|
|
Help us keep the list up to date and Submit new DVD and Blu-ray Players here.
Electrohome DVD555E
Chipset: MediaTek MT1389DE |
CDR
CDRW |
DVD-R
DVD-RW
DVD-R DL? |
DVD+R
DVD+RW
DVD+R DL |
BD-R
BD-RE
BD-R DL
|
DivX
JPG |
MP3
WMA |
$50 |
5.0/10
1
votes |
View
1 reports
(5221 views)
Post report
|
Video
formats:
VCD SVCD
DivX XviD
JPG,
Audio formats:
MP3
WMA
|
Other features:
HDMI output
720p/1080i Upscaling
Progressive Scanning
Visit manufacturer's site
Region code free hack here
Google this player. |
1 Panasonic 2xBD-R (MEI...T01) comments, 0 plays 1 dont play.
Post
your DVD Media comments here |
| 1 comments,
Showing
1 to
1 comments |
-
|
|
 Kraken from Canada reported September 07, 2007: |
| Read features: |
Price: |
Time used: |
Rating: |
CDR
CDRW |
DVD-R
DVD-RW
DVD-R DL? |
DVD+R
DVD+RW
DVD+R DL |
BD-R?
BD-RE?
BD-R DL? |
MP3
WMA
CVD? |
$50 |
7 days |
5 of 10 |
JPG/JPEG
DVD-JPG
DVD-MP3
MP3 long filename
MP3 ID3 TAG
DivX
XviD
DVD-MPEGISO
Chipset: MediaTek MT1389DE
|
| Comments: |
IMPORTANT: Buyer beware on this unit!
Some ads claim this player is Ultra Divx certified. That is wrong. Check the Divx website. The unit itself has only the usual Divx Home Theatre certification. It DOES NOT DO chapters and such features of Ultra Divx.
It's also listed on the Electrohome site as being able to play MP3, but I can confirm that IT DOES NOT PLAY MP3 AUDIO FILES. Tellingly, neither the logos on the player itself or its packaging list MP3 capability. Inserting any CDRW or DVDRW media with MP3s results in none of the MP3 files being seen, although the folders containing the MP3s are seen. Renaming mp3s to supported extensions (such as mpg) also doesn't work. The only thing that works is muxing an MP3 into an AVI. Not very practical. Clearly the player has been crippled to produce this result, since it can actually play the MP3 soundtracks in Divx and Xvid content.
The user interface is practically useless, with short filenames and no indication of what file is playing, you'd better make sure you know what content is on your discs before you insert them...you'll have to guess and match based on the minimalist display. Electrohome should take a lesson from the LG players on this aspect of design.
The remote sets new standards for crappiness. The remote for the unit is a small (4.5x11 cm), fragile piece of kit (where 'kit' rhymes with another apt descriptor). It's so thin it actually uses a single calculator button battery! It's barely big enough to hold and use, seemingly made for midgets. So a decent learning universal remote ($20-$30) is mandatory for this player and should be added to the player cost if you don't have one.
The player itself is about average build-quality for this bottom-feeder price range. Usually meaning it has a one year warranty and every operational day past a year is living on borrowed time. Internally it's the usual power supply board connected to a motherboard, connected to the drive. For the first few hours of use the drive emitted a fairly strong chemical odor, likely solvents outgassing under heating. The drive is on the noiser side, particularly when it's spinning up or down, when it's first turned on and is seeking a disc in an empty tray, and at the start of DVDs where all DVD players are at their highest rpm. It gets noticeably quieter as a disc/movie progresses. It's tolerable during playback, provided it doesn't get noiser over time.
The player is an upscaler, going to 1080i, for those faith-based videophiles who think the upscaling on a $50 player can beat that on their $2000 panels. ;-) Picture quality via HDMI seems better than via its composite outs. I clearly found the picture best when it wasn't upscaled at all - meaning at 480i. Let the TV do the de-interlace and upscaling - it was visibly better than letting this player muck with it, particularly on PAL DVD content. One other problem with upscaling is that it frequently gets the aspect ratio wrong, which usually didn't occur if one bypasses the dubious implementation of upscaling on this unit.
