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Commented on own review

Buying a DVD Player for Dummies
Choosing a DVD Player

For purchasing, you have two options: either a non-branded one or a branded one. In each category you have ranges from low-end model to high-end model. In non-branded category the low end model will cost Rs. 1500 and the high end model will cost Rs. 3000. In the branded category, the cheapest will c...ost Rs. 2500 and the costlier one will cost Rs. 4500. If you leave aside the price factor then branded one is preferred as at least you have the assurance of after sales service so if something goes wrong you can get it repaired otherwise in non-branded DVD player you don’t have any option but to repair at your own cost. During the course of my visits to the various shops selling these DVD players I have come across a variety of prospective customers who are taken for a ride by the smooth talking sales persons. I have written this article with the objective of helping the average person buy a good DVD player on his own. In case you need any further clarifications you can contact me jawed.ahmedatgmail.com and I am online on yahoo at kingjawed. Thanks having patience to read this article and have a happy new year 2008. Read More

Commented on own review

Buying a DVD Player for Dummies
Choosing a DVD Player

4. You should check the distance from which the remote works. I was under the impression that most of the players use the same remotes so it would be same for everyone but apparently its not so. In some remotes the IR led is hidden inside the hole so only a small part is visible outside. This leads ...to reduced range, when you are close not matter how you point the remote it works but when you go far you have to really aim and point to make it work. Whereas in some other DVD players the IR led is exposed out which leads to the remote working well from even a distance of 4-5 metres when the batteries are new. 5. All DVD players have the Disc-Resume feature. When you stop a movie halfway through and start next time, it resumes playback from exactly the place where you stopped last time. But in some players this feature works only for Video DVDs and not for DIvx and MP4s. So check if this feature is available for all. You can remove the disc, shutdown the player, remove the power cable and then again power on and insert the same disc to test if it resumes from the same place where it was stopped. (continued on next comment)Read More

Commented on own review

Buying a DVD Player for Dummies
Choosing a DVD Player

Once you have thought out and decided on which DVD player you should purchase, you should check the following things physically when you are in the shop. 1. The accessories that come along with them. Some manufacturers don’t even give the batteries for the remote whereas others supply even the RGB ...cables for connecting to your Television with component output. If you purchase a branded one then you have to take it as it is. But if it’s a imported one then you can negotiate to your heart’s content and get all you want along with. 2. The time that the DVD takes to start playing the disc from the time the disc is inserted. It should vary from around 5 seconds for CDs to around 30 Secs for DVDs. Under no circumstance and for not disc should the read time be greater than 45 seconds. Even if the disc is bad, dirty or scratched then the player should reject it within seconds. If it goes into a unending loop trying to read it and reads is after a long time or rejects it after a long time then don’t go for it. Ask for a different piece or different model 3. In the menu items check for the playlist settings. Today in the days of DVDs and MP3s when the discs can have 100s of songs its very important that there is a feature to make a list of your favourite songs and listen to them only instead of listening to all the songs. In some DVD players you can make play list for only the audio CDs but not for MP3s or DVDs which is actually stupid because Audio CDs contain at best 10-20 songs…in practice you need the playlists for the MP3 (continued on next comment)Read More

Commented on own review

Buying a DVD Player for Dummies
Choosing a DVD Player

d) 6 channel output: Normally all the DVD players have this option except the small ones which don’t have space for that many jacks. I have mentioned this specifically, if you are going for a small DVD player then check the rear of the player and see for yourself if they have six RCA jacks of diff...erent colours in one consolidated panel. This will come in handy if you plan to go for separate speaker system in future to complete your home theatre. Preferable features 1) Amplifier: DVD players normally don’t have inbuilt amplifiers. The audio out signals from the DVD players need to be input either to the Television/LCD or to some other music system to hear them. The signals as it is cannot drive a speaker directly. However a few models come with in built amplifiers. These can be directly connected to speakers. They are a better proposition because there is one system less in your audio visual setup. With an inbuilt amplifier you don’t need either a Television or other music system to listen to songs. 2) HDMI output: This connector is used to hook up your player with large displays like LCDs and Plasmas. They provide better display as most of the processing is done at the display level and raw digital signals are provided via this output. You can keep this in mind if you plan to purchase any High Definition(HD) display in future but considering the fact that a reasonably good display would cost you around 70-100K and the player costs only Rs. 1500 to Rs. 4000, you can always get a better player in future when you have a display to go along with. 3) Card Reader: This one comes in handy when you have a digital camera. If your DVD player has a card reader then you can immediately insert the memory card from the camera and watch the movie or the pictures which you just clicked on the large Television display. (continued on next comment)Read More

