DVD 5 review in Hi-fi News

Posted by: rod ayling on 02 April 2004

Hi,
For those of you who haven't seen it yet, Hi-fi News have given the DVD5 'an exclusive preview' by techno-boffin Paul Miller.
There are some nice colour shots of the front and rear panels of the DVD5, plus an internal shot and a look at some OSD menu pages.
Unfortunately, Paul doesn't seem to impressed with it. He describes the DVD5 as having ' an etched , but perhaps overly contrasting picture quality, a little too edgy, lacking the smoothness of the best analogue or digital DVD players'. He does find'there's a boldness about broad,flat colours that remains compelling'. Thank heavens for that !
He sums up by saying 'with its DVI/HDCP handshaking now firmly under control, Naim will be working on the motion -adaptive quality of its deinterlacer before taking on the top drawer in DVD picture quality. Yeah, but is it any good in composite !
Not a glowing review then, but I get the feeling this isn't a finished product yet ( apparently Paul found evidence of video clock noise radiating from the earth plane), so there's some way to go yet.
I wonder how long the finished product will take before it hits production. It's going to have to be seriously good, if I'm going to splash out £2.3k. Meanwhile Arcam's new Diva DV79 got a glowing review for £1k model.

Regards,

Rod

Posted on: 02 April 2004 by Mr Underhill

I must admit to being disillusioned with Arcam.

I bought the DV88 in the hope that I would get the levels of support offered by Naim.

When I bought it I asked about DVD-A and was told the upgrade module would be about £300.

I upgraded the output to component, for £350 - excellent prog. PAL picture.

I awaited the DVD-A, when it arrived it was £600!

Now that HDMI has arrived it's all too difficult for them.

Frankly I'm probably going to go for a mid-range Pioneer universal in due course and just change it every couple of years.

Martin

Posted on: 02 April 2004 by Stuart M

Also the article seemed to imply that the video scaler would be an option for the DVD taking input via the scart socket.

So how do we switch between video sources (Yes I know I can get a £99 switcher with remote) but I was thought the scaler from Naim would provide switching as well.

Posted on: 02 April 2004 by Ancipital

I've heard some other things about it that show's it's still not complete and it's still being worked on.

I believe it's going to go out for beta testing at some point with some real world usage outside the Naim factory, who or where I couldn't say.

It's going to be another of those products which be "ready when it's ready", still, if's not going to be until later this year then it looks like an XPS2 1st then the DVD5 later.

Steve.

Posted on: 02 April 2004 by Manu

It is now on beta test around the world.
Mine is working quite well (very well in fact)

So be patient, it will worth it.

We've got rave comments about the DVD5 picture at the on-going Monteal show (with a Runco projector on a 110' Stewart screen)). Sound is of course fantastic, but could we expect less with AV2, 300, 145, 200, SL2, Axent, intro.
One of the recuring comment is it is "cinema like", sharp edges without artificial edge enhancement, vivid colors, it doesn't look like a digital video. So these comments are quite opposit to what the reviewer says. May be we have a more advanced unit.
What i have noticed is the DVD5 is so noise free and so detailed that we can see some MPEG encoding artefacts on old/bad DVD transfers (with DVI output). It is like CD players, the beter they are the more revealing they are, and the better they are on good movie transfers.

Emmanuel
Euphonie

All opinions are my own, and reflect those of the organisation i work for, even if not stipulated.

[This message was edited by Manu on Sat 03 April 2004 at 5:23.]

[This message was edited by Manu on Sat 03 April 2004 at 5:27.]

Posted on: 04 April 2004 by rod ayling

Hi,

For a matter of interest, what actually is Beta testing.

Thanks,

Rod

Posted on: 04 April 2004 by AT

Beta testing means you have a few people willing to try out a pre-production model. Usually it means you have to provide feedback to the manufacturer and that the unit can still be buggy, the point being to find out what bugs exists so they can be corrected for the final version. This technique is often used in software development. For the trouble of dealing with bugs you get your hands ons omething before anyone else does.

Posted on: 04 April 2004 by Setting Son

quote:
Originally posted by rod ayling:
Hi,

For a matter of interest, what actually is Beta testing.

Thanks,

Rod

Or, if you are Microsoft, it's when you release a product to the general public.

Posted on: 04 April 2004 by Manu

Warning about MPEG artefacts, you have 2 sources of these artefacts:
the encoder, you can`t do anything about, it`s on the disk,
and the decoder, on cheap DVD player, that's what you see.

It takes a good unit to see the encoding problems, unless they are really bad.

Emmanuel
Euphonie

All opinions are my own, and reflect those of the organisation i work for, even if not stipulated.

Posted on: 04 April 2004 by Alex S.

If Naim ask me very nicely I might be willing to beta test their DVD5. How well does it play CDs?

Posted on: 05 April 2004 by Greg Beatty

Andrew wrote:

"If it were the decoder on the DVD player then it would appear on most DVDs played. Since it is only noticeable on some, then it must be the quality of software."

It isn't this simple. There are a variety of encoding schemes and these interact with the decoder the the player. So all disks encoded a certain way would exhibit the same *de*coding artifacts but those same artifacts would not be present with disks encoded a different way.

This can easily create the illusion of seeing something that is on the disk. The way to know is to try the disk in different players. If *any* player plays it clean, then the other players are at fault.

- GregB

Insert Witty Signature Line Here