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DIVX on TV! The Norcent DP-220 with Divx, a Mini-Review
So, for many, many years now... okay, not that many, seeing as torrents and downloading episodes from online is just not that old a technology, but for a while now, I have watched friends downloading episodes of shows to watch on computer, and have not seen the appeal. Specifically, I don't like watching shows on my computer. A big part of enjoying a show for me is being able to sit on the sofa, watch it on a decent sized screen, and fight for space with my cat, sometimes with my laptop on one knee so I can multi-task. Or, you know, have guests over to watch with me!
Downloading an episode to watch required going to the office, where the desktop (with the better monitor, and extra diskspace) lives, sitting in the not-so-comfy office chair, and watching it on a decent, but smaller sized screen, only a foot or so away. I mean, doable, but not actually fun for me, too much like work. It put me off to an enormous degree, actually.
If only I could watch these downloaded files on tv, I said to myself, now THAT would be something. But no. While I know it's possible to convert a file to something watchable on tv, I've failed to manage it myself, and the process requires a lot of time and effort for each episode you'd like to convert. Still, I decided to give it another shot, in the hopes of catching a few episodes I've missed this year. So I asked![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
astolat for a few tips. astolat answered, "Hmmm, probably TMPGenc will do it, but you know, there's this new player on the market I've been looking at...."
She described the player. I expressed disbelief. I repeatedly asked her the same questions, over and over, to see if I could trick her into different answers, but NO! I discovered that indeed, she was saying there existed a dvd player on the market that can playback divx/xvid files without any conversion at all. Just burn them down to dvd or cd, pop them in, and PLAY. And that said player is only $45 before shipping. (There are, it turns out, other players out there as well, like the Phillips... but this is certainly the cheapest I've seen listed).
I stared at the player online a while, then a while longer, and then twitched a bit, and then twitched more, and then a seizure at minute 21 or so caused me to hit the buy button.
The Norcent DP-220
While this small report on it will hardly cover everything (the thing only just arrived today, after all, I've probably barely skimmed the surface), I've tested it with what I have at hand, and can describe it in general, for those who may be interested.
First of all, it works. But not on everything, and it is FAR from bug free. Still, it's works well enough for my purposes, and for a $45 player. I've described the player a bit, and then, below, the tests I've run.
The Player and Remote
The player itself is very thin, small, and silver. It's the smallest component I own now, sitting at the top of the tower, above the TiVo, since I don't want to put weight on it. There is no LCD screen, any manuevering about must be viewed on the tv screen itself. I believe it's also sort of picky -- more than once, I've gotten a message to the effect that the Data Menu is OFF, Press Disc to turn ON. I have no idea what this means. There's no button anywhere named disc, and... well, the way I've solved it each time has involved opening the player, repositioning the disk EVER SO SLIGHTLY, and trying again. This may or may not be what it actually wants. I just don't know.
The remote control undoubtedly gets picked on at the school playground a lot. It's half the size of a normal remote, if that; the smallest remote for a dvd player or vcr I've ever seen. It's very basic, and not all that well laid out, but it does the job. A TiVo remote it is not.
The Menu Structure
The first thing you see when the screen comes on it an orange-and-yellow sunburst looking screen with the word Norcent in the middle. When you put a disk in, you may continue to see this screen for a bit, while the drive studies the contents of your disk. The amount of time it takes *seems* to depend on how much stuff you have on the disk, and whether the disk is a cd or a dvd. A cd with quite a few titles was still faster than a dvd with fewer titles. The noises it makes when processing a dvd seem louder and more scratchy than for the cds, but maybe that's my imagination. It's certainly not a quiet process, so don't let it freak you, as it chirps away.
A blue box then appears on the screen. It's titled "Smart Navi" and split down the middle into two columns. Each column begins with a yellow folder and the word "Root". On the left hand side, this is all there ever is. The space beneath has been empty no matter what I put on a disk. On the right hand side, the real menu lives. Root is designated 0, and each title on the menu after that assigned a number. Since these were data disks, and my burner simply burns files alphabetically, when I hurl stuff in, this meant my files in the menu were all alphabetically arranged.
