DK Digital DVD-339

Six months ago a broad range of DivX compatible DVD players began to penetrate the UK market. Amongst those was the Liteon LVD-2001, a player I reviewed for DVDTimes and have been using as part of my home setup on a regular basis since with mostly satisfying results having found numerous workarounds to its select drawbacks. However, those workarounds now appear to be a permanent requirement for owners of the Liteon as it has since been discontinued, and following a recent firmware update will no longer be supported in that area, so when given the opportunity to test a new alternative from German manufacturer DK Digital I jumped at the chance.

First Impressions

Upon opening the box I was greeted by a fairly attractive looking unit that in terms of size resembles most budget models currently on the market. Therefore you are looking at a slim piece of hardware in both size and weight that complies to 'Hi-Fi' standard separates in width only, as in both depth and height it is pleasingly shorter than most. The silver casing is of a reasonable quality though not quite as robust say as the Liteon, but certainly in line with anything from the major players current budget range while the main facia has a slick black design hiding the tray mechanism and LCD display, with silver buttons to switch the unit on, eject the tray and perform basic playback operations.

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Moving round the back we find a standard array of audio and video outputs including a single RGB enabled SCART socket, S-Video and composite video outs. In terms of audio you will find both optical and coaxial digital outs for your preferred connection to an amplifier alongside a 5.1 channel audio output set of phono sockets should you wish to take advantage of the units built in Dolby Digital decoding features (for DTS you have to use the optical outs and your amplifiers hardware decoding). The only real disappointments on the rear panel is the lack of a second RGB enabled loop-through Scart socket (though to be fair these are usually restricted to more expensive players) and in a more general sense, the fact the power cord is hardwired to the unit which can make setting up more of a chore.

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So what else is in the box? A European plug adaptor (the hardwired power cable has a European standard two-prong connection), remote control (batteries included), and last but not least a manual that features both English and German sections. Aren't we missing something? How about the next to useless composite leads manufacturers always throw in? Nope, nothing, so if like me you are on a budget and are happy with a composite lead doubling up as your coaxial connection then you are bang out of luck.

The quality of these included items varies from the plug that sounds as though all the parts are loose but does its job well, to the manual which is actually very good at detailing the various connection methods and features of the player (you can read it in PDF format here). On to the remote control, its light, grey and about as generic as they come but in use works well with responsive buttons and intuitive layout, though in the dark you'll be hard pushed to hit anything but the main menu navigation buttons on first attempt as each and every button is the same shape and size, which makes 'feeling' your way around the controls very difficult indeed.

With no cables supplied I used my own to connect the player to my television, initially opting for the RGB out the Scart socket offers (more on this later) I coupled this with a coaxial digital audio connection to my amplifier. A simple button push later and the DK DVD-339 springs into life displaying an attractive splash screen with the players logo in full view. Moving straight into the players setup menu we find four screens each dedicated to a specific area.

The first of these is the General Setup page where you can tweak your display options from selecting your Televisions display format (4:3 P&S, 4:3 LB or 16:9), type (PAL or NTSC) and the output signal you are using (SCART/CVBS or SCART/RGB). The latter is something of a head scratcher for two reasons. Number one is the lack of any direct reference to an S-Video (Y/C) output signal though you will soon find that the CVBS option (which refers to a Composite signal) doubles up not only as a composite out but also an S-Video out. Number two is that the official specifications for this unit claim it offers progressive scan output, presumably via the Scart socket given the lack of component sockets round the back, but with no option present in the setup menus to enable this feature there is still some confusion regarding its implementation.




Head scratchers aside one particularly good point about the video output options, and every feature of the setup menu is that you can access and tweak them at any time with immediate results. No more do you have to stop the DVD playing to change the aspect ratio or switch between PAL and NTSC, and this is something of a necessity given the player quirks I will cover later including the lack of an auto select NTSC/PAL option. Back to the Setup menu though, the remaining options in General Setup are quite straightforward and can be seen in the images above and below (click to enlarge), while the same can be said of the other menus that cover audio ouput, a dolby digital tweak that is useful for watching action movies at night by altering the ratio between quiet dialogue and loud explosions, and finally the player preferences that allow you to set the default languages and parental controls.




