Kiss DP-1000 DVD Player - page 3

Reading Tests

One important thing that makes a DVD player good is its ability to read all the discs and all the formats. For this reason we tracked down all the appropriate material in order to check the manufacturer's specifications regarding format support.

DivX support

All the DivX versions we tried, v2,3,3.11,4,5.11, played successfully with the DP-1000 except this one where the Quarter Pixel was enabled, as it can been seen in the screenshot below. With this feature disable there were no problems.

Xvid support

Our tests confirmed that the Xvid 1 and 2 are supported by the Kiss player. Once again the Quarter pixel had to be disable, otherwise you won't be able to play the files.

In our Xvid test movie, with AC3 sound, we had to files with subtitles, one was a .sub file with english subtitles and the other a .srt file with greek subtitles. The second one was not been recognized from the player. We don't know what was the problem, the greek subtitles or the type of file?

DVD support

• DVD-Video

The Kiss DP-1000 we have in our hands is a region-2 drive, which means that the player is able to decode (play) only the pressed DVD-Video discs coming from the European region. However since you can upgrade the device with new firmware it is possible, with an unofficial version, to make it region free.

We connected the DP-1000 through the Scart interface with the corresponding cable, which is included in the player's package. As was expected, the player supports the DVD-Video format. We recorded a 4.35GB DVD-Video file on various DVD+R/-R, DVD-RW/+RW media. The recorders we used are some of the latest dual-format available on the PC market, as well as some 1st generation recorders. Pressed single / dual layer DVD-Video discs were also included in the test. All the test discs were created with the same PC /software in the DVD-Video mode.

We checked the player's disc recognition as well as smooth navigation and playback. The results were very good, since all the discs were read completely. The table below lists the drives and media we used in our tests.

• DVD-ROM

Kiss player supports reading of DVD-ROM discs.

• DVD-Audio

Cannot reproduce this advanced audio format.

CD support

The DP-1000 supports AudioCD, CD-R/-RW, VideoCD and Super-VideoCD playback. The *.cda files of any audioCD are recognized flawlessly, even when the disc is factory pressed or is a CD-R/RW. In addition, CD-Text is supported.

In our case, when talking about data CD (CD-R/-RW), we refer to either compressed audio files (MP3, WMA, Ogg Vorbis..) or pure *.wav files, or VideoCD and Super VideoCD.

• AudioCD

In the case of pressed AudioCDs, the player recognizes and plays all the tracks, offering additional features such as CD-Text reading and navigation between tracks, as already mentioned in the previous page. This also applies to CD-R and CD-RW discs. The device played audio files from CD-R, 10x HS-RW, 24x US-RW and 32x US-RW discs we inserted in the disc tray.

In addition, no problems were noticed when we played 8cm CD-R/-RW (185MB) or 90/99min CD-R.

CDS200 and Key2Audio protected Audio CDs are playable in all players, and the Kiss DP 1000 is no exception, since the protection schemes are intended for PC devices only.

• Super AudioCD

This format, as was expected, it is not supported.

• Compressed Audio (data CD)

Let's see now how the player reacts to various compressed audio files stored on data CD-R/RW. Although the specifications of the DP-1000 indicate MP3 support, it is not sure whether the drive can handle all MP3 compression modes. CBR or VBR encoding mode and variations in the sampling rate could be hard for any reader to decode. Below is available, the behavior of the player with various MP3 and WMA files.

The player supports decoding of all the popular CBR and VBR MP3 modes. In the case of WMA files, the player provided average performance. Half of our test files reproduced audible clicks and pauses.

• JPEG

You can use the DP-1000 to watch your photos. The Jpeg format is supported and there is the capability for the user to cycle through the images.

• VCD/SVCD

As was expected, from the manufacturers specifications, both formats are supported.