There's limited space for titles to show up on your screen -- about 11 characters will show up. After that it's cut off. So if you have 5 episodes that all start with exactly the same first 11 letters, you might want to change the name -- or you're going to have some trouble differentiating. After the 7th title, the episodes scroll right off the screen, so just keep paging down on the remote.
Most of the files I tested were XVID, and a black X would appear next to the file name in recognition of this fact. One was MPEG, and the red VCD symbol showed up for the game. Files it couldn't understand at all were given the Question Mark of Doom. The Question Mark of Doom can really screw a disc up.
The Tests
So far, using the Norcent, I have tried the following out 1) 4 Episodes of Dr. Who, burned to DVD. 2) Veronica Mars, episode 19, burned to cd. 3) Numb3rs, the pilot, burned to cd. 4) Fullmetal Alchemist, 4 episodes, burned to cd. 5) 9 Random Anime vids pulled from my hardrive, burned to cd. 6) a dvd with the following files hurled onto it: 1 Dr. Who episode, 2 Fullmetal Alchemist, 1 House epiode, 1 Numb3rs episode, 1 Veronica Mars episode, andastolat's vid Zebra
1) The 4 Episodes of Dr. Who on dvd -- This was the first disk I tried, and the scariest, since I had no idea whether it was going to be able to handle XVID at all. And indeed, it didn't go smoothly at first. I got the error message about the Data CD menu being off. I closed and reopened and tried again, and got the menu. Then, of course, because DOCTOR_WHO_ is a long title, that's all I could see for the episode names. When you click on an episode, the screen flicks back to orange for a moment, then to black, with the words Reading Index... then proceeds to play your episode. (What a huge relief it was to hear and see the familiar Dr. Who opener!)
Getting out to the menu and back in again is not a quick process, don't panic if it takes time. Basically, I think it's the result of Smart Navi having to compile a menu from the disc info for you, each time.
2) Next was Veronica Mars on CD. That test took a while, since I hadn't seen the episode yet.
3) Numb3rs on CD similarly played with no problems. Both Veronica and Numb3rs were quick to load, and gave me no problems on the menu screens or elsewhere. Both were also the only titles on a single cd. Very little data to read on an otherwise small disc seems to make it easier on the player.
4) Fullmetal Alchemist on CD was in the mix because I was concerned about Anime. Anime is often uploaded in unfamiliar codecs, I'm told. And at first I thought it had failed -- but it turned out to be my own mistake in burning. I redid the disk, and all four episodes loaded in a decent amount of time (for this player) and played well.
5) Random Anime Vids -- I pulled 9 down from my computer and burned them to cd, because I knew both anime and homemade vids were likely to present some challenges to the player, and indeed, it did. There were 8 AVI files, and 1 MPEG on this disc. The mpeg was an accident, actually, since I was looking for avis, but it's just as well I put it on there, I should have been testing mpegs all along as well.
The disc gave the player some fits. A few times, it argued that the DATA menu was not turned on. I argued it was. After that, it opened with a stillshot from the second vid on the disc -- Big Big Truck's "Failed Experiments". Next, it tried to skip the menu entirely and start with the first vid on the disk, Absolute Destiny's Shameless Rock Video. Repeatedly pushing the Menu button eventually got me to the menu, where I was able to scroll about. But every time I left playing through the vids, and hitting next within the system, in order to go to the menu again, I'd face this same battle. It didn't particularly want to go to the menu. Of the vids, 7 were fine, including, I'm happy to say, the mpeg. Two played video, but no audio.
6) I put the last disc together because I was worried about how it handles both dvds, and discs with lots of titles. And the first time I put this disc together, I screwed up, and put some incomplete or incorrect files on instead of what I intended. That was educational. It hated this disc most of all. First it insisted the only files readable on the disc were the Fullmetal episodes. Then it claimed there was no Dr. Who on the disk. Then, it spat the disc out. Literally simply opened the drawer and sat there demanding I take the disc away when I hit play. I could get to the menu, and I could play the episodes if I insisted enough, but apparently, the more incorrectly formatted files on a disc, the more the player will not even attempt the task. So, if you can, avoid putting files on accidentally -- things it can't identify get question marks, and the more question marks, the less likely it'll even try.