Quite useful though not openly advertised is the ability to view the players firmware details by inputting the following code on the main setup screen - 1379. This feature will come into its own once the firmware updates become available, allowing users to catalogue changes and identify what version they might want to upgrade to. Finally there is also a multiregion remote hack that can be activated by performing the following: OPEN – CLEAR – 13690 – SWITCH OFF – SWITCH ON. The player will now automatically select the region for any disc you pop in and will even handle RCE discs without any troubles. There is however no known method of disabling Macrovision so those of you who like to run your player through the VCR (for whatever reason) are out of luck on macrovision protected discs (and that’s most of them).

Performance

Below I shall detail how the DK DVD-339 performed as part of my setup over the two weeks it was in use, but first a note on that setup and some initial teething problems I had.

Initially I connected the DK DVD-339 via the Scart RGB output to my television (a Panasonic TX32PK20 32" Widescreen) and was disappointed to see what can only be described as picture interference in the form of a ghost ripple effect. This was particularly noticeable on light portions of the image and for me quite distracting. After testing several alternative scart leads (to no avail) I then moved on and connected the unit to other televisions with varying results, from a perfectly stable image to one affected by a severe green tint covering the entire screen. By following discussion of this player on the DVDForums I soon found I was strictly in the minority, though not entirely alone as at least one other person had the green tint issue via RGB Scart, and was expecting a replacement based on the conclusion they had a faulty unit.

For the purposes of this review (and stock issues with the player at the time of writing) I have been unable to seek a replacement unit and therefore went with the S-Video connection which provided a perfect glitch free image. Regarding the RGB output issues I sincerely hope I have been unlucky and received a faulty unit while the remarks I have read elsewhere suggest this is the most likely case, with these issues being the exception rather than the rule. That said I cannot entirely dismiss the possibility I may simply be in the minority and have a television the player takes issue with.

So, putting the initial connection problems behind me I hooked the player up to my modest home cinema setup and tested it with a variety of video and audio types. Here are my findings...

DVD-Video - Without going into quite the same level of depth as I did in my review of the Liteon I would like to reference the comparisons I made within that review and place the DK DVD-339's playback quality roughly on a par with that of one of the more popular budget players, the Toshiba 330E. Using the Amelie chapter point as a reference there was little to no artefacting noticeable on the DK DVD-339 while the colour gradients noted on A Bugs Life were reproduced faithfully here giving a well balanced picture. Using selected reference quality discs the level of detail was always high with nicely rendered flesh tones present, while colour and contrast levels were equally well presented with no signs of colour bleed suggesting a well balanced chroma delay setting.

Complex menu systems such as that seen on The Abyss Special Edition (R1) are handled with ease while disc navigation is generally very good though on occasion I found seek times to be slow. This resulted not only in an increased delay between selecting a feature and it being accessed but could also be seen when chapter skipping through the disc. It should be noted however that for the most part jumping through the chapter stops on a disc was impressively swift; certainly more so than I am accustomed to (you can literally jump from chapter 1 to 30 as fast as you can press the button) but on occasion the delayed seek times would hinder this and make the odd chapter skip particularly lengthy. In terms of searching backwards and forwards through the disc, this can be done in four intervals between 2 and 16 speeds with no loss of detail and like most players it has a fully functional search feature that allows you to jump to any title, chapter or time point you wish to.

As with all players on the market there were some drawbacks with the major concern being the DK-DVD339’s ability to display optional subtitle tracks. As someone who mainly watches non-english language material the large majority of my testing was done with foreign titles so I had subtitles on screen quite often, and with every disc, be they Region 1 or 2, NTSC or PAL with white or yellow subtitles there were noticeable video glitches as a result of their display. These took the form of thin horizontal lines in the same colour as the subtitles running directly through them, rarely making it impossible to read the subtitles but occuring frequently enough to be distracting.