The time search feature works on Divx, Xvid and unauthored mpeg1 and mpeg2 files. Seeks were quick on all these formats, but on the OGM container, a seek takes about a minute before play resumes. The first time I thought the player had locked up it took so long. But the seek did work and audio stayed in sync when play resumed. Given that players which can handle OGM aren't exactly common, I'm inclined to forgive this.
Rather unusually, this player supports OGM, MP4 and WMV9 containers, including Vorbis (cbr & vbr), AAC and WMA (cbr & vbr) audio, but with some important limitations.
On MP4, it only works if the AAC soundtrack is at a 48kHz sampling rate. Otherwise you get only the picture, no sound. Which makes it not so useful, since there's a lot of stuff with 44.1kHz soundtracks. You'll still end up having to transcode such mp4s, at which point you may as well put your audio/video in whatever more commonly supported container/format you wish (e.g. avi with AAC -> MP3 soundtrack). Also, the mp4 container can only have audio and video. If the MP4 container has also got subtitles muxed in, then playback stutters and it's basically unusuable.
On the standard def WMV content on the DivxTestCD2.0 (see link on this site), every sample played but seemed to suffer from serious audio sync issues. The desync was quiet apparent. I don't have a lot of WMV content to try, but it seems to me the support for it on this player is in theory only. In practice it's largely unusable, like the MP4 container.
Rather more practical is the OGM support, if one has a substantial collection of archival content in this format. OGM isn't used much these days for new content, having lost out to MKV. The best use of this cheap player may be as a secondary unit for archival OGM playback, since it's hard to find OGM support even on expensive units like TIVX. This cheap box will play OGM including the Vorbis audio, except for Vorbis 5.1, which causes playback to freeze. But 5.1 isn't exactly common, so that's not a big error.
Given the OGM and MP4 support, I hoped for MKV, but it's unsupported. And no, it doesn't do standard-def H264 either.
The player locked up once during testing, requiring it to be unplugged from the power outlet to reset itself. In this state the audio output got stuck on a high pitched whine, sent to the TV via the HDMI input.
Pros:
+ Supports all (high quality, made in Japan) CDR, DVD and rewritable media I've tried without skipping or glitches
+ Supports 2 b-frames & packed bitstream
+ 1 GMC warp OK
+ Qpel OK
+ Supports the OGM container with Vorbis 2.0 audio (but not 5.1 vorbis)
+ Supports the MP4 container with AAC audio (but only at 44.1KHz sample rates and no subs)
+ Supports large (3+ GB) files on UDF filesystems
+ Comes with a cheap but usable HDMI cable
Cons:
- No MP3 audio support (!!!)
- No region free code
- No firmware updates to fix bugs, and likely never will be
- Ultra cheap remote sets new standards for mediocrity
- poor upscaling/de-interlacing. Use only at 480i on HDMI
- Motor & seek noise on the noiser side
- Power supply runs on the hotter side (don't put stuff atop unit)
- Filenames limited to 8-12 chars (seems to vary randomly)
- wrong aspect on upscaled output (see notes)
- WMV content plays with large audio desync
- fails on 3 WP GMC ('unsupported' text on screen & stops)
- Clumsy time search feature
- Minute-long seek times on OGM time searches |
|
| 1 comments,
Showing
1 to
1 comments |
-
|
|
| 1 DVD Player
hits, Showing
1 to
1 DVD Players |
-
|
|
Column Explanation
 Click on this for
more technical information.
New comments= New comments since your last visit.
New Player = New DVD Player since your last vist.
|
CDR
Few CDR
CDR
CDR? |
This medium works
This medium works on some few media/brands, read
the comments for more tips.
This medium does not work
This medium is not tested |
VCD
VCD
VCD? |
This feature is supported
This feature is not supported
This feature is not tested |
| ? kbit/s |
The maximum allowed
bitrate for the above feature |
Price
Info |
The price, remember
that it is our user that report the price
More detailed technical informations from either
manufacturer sites, review sites or stores. |
| Rating |
The first rating is based on a weighted
rank (the true
Bayesian), it requires at least 5 votes to
get a weighted rating.
The second rating between the () is a normal average
rating |
Reports
|
Total reports, click
on view reports to view them and add to post your
own report and comments |
| We
can Not gurantee that this list is 100% correct
and don't forget to read the user comments for
more info about each player. |
|
|
