Aldi DVD Player - HDMI & USB for £35!

gromituk

seth wrote: »

Scenario 2) HD content delivered via HDMI are the resolution of the display.
If you have an HD source then the quality of the upscale is not relevant as most HD / BR players will output to the precise resolution of the LCD/Plasma glass.

That is a huge assumption to make, as it is only true if you can switch off overscanning (magnification of the picture that tellies do because they think you'd rather not see stuff near the edges in case you actually do see the edges and think your set is faulty). Just how many sets don't have mandatory overscan on their HDMI inputs?

And this is all irrelevant anyway: the bottom line is that you're not going to get an "upscaler" of any "quality" in a £35 DVD player, and as you say, the upscaler in the telly can be tuned to the characteristics of the screen, so has an advantage right from the start.

Lütz_Pangaloo

Fleetwood_Lad wrote: »

Bought one this morning. It is playing a downloaded xvid no problems at all.

ps. All the TV's went 15 mins before the store opened.(Fleetwood)

I got one at 9.15am this morning - store was just full of pensioners milling about - no queue, plenty of players and tellys.

Got it home - knackered! Just said 'bad disc' on every dvd I tried (a couple very new). Took it straight back and swapped it for another - that one is downstairs playing Zoolander now - looks to be ok.

I noticed that every player in the shop had been opened (the round sticky security patches had been cut), then resealed with sticky tape - I think Tevion UK might have opened them up to put their own contact number sticker in the box - nothing was missing.

I haven't tested the USB or 5.1 side of things yet, and I don't have a panel with a HDMI input so I can't report on that either, but there are a couple of things worth mentioning.

The model number on the instruction book is 'DVD 8001', though it does look identical to the '2007-F' I posted the links to (inside and out). I popped the lid off and it does contain a Vaddis 888, so it can't be that bad.

It has an orange display - I would have preferred blue, but it can be dimmed and turned completely off if desired. Thankfully the whole tray doesn't light up! It comes with a 2m long HDMI cable with gold plated ends (!), a 1m fully wired SCART lead and a 1m triple RCA to RCA for basic connection.

The remote has a nice curved back and you get two AAAs for it included. The manual confirms it plays JPG/MP3/MPEG4 from cards and USB sticks and also provides a list of both compatible and incompatible devices. I'll have a go with my USB stick and external hard disk tonight (both must be formatted FAT32, or they won't be recognised).

My only concern is that there is absolutely no mention of DTS anywhere in the manual, on the player itself or on the box, whereas the original Aldi ad said it had a built-in DTS decoder - I'll try and test this too (I've only got one DTS disc - Gladiator!).

So inspite of the first one being duff, I'm still pleased with it so far. Bloke in the shop said I had 30 days to bring it back if I didn't like it - after that they expect you to deal with Tevion and get any faults repaired - it has a three year warranty after all.



EDIT: The manual does say it will read DVD-R & -RW media too, which it didn't say on the ad (only mentioned +). I haven't tried any yet.

iamlovejunkie

OK I know im jumping in a little late here, the whole does it upgrade signal thing is meaninless to me.... however I have been searching for a cheap way to plug my external hard drive into the tv to watch my divx films an episodes of lost on the big screen... it seems the cheepest method of this is a maplin job for arround £80 quid inc the hard drive bit... Am I right in thinking that I can just plug my usb cable from the external hard drive into the dvd player and it will recognise it and let me watch things on it???
TA Andy

Lütz_Pangaloo

iamlovejunkie wrote: »

Am I right in thinking that I can just plug my usb cable from the external hard drive into the dvd player and it will recognise it and let me watch things on it???

Yes! Well that's why I bought one anyway (haven't tried it yet though).

This player has a USB2 port on it, so transfer rates should be good enough for stutter-free playback, but any USB device you use must be formatted FAT32 (which most are anyway) or your files won't be recognised.

There is a 4GB file size limitation with FAT32 - so you would have trouble trying to play DVDs saved in ISO format, but it should be fine with anything else - I'm going to try some AVIs and MPGs tonight (when the wife's gone to bed, IYKWIM).



EDIT: I wouldn't panic about it - there were loads in my local Aldi.

Mark_Ice

Was just gonna say it in the manual it says "Capable of playing disc formats such as DivX3.11 DivX 4+ 5+ 5+Pro in MPeg 4 format....

marnstars

Is this thing as ugly as it looks on the box!

Fleetwood_Lad

Oh Yes.

Glossy black front, orange display, no smooth edges. Looks tacky.

iamlovejunkie

Lütz_Pangaloo wrote: »

Yes! Well that's why I bought one anyway (haven't tried it yet though).

This player has a USB2 port on it, so transfer rates should be good enough for stutter-free playback, but any USB device you use must be formatted FAT32 (which most are anyway) or your files won't be recognised.

There is a 4GB file size limitation with FAT32 - so you would have trouble trying to play DVDs saved in ISO format, but it should be fine with anything else - I'm going to try some AVIs and MPGs tonight (when the wife's gone to bed, IYKWIM).



EDIT: I wouldn't panic about it - there were loads in my local Aldi.

Keep me posted on your results! im assuming my hard drive is already formated??? I cant format it now anyhow is has 230 gig stored on it! hope it works... Aldi here i come if it does !!!

Lütz_Pangaloo

iamlovejunkie wrote: »

Keep me posted on your results! im assuming my hard drive is already formated??? I cant format it now anyhow is has 230 gig stored on it! hope it works... Aldi here i come if it does !!!

Well I've just tried a no-name 128MB USB stick with a couple of small AVIs and some MP3s and they all played perfectly - unfortunately I haven't got an MPG small enough to fit (!) so I'll try my external 160GB drive later (it's FAT32 so should be ok).

Best way to check yours is to plug it into your PC, right click on the drive letter and select 'Properties'. In the window that opens you should see FAT32 next to 'File System'. If it's NTFS you're scuppered I'm afraid - you'll have to reformat (lose all your content) or get a new FAT32 disk and copy over everything to that.

Good luck!

gromituk

The reason why it doesn't support NTFS is because NTFS is protected by patents, so they would have to pay licensing fees. That's Microsoft for you.