Another concern lies with the players ability to handle layer changes. Most discs seemed perfectly fine with titles such as the new Alien special editions (complete with seamless branching points) playing back without so much as a hint of trouble but other titles had quite different behaviour. I would put this down to the quality of encoding as some discs layer points are noticeably worse than others. Hong Kong Legends DVDs are a prime example and here on the DK DVD-339 a recent title (Tiger on the Beat) not only paused for a longer than usual period of time on the layer change, but skipped forward roughly five-minutes requiring you to rewind back to the correct point. The same occurred on other discs over the course of my testing period including The Simpsons Season 3 (R1) so was not simply an isolated case (and in both examples this was a glitch that was easily recreated).

DivX - Writing up this section of the review is so much easier than it was on the Liteon because the level of compatibility on the DK DVD-339 is quite simply superb in comparison. In the entire time I have been using the DK DVD-339 not one DivX encoded file refused to play, with only one playing back devoid of sound and only a few selected others featuring poorly synced audio. The manual claims playback support of DivX 3.11, 4.01 and 5.1, but in reality it plays those and virtually every other incarnation of the DivX codec and importantly the popular XVid (tested right through to the current RC1.03 release).

Throughout the testing period I used a wide range of files ranging from old catalogued material using the early DivX codecs (more specifically v3.11 with both Low and Fast motion encodes) right through to present day encodes of the latest anime fansubs and American television shows. Those familiar with the 'scene' (and let's face it if you're reading this then you most likely are) can look to any recent HDTV/PDTV encode of the most popular series to gain an idea of the present day videos being used for testing (think along the lines of 24, The Sopranos, Alias and The Simpsons).

Firstly everything played, and with the exception of a few rogue files everything played back flawlessly. Compression artefacts were only visible if they were present in the video, meaning high quality encodes looked superb with no signs of blocking, smearing or colour bleed as a result of the hardware in use. In short the videos looked every bit as good as they do on your PC monitor, bar maybe the vibrancy and resolution an LCD running at 1280x1024 can offer, placing the DK DVD-339 easily on a par with the ageing Liteon's playback of the latest DivX and XVid codecs, if not better than. Where the DK DVD-339 really comes into its own however and begins to flex the muscle offered by its updated chipset is with DivX 3.11 playback, that like everything else you throw at it plays back as well as the encode allows for (for those not familiar with the Liteon or other older players DivX 3.11 playback was a struggle at best, with the latest firmware improving compatibility and playback frame rates at the expense of a reduction in quality).

The only real issue with DivX playback on the DK DVD-339 lies with the audio codecs it supports. In terms of the most commonly used formats, MP3 and AC3, you are set as both play back perfectly with the latter giving you full 5.1 output. Other formats that appeared to work fine include PCM and WMA, indeed the latter is a supported audio format according to the manual (though it only specifies this is the case in relation to WMA audio files) but due to these codecs relative obscurity in terms of the DivX format I was only able to sample a few videos encoded with them, including a couple I created myself for testing purposes. The formats that definitely did not work include the outdated DivX audio codec and the high quality OGG codec, in both cases should you have a video that uses these formats it will play, just devoid of any sound.

As previously mentioned there were a few occasions (out of anywhere between 20 or 30 complete episodes viewed) where the audio sync was slightly off. When this happened I checked the audio codec in use but could not find any real pattern (in all cases it was MP3, which worked perfectly 99% of the time) so it seemed to be a freak occurrence, and one I did possibly think could be down to the media in use (CD-RW) but again, as they caused no issues with other files I could draw no valid conclusions. Audio sync was occasionally also a problem should you pause the video playback for a long period of time (enough for say the screensaver to kick in), whereupon resuming play the audio would run much faster than the video but could easily be fixed by rewinding back a few seconds and resuming play from there.

This brings me nicely into the DK DVD-339's ability to search through DivX files. In comparison to the Liteon which at best could manage searching in one-minute intervals, the DK Digital player is an absolute godsend and a joy to use as you can forward through your DivX files in exactly the same way you can a DVD. 2, 4, 8 and 16 speed searching can be performed with impressively smooth images being displayed on screen while playback resumes the instant you hit the Play button. Rewind is not quite as smooth with the equivalent speeds feeling somewhat faster but none-the-less, searching backwards is every bit as impressive and made the player a genuine pleasure to use.