I recreated the disk, taking care not to put partial files, or files that weren't video files on the disc. This time, although it took a while for it to process the menu, all the episodes showed up, and played, just fine.
My test sample, as you can see, was pretty small so far, and I know from what I've read I'm likely to hit stuff it can't play. Not all divx/xvid is encoded quite the same, and of course, files can become corrupt. Still, the player handled a pretty good variety, from more recent files, like House and Numb3rs, to some riskier stuff, like random anime vids, in a variety of formats.
Regular Discs
It occurs to me some of you might want to know about playing, you know, *regular* discs, ones you buy in the store, and all. I only really tried two, but the following facts may be of interest:
Parental Guidance: When I first tried the player out with a regular disc, it immediately demanded a parental control code, because the disk was labeled higher than "G". It was hard to find the default code in the book: 8888 for anyone who runs into this. The setup menu was also a bit strange and confusing, but it is possible to go into it, and either change the parental control to something higher, or No Parental Control at all.
Regions: Despite the fact that the player clearly has settings for both NTSC and PAL, I can find no way, at present, to talk it into playing my region 2 dvds. Bah. I'm hoping a hack will be announced somewhere later.
So, in conclusion: Basically, despite its flaws, I'm ecstatic over being able to play these files on my tv, and over the image quality. The menus are slow to appear, and the player a bit primitive and buggy, but it has played almost everything I've thrown at it so far, and played it well.
Downloading an episode to watch required going to the office, where the desktop (with the better monitor, and extra diskspace) lives, sitting in the not-so-comfy office chair, and watching it on a decent, but smaller sized screen, only a foot or so away. I mean, doable, but not actually fun for me, too much like work. It put me off to an enormous degree, actually.
If only I could watch these downloaded files on tv, I said to myself, now THAT would be something. But no. While I know it's possible to convert a file to something watchable on tv, I've failed to manage it myself, and the process requires a lot of time and effort for each episode you'd like to convert. Still, I decided to give it another shot, in the hopes of catching a few episodes I've missed this year. So I asked
astolat for a few tips. astolat answered, "Hmmm, probably TMPGenc will do it, but you know, there's this new player on the market I've been looking at...."She described the player. I expressed disbelief. I repeatedly asked her the same questions, over and over, to see if I could trick her into different answers, but NO! I discovered that indeed, she was saying there existed a dvd player on the market that can playback divx/xvid files without any conversion at all. Just burn them down to dvd or cd, pop them in, and PLAY. And that said player is only $45 before shipping. (There are, it turns out, other players out there as well, like the Phillips... but this is certainly the cheapest I've seen listed).
I stared at the player online a while, then a while longer, and then twitched a bit, and then twitched more, and then a seizure at minute 21 or so caused me to hit the buy button.
The Norcent DP-220
While this small report on it will hardly cover everything (the thing only just arrived today, after all, I've probably barely skimmed the surface), I've tested it with what I have at hand, and can describe it in general, for those who may be interested.
First of all, it works. But not on everything, and it is FAR from bug free. Still, it's works well enough for my purposes, and for a $45 player. I've described the player a bit, and then, below, the tests I've run.
The Player and Remote
The player itself is very thin, small, and silver. It's the smallest component I own now, sitting at the top of the tower, above the TiVo, since I don't want to put weight on it. There is no LCD screen, any manuevering about must be viewed on the tv screen itself. I believe it's also sort of picky -- more than once, I've gotten a message to the effect that the Data Menu is OFF, Press Disc to turn ON. I have no idea what this means. There's no button anywhere named disc, and... well, the way I've solved it each time has involved opening the player, repositioning the disk EVER SO SLIGHTLY, and trying again. This may or may not be what it actually wants. I just don't know.
The remote control undoubtedly gets picked on at the school playground a lot. It's half the size of a normal remote, if that; the smallest remote for a dvd player or vcr I've ever seen. It's very basic, and not all that well laid out, but it does the job. A TiVo remote it is not.