Commented on own review

Buying a DVD Player for Dummies
Choosing a DVD Player

Coming to the features: a) Divx/Xvid capabilities: These are the most popular video compression techniques. They are to video what MP3 is to audio. One hour and 30 minutes of DVD quality Video with 5.1 channel sound can be fitted on to a 700 MB CD. It is the video format of the future. If you hav...e video clippings on your computer(from handycam/digicam) then you can view them on your DVD player by just copying them to a conventional CD/DVD. You don’t have to create a specially coded Video disc(which has to be done to view them on non DivX models and which take hours together on Nero). All you have to do is copy the AVI files(the DivX files have an extension of either AVI or DIVX) to your disc and you can watch straight away. This is one feature your DVD player must have. b) MP4 Capability: This is one more compression standard like DivX/Xvid but in this case the file extensions are either MPG or MPEG. I have mentioned this in a separate point and not included it in the earlier feature because apparently they use different circuitry for de-coding so if you research , you will notice that the commonly available players have Divx but very few players have MP4 capability. Some players have only MP4 but no DivX. While very few players have both. This is a grey area and I have also noticed that certain models have both but they mention only DivX. c) USB Port: This feature allows you to connect your USB pen drive or your USB HDD directly to the DVD Player and play the songs and movies. This feature is certainly very useful if you have a computer at home or a Laptop. You don’t have to write CDs to view them, whenever you come across something nice just copy it to your USB drive and hear it when you are home. If you don’t like it then delete it and you are again ready for more..(continued on next comment)Read More

Commented on own review

Buying a DVD Player for Dummies
Choosing a DVD Player

Next we come to the electronic part. Here we have three distinct components, the control circuit for the controlling the movements of the discs load/unload and the lens tracking, the digital decoder, which converts the 0s and 1s read from the disc to music/video and the pre-amplifier which strengthe...ns the signals so as to travel through the cables to reach the LCD/Television or the amplifier. Instead of going into technical details I will summarise by saying that even though none of the manufacturers have the same circuitry, they use different permutations from a limited basket of options. So there is no perceptible difference to the end user in the performance. Some companies give a sales pitch of having 16 bit or 24 bit D/A convertor. Even if you have a 12 bit D/A convertor the music will sound just as sweet and you can’t differentiate between them. If I can give an analogy of cars, its just like saying , when comparing two cars that, this one can go up a maximum speed of 350 km/h and the other one can go upto 390 Km/h. When you know all the time that you are never going to know the difference between 350 and 390 when you going that fast.. So once again if the sales person tries to favour a particular brand on the electronic part don’t listen. They are all the same. The last part is the power supply. This is one part which is not same in all the DVD players. The cheapers ones at the bottom of the hierarchy have simple transformers and regulated rectifier circuits whereas the costly one(Rs. 3000 and above) have computer like SMPS supplies. You can easily make out by the weights. The ones with transformers will be heavier by atleast 500 to 700 grams compared to the SMPS ones. Performance wise both give the same result , but on the reliability front SMPS players are better. Coming to the features: Continued..on next commentRead More

Reviewed Choosing a DVD Player

Buying a DVD Player for Dummies

This short article is written for those non-geeks who are on the verge of purchasing a DVD player. Readers carrying an above average knowledge of music systems/dvd players will find my article a bit elementary so please give this a skip. Others  read on…. Today ( Dec 30th 2007) if you are goi...Read more

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Reviewed Buying a Digital Camera

Digital Camera:10 minute guide to purchasing

When you buy a digital camera check for three things 1)How manyMegaPixels does the camera have? 2)If Optical Zoom present? If yes then how many Xs? 3)How many cells does it need and what kind of cells? Normally like all digital equipment, the camera needs to convert an analog signal ...Read more

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