). It's exactly in such stress conditions that weak parts will fail. In fact, this same equipment testing strategy is applicable for any electronics product you buy - TV, computer, A/V receiver.
WILL MORE MONEY BUY A BETTER PLAYER?: Picturewise, absolutely. You'll also be paid back with a more user-friendly remote that might also handle other components and by extra player features. Among 'em: fast scan with intelligible sound, a more sophisticated on-screen menu, multiple pairs and varieties of audio and video output jacks (including highest quality component video and two varieties of digital audio), maybe a headphone jack, plus a slightly more solid construction.
Good value performers we've tested include the Samsung DVD-511 (discounted to around $160), the Toshiba SD-1600 (priced at $200) and the Panasonic DVD-RV30, which sells for about $230.
Still, if you have spartan needs, a modest A/V setup and tight budget, there's no beating the Oritron DVD 100.
See you in the checkout line, Nov. 24? |