Going back to the listed specifications the DK DVD-339 supports video resolutions up to a maximum of 720x480 @ 30fps and 720x576 @ 25fps (effectively equalling DVD resolutions). Should your videos exceed these limits and you attempt playback then rather than simply not playing, you will only hear the files audio stream played over the menu.

One final area I need to cover is the video output options and how they relate to DivX playback. Presuming you are using a widescreen TV then you will have the player set to 16:9 output allowing you to take advantage of anamorphically enhanced DVDs. Interestingly enough in this mode you will also find the DK DVD-339 treats all DivX material as it would a DVD featuring anamorphic enhancement, and must use some form of video interpolation and line doubling to do so, as it looks very good. For those confused by this the player basically alters whatever video you are viewing to fit the 16:9 frame whilst maintaining the original aspect ratio. So 4:3 material is still presented in 4:3 but within a 16:9 frame (some old Anchor Bay DVDs feature anamorphically enhanced 4:3 video so it's not uncommon) while any widescreen material looks much like an anamorphic DVD would, and saves the use of your televisions Zoom features (and in most cases will give considerably better results with more accurate framing).

Contradictory to what I just said however, framing, or more specifically the way in which DivX material is zoomed to fit the frame is an issue and leads to the one real concern I had with DivX playback on the DK DVD-339. If for example you only use your DVD player for English language material then what I am about to outline will not be of any real concern unless you are particularly responsive to overscan, for once again subtitles and the DK DVD-339's video output options are a problem. As I said earlier the majority of my viewing centres around foreign language material, and with DivX that results in anime fansubs of the latest television series from Japan. Commonly these fansubs feature permanent subtitles placed near the bottom of the frame (much like the positioning on any DVD with subtitles) and it was when viewing such material the problem of DivX framing became noticeable, for in the worst cases subtitles were almost completely cut off the screen or in most, placed very close to the bottom of the frame. This issue of zooming extends to the horizontal as well, with details to the extreme left and right of the frame being cut off. The latter is a fault the Liteon also suffered from, though a tweak was built in to that unit whereby you could effectively 'squeeze' the horizontal axis via the remote control (much like adjusting the H-Size on your monitor).

Below you can see images that showcase the issues I describe in each of the video output modes the DK DVD-339 offers, which as you can see either decrease or increase the framing issues with none offering a definitive viewing option. Of course the results you have may be slightly different as this problem is exaggerated by your display devices overscan, but as mentioned before I tested this player on several different televisions and found similar results on each. For comparison we have a grab below showcasing an 'ideal' frame as taken from the Liteon, take particular note of the titles on the top and bottom of the screen, for it is these I will be concentrating on in the next selection of grabs from the DK DVD-339.



The best overall solution on the DK DVD-339 can be seen in the first of the four images below (click to enlarge), where the player is set to Widescreen/NTSC output. Although the titles are fully visible on both top and bottom of the frame note how tight that framing is in comparison to the Liteon. Moving on we have the player set to Widescreen/PAL, the main difference here is how the picture has shifted down the screen slightly giving more visible information on the top part of the screen, but less on the bottom. This difference in positioning of the frame between NTSC and PAL is however most likely common to my television and its handling of the different signals rather than a direct result of the DK DVD-339.




The last two images showcase the player set to 4:3 in both NTSC/PAL, which as you can see have the same traits (PAL is shifted down slightly) but offer considerably worse framing overall with neither allowing you full viewing of the titles on both the vertical and even horizontal axis.

In the case of the frame just used for comparison the titles were located at the extreme edges, so now we have a selection of grabs with subtitles in their traditional position. First up we have a 4:3/NTSC grab which again has poor horizontal framing (a 'squeeze' feature would rectify this as it does on the Liteon), then a 16:9/NTSC grab to showcase how the anamorphic squeeze it employs helps maintain the horizontal framing on 4:3 material. This is then followed by a widescreen NTSC/PAL comparison shot which shows the difference in vertical framing between the two (on my television at least).




