Review of the Lenoxx DVD-8000 player

Supplied accessories

The player comes supplied with 2 AAA batteries for the remote control, a 3-way RCA lead (for video and stereo audio), a rather badly translated Chinese manual, and a note from the Australian distributor about it being multi-zone, and a hack to avoid flickering on some discs (zoom the image, to hide it; which, of course, means no wide screen view of discs played that way).

Zones/regions

As already mentioned, this is a multi-zone deck.  It comes pre-configured for zone 0 (play all discs), but you can actually set it to a particular zone (some discs may require this).  To change zones, eject the disk, type these numbers:  9653 (on the remote) and you should see 00 appear.  You can now change zones by typing in the number of the zone you want, but note that you don't type in the leading zero; if you want zone 4, you type in 4 (even though it's showing 04).  You only have a few seconds to do this, before the option vanishes on you; simply retype the four digit code to get it back again.

Warning - you do this at your own risk.  If you enter the wrong codes, or the manufacturer has changed the codes since this hack was discovered, there's no telling what may happen, whether you'll cause a permenent problem with your player, or whether you'll get any help in having it fixed.

Macrovision

It also doesn't appear to support Macrovision (a scheme to prevent "easy" video copying of material, and also easily overcome).  When I've played Macrovision protected discs, there's no sign of the Macrovision signal on top of the video.  This is a bonus for many people.  If you're like me, you have TV sets that just won't play Macrovision protected video, without the picture flicking madly at you (I've a variety of video monitors, here, and the only one that doesn't flicker is an old 34 cm portable TV).

Video formats

The player supports both PAL and NTSC playback.  Either automatically switching output modes, or being forced to your preferred TV standard (presumably being able to play an NTSC disc as a PAL video signal, but I have none to test that theory).

Disc formats

This is also a multi-format machine.  It can play:

Further to that:

It won't play:

Problems

I've had a few problems with this model.  When I first bought it, it didn't want to play some audio discs, it just failed part way through some tracks.  I had it swapped over, and the replacement worked fine (in that regard).  Though, I have problems playing one DVD, which I'm not sure whether that's the player or the disc:

The disc I'm having problems with, is the collector's edition of Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo." (it's a 16:9 anamorphic release).  The player stuffs up badly if I play the film compressed to fit a normal TV screen in letterbox style.  If I zoom the image, to fill the screen; or uncompress it, for a 16:9 TV set; or swap to one of the alternate language sound tracks, it plays fine.  Other 16:9, and non 16:9 widescreen, discs seem to work fine, though.  And my Vertigo disc plays fine in one other player (I've yet to try it out in more players).

That fault conditions are; that changes to the screen (particularly in the nightmare scene in chapter 22, where a red light flashes on and off the scene), don't occur in sync with the frame changes; you can see cuts across the middle of the screen; and the picture tears up quite often, particualarly near the bottom of the screen.  Unless you either; select a non-AC3 5.1 sound track (not at all practical, as you're not likely to have an alternative one on the disc, in the same language); stop using the DVD to process the sound track, and use an external digital processor (not practical, unless you have an amplifier this feature, and you're always going to use the deck with that amplifier); zoom the picture (so you can't see the entire frame); or use the player with a wide screen set, that allows you to send the video without needing further processing.

Altogether, far too many work-arounds, to have to play some discs, so I returned the deck.

Signal quality

Picture quality wise, it looks the same as any other DVD player that I've tried.  And I did try out quite a few, on some very expensive TV sets at the store.  Sound quality wise, it sounds okay, the same as any other player, I've tried.  And this is how DVD and CD players are supposed to be, they should all sound the same as each other.

The remote control

Unfortunately, this is yet another machine that really needs the remote control, to use it.  Although you can do most of the necessary things from the front panel (to simply play discs), you really do need the remote for anything complex.

There's more than a few stupidities about the remote, too.  Or, more to the point, the programming of the player requiring you to use the remote in inconsistent ways.

e.g.

Power switching

The power button actually is a power button.  When you switch this deck off it really does switch off, rather than into some stand-by mode, unlike most VCRs and modern TVs.

Connectors

This player has stereo audio outputs, an RCA socket for digital audio out, RCA sockets for composite video, component video (YUV), and a 4 pin S-Video connector (Y/C).

Functionality

When used as a DVD player, you're restricted to having to use the remote control, unless you simply want to play the film, with the minimum of fuss.  From the front panel, you can start playing a disk, pause it, stop it, jump tracks, and scan through in forward or reverse (at a variety of speeds, by pressing the button several times, toggling through 2×, 4×, 6×, 8×, then back to normal speed).  You can even toggle between the two main audio tracks.  But that's about all.

When used as an MP3 player, you're limited to just play, pause, and stop, and toggling the sound output between stereo, track one only, or track 2 only, via the front panel.  Anything else, such as selecting which track to play, requires the remote control.  You can't scan through an MP3, you can only skip to the next one.

When used as an audio CD player, you can use most of the front panel controls in the logical fashion, being able to skip tracks, and search through them.  Though, the sound does run in a sped up effect in the first two search speeds, the next speed up sounds at normal speed but chops in and out as it skips along, and the top speed is silent.  Again, you can toggle the sound, between stereo, track 1 or track 2.  Something I found really annoying, was an inability to search back through a track, and continue into the end of the previous track (like rewinding a tape).  As soon as it hit the start of a track, it jumps back into play mode.

The deck automatically starts playing a disc, as soon as you insert it.  And generally, the front panel shows title and chapter numbers, with an elapsed time counter for the current title (tracks, for audio disks).  Other displays can be toggled (remaining time, title/track versus entire disk, times), but they also display up on the TV screen.  There's no way to get the player to display anything other than the current title's elapsed time, without also displaying it on the TV output.  Except for audio CDs, they don't display any counters on the TV screen.

The machine has a resume feature, where pressing play, or the resume button, continues from whence you interrupted it, unless you pressed stop twice (to clear the memory), ejected the disc, or switched off the player.

It has a parental lock function, where you can set what level of films can be played, without requiring a PIN to be entered (PG, PGR, etc.).  However, this didn't work when I tried to lock out playing anything more than G, and put in a PG disk, it played when it shouldn't.

There doesn't appear to be any way to play tracks from a disc in a random manner.

Other features

Comparison against other players

I tried out a variety of players, this was the only one that could do all of the different formats, in that store.  And, oddly enough, it was the cheapest.  Many of them couldn't really be operated without the remote control (beyond inserting a disc, and starting it playing).  Many required a TV to be connected to see what you're doing, to pick which track you're playing (annoying, if you're using it to play music discs).

The playback quality is comparable to the DVD player in my computer (which also connects up to standard TV sets).  Though my computer DVD player didn't have any problems playing the Vertigo disc, that the Lenoxx player did.  Nor did another DVD player (that we tried the problem disc on) in the department store.


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