The Menu Structure
The first thing you see when the screen comes on it an orange-and-yellow sunburst looking screen with the word Norcent in the middle. When you put a disk in, you may continue to see this screen for a bit, while the drive studies the contents of your disk. The amount of time it takes *seems* to depend on how much stuff you have on the disk, and whether the disk is a cd or a dvd. A cd with quite a few titles was still faster than a dvd with fewer titles. The noises it makes when processing a dvd seem louder and more scratchy than for the cds, but maybe that's my imagination. It's certainly not a quiet process, so don't let it freak you, as it chirps away.
A blue box then appears on the screen. It's titled "Smart Navi" and split down the middle into two columns. Each column begins with a yellow folder and the word "Root". On the left hand side, this is all there ever is. The space beneath has been empty no matter what I put on a disk. On the right hand side, the real menu lives. Root is designated 0, and each title on the menu after that assigned a number. Since these were data disks, and my burner simply burns files alphabetically, when I hurl stuff in, this meant my files in the menu were all alphabetically arranged.
There's limited space for titles to show up on your screen -- about 11 characters will show up. After that it's cut off. So if you have 5 episodes that all start with exactly the same first 11 letters, you might want to change the name -- or you're going to have some trouble differentiating. After the 7th title, the episodes scroll right off the screen, so just keep paging down on the remote.
Most of the files I tested were XVID, and a black X would appear next to the file name in recognition of this fact. One was MPEG, and the red VCD symbol showed up for the game. Files it couldn't understand at all were given the Question Mark of Doom. The Question Mark of Doom can really screw a disc up.
The Tests
So far, using the Norcent, I have tried the following out 1) 4 Episodes of Dr. Who, burned to DVD. 2) Veronica Mars, episode 19, burned to cd. 3) Numb3rs, the pilot, burned to cd. 4) Fullmetal Alchemist, 4 episodes, burned to cd. 5) 9 Random Anime vids pulled from my hardrive, burned to cd. 6) a dvd with the following files hurled onto it: 1 Dr. Who episode, 2 Fullmetal Alchemist, 1 House epiode, 1 Numb3rs episode, 1 Veronica Mars episode, and
astolat's vid Zebra1) The 4 Episodes of Dr. Who on dvd -- This was the first disk I tried, and the scariest, since I had no idea whether it was going to be able to handle XVID at all. And indeed, it didn't go smoothly at first. I got the error message about the Data CD menu being off. I closed and reopened and tried again, and got the menu. Then, of course, because DOCTOR_WHO_ is a long title, that's all I could see for the episode names. When you click on an episode, the screen flicks back to orange for a moment, then to black, with the words Reading Index... then proceeds to play your episode. (What a huge relief it was to hear and see the familiar Dr. Who opener!)
Getting out to the menu and back in again is not a quick process, don't panic if it takes time. Basically, I think it's the result of Smart Navi having to compile a menu from the disc info for you, each time.
2) Next was Veronica Mars on CD. That test took a while, since I hadn't seen the episode yet.
3) Numb3rs on CD similarly played with no problems. Both Veronica and Numb3rs were quick to load, and gave me no problems on the menu screens or elsewhere. Both were also the only titles on a single cd. Very little data to read on an otherwise small disc seems to make it easier on the player.
4) Fullmetal Alchemist on CD was in the mix because I was concerned about Anime. Anime is often uploaded in unfamiliar codecs, I'm told. And at first I thought it had failed -- but it turned out to be my own mistake in burning. I redid the disk, and all four episodes loaded in a decent amount of time (for this player) and played well.
5) Random Anime Vids -- I pulled 9 down from my computer and burned them to cd, because I knew both anime and homemade vids were likely to present some challenges to the player, and indeed, it did. There were 8 AVI files, and 1 MPEG on this disc. The mpeg was an accident, actually, since I was looking for avis, but it's just as well I put it on there, I should have been testing mpegs all along as well.