Audio/MP3 - The DK DVD-339 outputs all major DVD audio formats (Dolby Digital, DTS, PCM, MPEG) via its rear outputs and like any budget model available today the quality is very good, but obviously dependent on the sound system you have connected to it. Also featured is onboard Dolby Digital 5.1 decoding (DTS is only available via the optical outs), a bonus I have not tested as quite frankly I did not want to upset the harmony of my wire infested setup anymore than I had to. In essence I see little reason to expect this to perform badly, while the setup menus allow tweaks including the ability to set the distance between yourself and the speakers, a feature not even seen on my admittedly ageing but still far more expensive Pioneer 626, which also features onboard decoding.

Playback of audio CDs appeared to be good though I found my Pioneer 626 (which doubles up as my CD player) offered superior audio speration with heavy bass instruments in particular merging into one on the DK DVD-339. The increasingly more common MP3 playback feature performed very well and is joined by additional support for WMA files (Windows Media Audio) which again played back fine though it should be noted the player is not compatible with variable bitrate WMA files or those encoded with DRM (Digital Rights Management).

The only real gripes with MP3/WMA playback comes down to the players file navigation system, a feature I will expand upon later, though basically it only displays up to 14 characters of a filename and offers no support for displaying ID3 tags.

OGM/OGG Support - The popular DivX container format (OGM) and the superior OGG audio format are not supported by the DK DVD-339.

VCD/SVCD Support - As you would expect on a modern player everything I tested worked without any troubles including VCD, SVCD, XVCD, XSVCD, KVCD and SKVCD. You can also play MPG files burnt directly to ISO format discs saving you any hassle with converting to VCD or similar.

JPEG Support - Should you wish to view your hi-res images on a low-res TV display then you can do just that by putting them onto an ISO format disc. Once in the player you can view them individually or as a slide show, and then skip through them individually or directly by inputting a number on the remote. Using the disc navigation controls you can flip/rotate the images though sadly the zoom function is not available when viewing pictures.

Media Support - Understandably the official specifications outlined in the manual take a conservative approach guaranteeing CD-R/CD-RW support but giving no definitive answer on DVD-R/RW or DVD+R/RW support. While I cannot test the latter (my burner only supports DVD-R/RW) I can state for the record having tested numerous DVD-R/RW media on the DK DVD-339 that it supports them just fine, with DivX, JPEG, MP3 and good old fashioned DVD-Video playing back with no problems whatsoever. Of course DK Digital are right to take such an approach, as the numerous DVD Writers and media out there still have compatibility issues with each other let alone their target playback devices, making it all but impossible to guarantee 100% compatibility.

ISO Disc Support - So the DK DVD-339 is more than comfortable with a variety of media but how exactly does it go about letting you navigate through them? Once you pop a disc in a file browser is displayed that can be navigated using the remote control giving you full access to the discs contents. Folders are fully supported so you can split your files up into neat categories should you wish, though restrictions are present which according to the manual result in you only being able to have up to 999 files, per folder, of which you can have up to 499. These numbers are quoted for a disc with MP3/WMA files, and though I never had the chance to test this I did try discs jam packed with JPEG images where the restrictions seemed to prevent you viewing more than 649 files in a folder.

In all I can't see many having an issue with these limitations, what is a problem however is the limit imposed on how many characters from a filename is displayed. 14 characters, it's not much and when you take into account the inability to read ID3 tags on MP3 files it makes browsing discs with long filenames something of an unnecessary chore.

Going back to the positives though I would like to note how impressed I was with the players speed in accessing and browsing ISO discs, especially those with hundreds if not thousands of files on them, as in comparison the Liteon died a death every time I attempted to use such a disc on it.

PAL/NTSC Support - Much like the Liteon there is no auto-switching feature provided to select between the PAL and NTSC output features, both of which are in their pure signals (no PAL60). Fortunately you can switch on the fly via the menu system so when the more visually astute of you notice conversion artefacts you can quickly and easily switch over to the sources native format. For the most part however the NTSC>PAL conversion (and vice-versa) is handled well and there appeared to be little need to regularly switch over to NTSC viewing.

