Good deal, not many DIVX players out there… Great Woot!
this’ll sell out fast.
review: Page not found - HomeTheaterHifi.com
This is essentially part two of the review for the LG DVB418. I wrote a separate review on the 480p component section of this player as it is almost completely different from the up-converted component or HDMI outputs. While all modes rely on the Mediatek MPEG decoder that I am so fond of, the HDMI and higher component resolutions utilize a Genesis/Faroudja FLI-2300 series video processor. This makes the performance vastly different then 480p component which just uses the MPEG decoder for all of its processing.
In my opinion, the only high point for this player is its responsiveness. The Mediatek chip is extremely fast, making menu and chapter navigation a breeze, and layer changes a thing of the past. This player takes full advantage of that, but, unfortunately, the kudos stop there.
First off, the 418 shows the “macroblocking” issue that has become the Achilles heel of all Faroudja-based players lately. And it is quite bad, especially via component video. The reason is the black level of this player is set to 7.5 IRE which lightens the darker areas, and this is where the problem is most noticeable. Using my regular test scene, Chapter 22 of A Bug’s Life, not only was the artifact clearly visible in all the backgrounds, it extended up into the letterboxing on the top and bottom of the image. This rendered the picture just about unwatchable.
This player outputs the correct RGB levels via HDMI, and passes below-black, unlike the component outputs. It also outputs the correct Studio RGB levels if the HDMI is converted to DVI. This made the macroblocking not as bad with my test scene, but still clearly visible. But the flipside to this coin is the white level which is WAY too high via HDMI. The white level is so hot via HDMI that I had to bring my monitor’s contrast level to almost zero to eliminate the majority of the clipping. Completely unsatisfactory.
There are also several chroma issues with this Faroudja implementation. LG turned the cross color suppressor to ON and left it there. This can result in artifacts with color, including flickering and noise. There is also some extremely strange ghosting that occurred with our chroma test patterns. We use the Microsoft WHQL Test Disc 3 for our chroma tests now. These tests have fish that swim around an aquarium at different speeds and they are completely red. There was no tearing or obvious jaggidness to the fish since the Mediatek doesn’t have CUE issues, but the color appeared to lag with movement, creating a strange ghosting affect. After seeing this, I tried a few different animated DVDs at 720p via component and via HDMI at various resolutions. I used Shark Tale and The Spongebob Squarepants Movie and some other films as well. Thankfully, none of the same chroma delay anomalies were noticed and the image looked stable.
The core side of the up-scaled component video is quite bad. The video frequency response is all over the place and goes up in the middle, causing some artificial ringing in the image. The upper end is also rolled off a bit, making the image seem soft in the fine detail department. 720p and 1080i via component also suffer from over a full pixel of Y/C delay and Pb/Pr delay. It is unusual to see Pb/Pr delay in a player, but the 418 has it quite bad. Pixel cropping via component was also horrible, with 18 pixels clipped from the right side of the image at 720p and 21 at 1080i.
The HDMI output doesn’t improve things much. Pixel cropping is still bad with the right side consistently cropping about 17 pixels regardless of resolution. Thankfully, there is no Y/C delay via HDMI.
Summary: The LG DVB418 is a player with numerous bugs to work out. There is a lot of potential for a great player here if LG would have been a bit more careful in their implementation. Attention to detail can go a long way in the video department, and I really hope LG ups the quality control the next time around. They have a new HDMI-based DVD player due later this summer, and I hope it is a big improvement over this one.
Refurbished always frighten me. Still loving the writing, Woot!
nah, maybe if it was a writer as well…
First Post!
This is intriguing… the price is right…
I need a new DVD player… my 2 year old has really done a number on my current one… but a refurb? hmmm no thanks
amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000BSFWLI/ref=sr_11_1/103-3005857-3819056?_encoding=UTF8&v=glance&n=284507
froogle link: http://froogle.google.com/froogle?client=safari&rls=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=DVB418&lmode=online&scoring=p
not a bad deal, but not especially great.
Looking for my first Woot!. Not tonight.
Woot… $64.99 shipped
Froogle… 69.99 - 125.00+ (shipping not included)
Woot wins again!
seen better, but good deal
Got a computer to do this for me… Good if you have an HD TV bigger then 42"
Hope it shows up better than the wireless keyboard and mouse that was refurbished, i mean barely cleaned and repackaged.
Autvincere
Why do refurbs have such short warranty’s?? Doesn’t say much for their quality…ey guys
ikes… cnet users didnt seem to like it so much. o well w00t for divX
refurb=checked twice for something wrong
original
and then right now
MOTHER… Father. Man… I was hoping for something spooky… being the first Friday the 13th of the year.
Oh well.
i tought dvix was long gone…no thanks
I think my dad has been looking for a DVD player, but he’s pretty fed up with FedEx, and Woot appearantly doesn’t care about his business, so he will NOT be getting one of these. Woot, you need more shipping options other than FedEx. At least try to work with him here so you will have his business again. He’s emailed you a couple of times. I think he is writing soon, not sure.
"You know all those “short films” on your hard drive, the ones you’ve craftily hidden in the “sys32” folder? "
ROFL… you know my husband? he tried this trick… got caught… and slept with the dogs for a week… need to show him this… ; )