Saw it for just under £80 and I am looking to get a new DVD Player and now that I have Broadband I have been downloading alot of Divx and Xvid files and this player would save me the trouble of having to convert them but was just wondering if anyone had got one and if so what it was like.

If you want something to play your divx and xvid get a Xbox works great and also you get to play games..

What chipset does it use?

hey Inidana Jones, this link may help- some guy has got a test copy, and people are asking about it- think you can post any queires there.

http://www.dvd.reviewer.co.uk/forums/thread.asp?Forum=223&Thread=275850&Type=1

Celtic_Druid this is what i found out about the chipset- can't remember if this is the dodgy chipset that ripped off mplayer:

MPEG 4 decoding chipset - Mediatek Integrated Sigma Design single chip

Heres maybe a more in depth description of the the player:
http://www.tech-tonic.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=49

I've gone down the xbox route for divx/xvid playback, to be honest a standalone player would probably be more cost effective if you are solely gonna be playing divx xvid type material.

Being software based the xbmedia player/center projects will have the added flexibility (streaming over network, playback of mp4, real media, quicktime, .ogm & .mkv formats) and codec updates are swiftly implemented in the latest release (not really an issue as most of these releasers use pretty standard "old" codecs to prevent people complaining about it not working/playing)

These stand alone players don't have those advatages but i guess its horses for courses (preferably not ridden by Kieron Fallon;) )

Mediatek Integrated Sigma Design single chip?? It is either using a Mediatek chipset (good) or Sigma Designs (bad).

It is a Kiss firmware that ripped off mplayer. Interestingly enough though Kiss use Sigma chipsets and Sigma Designs got busted awhile ago for stealing XviD code.

Sigma have a new chipset though, which should be better than their original one (still no GMC support) however I am not sure that it is being used in players yet.

ok well from the site above, it says:

The DK DivX uses the world renowned MEDIATEK decoding chip for the clearest possible Audio and Video playback

but in the spec then says:

MPEG 4 decoding chipset - Integrated Sigma Design single chip

I gues i put 2+2 together and got 5 :D

I do have an xbox but recently it hasent been playing dvds too well and my standalone has been on the way out for a few years now so that is why I wanted a new dvd player but thought if I can get one for £80 which can play all normal standards (VCD/SVCD/DVD/DVDr) and Divx/Xvid it would be worth it.

Gone ahead and ordered one now, got plenty of stuff ready to try out so hopefully I wont have any problems.

ok just so you know indiana jones, you can stream media from your pc to the xbox- including streaming from your pc's dvd-rom drive, (unfortuenately doesn't work for games- access speeds aren't high enough)

if you wanna know how to do it as a temp solution email me i can do a quick run through in the xbmc/xbmp settings files.

obvioulsy is a bit pointless if you can't get a network connection near your tv.

Can't you also switch DVDRom's in an XBox?

Should also point out that the original Sigma Designs chipset has trouble with SBC encodes (probably most of the DivX stuff out there) and can't handle qpel or GMC (not even one warp point as used by DivX).

Also only handles DivX/XviD in an AVI container. Same goes for all other current chips though some MediaTek based players are supposed to get OGM support via a firmware update some time in the future.

you're right celtic_druid, although the streaming solution i guess is cheaper and less invasive.

the downside of swapping out a xbox romdrive for a pc drive, is that with the exception of one specific samsung drive, you lose the ability to play retail xbox games- which may be bummer- plus witha pc drive you pretty much have keep the xbox lid off- (its not particularly pretty sight with the lid on- even less so with the lid off :D)

My computer is no where near my tv and xbox so streaming is defently out and not really interested in modifying my xbox at all, hardly use it now so see no point.

As for whether the player will work, I have several Divx and Xvid files so if they dont work on the player then it will be going back, I only started the thread to see if anyone had a player already and seems no one does and are going on past experience what Divx players are like so I will post back with how it performs.

Recieved my DK Divx DVD Player about 2 hours ago, so far have played an entire episode of Stargate SG-1 which I downloaded yesterday and was perfect but I am now trying to get it to play episodes of Star Trek Voyager which I downloaded, for some reason they have bad lip-sync problems, I think this is because they have AC3 audio tracks and this player doesnt seem to like Divx/Xvid files with AC3 so I only hope they come up with a firmware update to fix this.

Also, for a review on the player go to the link below...

http://www.area450.com/otherplayers/dkdvd339.htm

Yeah those episodes are XviD without any ASP features so they should playback fine. If you want to challange it try an SBC encode or XviD with some ASP features enabled.

There was a fix released for Voyager s01. There was a problem with the interleaving settings, which probably explains your sync problems.

It is just batch files with VirtualDubMod job files, so you could just do it manually if you want.

I started getting the fixed Voyager files at Episode 10 and those episodes still have lip-sync problems, they playback fine on my computer though but no matter what I do within 2 mins of starting to play them the lip-sync is already out by at least a second.

As for the "SBC encode or XviD with some ASP features enabled", any idea where I could get examples of them I can test?

Also, an annoying thing is that the player doesnt seem to tell my TV when a menu or film is in widescreen, on my old player it used to change automatically but on this they always stay in 4:3 and I have to change the TV manually.

Update: Just tried The Simpsons episodes I have been downloading and they also have lip-sync problems, not so much lip-sync as they are cartoons but sound effects are happening before they should.