Convenience Features - DK Digital have provided the standard playback modes including Repeat, A-B Repeat, Random (CD Only) and Program which allows you to enjoy your discs in anyway you can imagine really, providing you take the time to set them up appropriately. An unusual inclusion but quite interesting none-the-less is the Digest feature. For DVDs this brings up a screen where you can view title and chapter overviews. For example, select the title which holds the movie on a disc and it will bring up six video windows previewing the first 3 seconds of six chapters at a time. This allows you to browse the disc contents quite swiftly and then should you want to, jump directly to a chapter/title point.

Also present for those lacking a surround sound setup is a 3D Sound feature that attempts to simulate a multichannel sound system using only two speakers. Fairly pointless in my opinion and certainly no good to me but some may appreciate its inclusion. Of more use on the audio front is the ability to tweak the Dolby Digital dynamic, meaning the ratio between very quite and very loud passages, so between whispering and explosion. Again this is something I have not directly tested but is certainly more appealing should your amplifier not offer such a feature (or you are stuck with two speakers and a down mix that has the music drowning out the dialogue). Last but not least is the Mute button, something I had not seen on a DVD player until the Liteon came along (and is certainly useful should you need to turn the volume down quickly).

Fairly important on any DVD player is the Display feature which brings up relevant information to the disc you are viewing. Here on the DK DVD-339 when viewing DVD-Video you can sadly only pull up information on the chapter points and time elapsed/remaining, so those of you (like myself) who like to view a bitrate meter for example are out of luck. Unfortunately things are no better on DivX playback where again just the time elapsed/remaining is available for scrutiny. The Liteon for example detailed the audio and video codecs of the file playing, a feature I always found to be most useful and is sadly missing here.

A feature that should probably be listed as an inconvenience is the auto-standby where should the player be inactive for more than 30 minutes (say for example you have left a film on pause) it switches itself off. This could be considered quite useful if you're prone to falling asleep when viewing late at night for example, but if you pause the main feature for say a telephone call and return to the player on standby you have to find your way back to the point you had reached manually, as it features no resume playback functions.

Anything Else?

As you can see the DK DVD-339 is a well specified player boasting top quality playback with the only drawbacks centered around the players video output and ability to correctly display DVD subtitles. Taking the latter drawback one step further it should be noted the DK DVD-339 offers no support at this time for DivX subtitles in the standard .srt format. Both drawbacks however should be fixable via the players firmware upgrades, and though none are available at this early stage in the players lifecycle they should hopefully begin to surface sometime in the near future on the official DKDivX Website.

In terms of support you can contact the UK importer via an e-mail based form on the same website and in my experience response has generally been prompt, though since mentioning the issues with RGB output I have been waiting on an update for over a week now (following an initial response asking me to clarify my television model) with no word yet to arrive.

Conclusion

With its superior DivX support and playback combined with solid DVD capability the DK DVD-339 is a good little performer that comes in at an extremely attractive price point. There are drawbacks, some more problematic than others but none that, providing the support is there, should not be overcome in the future by firmware updates.

For those looking to upgrade from the Liteon, a player which now supports DivX subtitles (though still with drawbacks), the decision is not an easy one due to the current flaws the DK DVD-339 exhibits. Clearly in terms of DivX playback and support the DK DVD-339 is a far superior model, but until some of the display issues are ironed out you cannot help but feel you would be moving across rather than trading up.

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DVDTimes would like to take this opportunity to thank SVP Communications for supplying the DK Digital DVD-339 for review. You can purchase* this DVD player at a special discounted price by using the DVDTimes/DVDForums login details as listed below, and while there feel free to take advantage of the discounts present across their entire product range.

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Finally if this review was of use to you then we would be very grateful if you could help support DVDTimes by mentioning us in the "What made you choose SVP Communications?" field of the Checkout process.

*Though currently out of stock (correct as of 5th April 2004) SVP have informed us they expect to receive their next batch sometime in the next 7-10 days.