The disc gave the player some fits. A few times, it argued that the DATA menu was not turned on. I argued it was. After that, it opened with a stillshot from the second vid on the disc -- Big Big Truck's "Failed Experiments". Next, it tried to skip the menu entirely and start with the first vid on the disk, Absolute Destiny's Shameless Rock Video. Repeatedly pushing the Menu button eventually got me to the menu, where I was able to scroll about. But every time I left playing through the vids, and hitting next within the system, in order to go to the menu again, I'd face this same battle. It didn't particularly want to go to the menu. Of the vids, 7 were fine, including, I'm happy to say, the mpeg. Two played video, but no audio.
6) I put the last disc together because I was worried about how it handles both dvds, and discs with lots of titles. And the first time I put this disc together, I screwed up, and put some incomplete or incorrect files on instead of what I intended. That was educational. It hated this disc most of all. First it insisted the only files readable on the disc were the Fullmetal episodes. Then it claimed there was no Dr. Who on the disk. Then, it spat the disc out. Literally simply opened the drawer and sat there demanding I take the disc away when I hit play. I could get to the menu, and I could play the episodes if I insisted enough, but apparently, the more incorrectly formatted files on a disc, the more the player will not even attempt the task. So, if you can, avoid putting files on accidentally -- things it can't identify get question marks, and the more question marks, the less likely it'll even try.
I recreated the disk, taking care not to put partial files, or files that weren't video files on the disc. This time, although it took a while for it to process the menu, all the episodes showed up, and played, just fine.
My test sample, as you can see, was pretty small so far, and I know from what I've read I'm likely to hit stuff it can't play. Not all divx/xvid is encoded quite the same, and of course, files can become corrupt. Still, the player handled a pretty good variety, from more recent files, like House and Numb3rs, to some riskier stuff, like random anime vids, in a variety of formats.
Regular Discs
It occurs to me some of you might want to know about playing, you know, *regular* discs, ones you buy in the store, and all. I only really tried two, but the following facts may be of interest:
Parental Guidance: When I first tried the player out with a regular disc, it immediately demanded a parental control code, because the disk was labeled higher than "G". It was hard to find the default code in the book: 8888 for anyone who runs into this. The setup menu was also a bit strange and confusing, but it is possible to go into it, and either change the parental control to something higher, or No Parental Control at all.
Regions: Despite the fact that the player clearly has settings for both NTSC and PAL, I can find no way, at present, to talk it into playing my region 2 dvds. Bah. I'm hoping a hack will be announced somewhere later.
So, in conclusion: Basically, despite its flaws, I'm ecstatic over being able to play these files on my tv, and over the image quality. The menus are slow to appear, and the player a bit primitive and buggy, but it has played almost everything I've thrown at it so far, and played it well.
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As for anime, most of the stuff works, but I end up not always being able to read the subtitles. FMA appears to work fine, but Aishiteruze Baby didn't. But oh well, I've actually gotten used to watching stuff on my monitor. :->
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Is there any documentation on whether this player (or others like it) will play disks burned on a Mac?
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Anyhow, it's played all my professional DVDs fine. It plays professional music CDs just fine. It plays the Vividcon DVDs fine. It plays any file types I toss at it on a CD fine. (avi, mpg, mp4, wmv) (with the same blue screen menu and letter limitation mentioned above.) I did have issues playing a DVD made from iMovie of my one vid straight through. It would do it fine sometimes, and stutter other times. I think the bit rate was too high.
As for playing files burned as data files on a DVD, it will recognize the disk and play fine with DVDs burned from Toast. However, it won't play data DVDs burned from disc-copy in finder as that does not "close" the DVD. (Disc copy closes the CDs, so they're fine.)
I can't remember if it FFs through home-made stuff fine. I think I had an issue with it, but it might have been my issue with the remote that was causing me to mess up.
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A huge bonus for the Phillips, in my opinion, is that it is so easily made multi-egion. Seriously, all you do is open the disc door and punch in 7,8,9, ok on the remote. Or maybe it was 7,8,9,0 ok... whatever it was, it was insanely simple.
I am considering the Norcent as a second player, though.
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The menus are not slow to respond when it's not one it had to build itself with Smart Navi.
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