The only Divx/Xvid I have been able to play without lip-sync trouble is Stargate SG-1 and the only thing I can think of is that it is PAL and not NTSC.

The NTSC stuff would most likely be 23.976fps, perhaps that is the cause.

As for samples, I would just create them. Use NanDub to create some SBC encodes. For XviD I would try 1, 2, 3 bframes with and without packed bitstream enabled. Also try qpel. GMC I don't think there is much point.

Hopefully they will be able to come up with a firmware upgrade that can solve lip-sync problems when playing NTSC Divx/Xvid files.

Well one would hope that they would test such a thing and never release a player that couldn't.

So are they all 23.976fps? or does it also have problems with 29.97fps movies?

All the Divx/Xvid files I have are either 23 or 25fps so cant tell if 29fps files also suffer lip-sync problems.

Also, I installed GSpot so it could tell me info about the files, below is info from everything I have tested, maybe you with your infinite knowledge :) will be able to figure out why only certain files loose sync...

Files that Keep Lip-Sync

Looney Tunes: Back in Action
[VIDEO]
Codec = XviD
Bitrate = 923kb/s
FPS = 23.97
Qf = 0.286 bits/pixel
[AUDIO]
Codec = 0x0055(MP3) ID'd as MPEG-1 Layer 3
Bitrate = 136 kb/s (68/ch, stereo) VBR LAME3.95
Fs = 48000 Hz

Alias Season 3 HDTV
[Video]
Codec = XviD
Bitrate = 1018 kb/s
FPS = 23.97
Qf = 0.193 bits/pixel
[Audio]
Codec = 0x0055(MP3) ID'd as MPEG-1 Layer 3
Bitrate = 124 kb/s (62/ch, stereo) VBR
Fs = 48000 Hz

Babylon 5 Season 4
[Video]
Codec = XviD
Bitrate = 991 kb/s
FPS = 23.97
Qf = 0.224 bits/pixel
[Audio]
Codec = 0x0055(MP3) ID'd as MPEG-1 Layer 3
Bitrate = 120 kb/s (60/ch, stereo) VBR
Fs = 48000 Hz

Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (stutters but keeps lip-sync)
[Video]
Codec = XviD
Bitrate = 1231 kb/s
FPS = 23.976
Qf = 0.313 bits/pixel
[Audio]
Codec = ac3 (0x2000) Dolby Laboratories, Inc
Bitrate = 448 kb/s (5 ch) CBR
Fs = 48000 Hz

Stargate SG-1 Season 7
[Video]
Codec = XviD
Bitrate = 1024 kb/s
FPS = 25.00
Qf = 0.212 bits/pixel
[Audio]
Codec = 0x0055(MP3) ID'd as MPEG-1 Layer 3
Bitrate = 130 kb/s (65/ch, stereo) VBR LAME3.93
Fs = 48000 Hz

Love Actually
[Video]
Codec = XviD
Bitrate = 1355 kb/s
FPS = 25.00
Qf = 0.311 bits/pixel
[Audio]
Codec = 0x0055(MP3) ID'd as MPEG-1 Layer 3
Bitrate = 116 kb/s (58/ch, stereo) VBR LAME3.90
Fs = 48000 Hz

Files that Dont Keep Lip-Sync

Star Trek Voyager Season 1
[Video]
Codec = XviD
Bitrate = 864 kb/s
FPS = 23.976
Qf = 0.145 bits/pixel
[Audio]
Codec = ac3 (0x2000) Dolby Laboratories, Inc
Bitrate = 192 kb/s (96/ch, stereo) CBR
Fs = 48000 Hz

The Simpsons Season 15
[Video]
Codec = XviD
Bitrate = 512 kb/s
FPS = 23.976
Qf = 0.278 bits/pixel
[Audio]
Codec = 0x0055(MP3) ID'd as MPEG-1 Layer 3
Bitrate = 128 kb/s (64/ch, stereo) CBR
Fs = 44100 Hz

Well I can't really say that I see any pattern there.

Perhaps check the bitstream version used, if any (older XviD versions didn't include one). Could also check for bframes, qpel or GMC, although I doubt any use them/

I think I know why the Simpsons loose lip-sync, they seem to not have been encoded that well. I installed a newer codec on my computer and now they wont play at all, everything else is fine but they crash Windows Media Player everytime. I have also tried Divx Player and it also crashes so the fact that they dont run 100% on the DVD Player isnt really that suprising.

Also, I had an email back from DK and they asked whether any of my problem files have AC3 audio so because they asked that I am guessing they know of problems relating to AC3 sound so that would explain the playback issues with Voyager and Return of the King.

One last question I hope you can answer though, what function of the DVD Player tells a Widescreen TV to change between the 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratios when a DVD is running so that menus and films are displayed correctly?

The simpsons series 15- the only prob i had playing through xbox media center, was episode 1 i think (haloween ep) the audio was the problem for me.

got fixed by demuxing the audio in vdubmod- re-encoding it with lame and then remuxing it (direct stream copy so it doesn't take too long)- it works fine now.

on my panasonic dvd player there is something on the options settings which allows you to swap the output from 4:3 to windescreen- is there not any options menu in the player? (maybe only comes up if there is no disc in the drive) swapping from pal to ntsc mode in there may also cure the lip sync prob (don't quote me on that though)


here you go mate dunno if you've seen it but here's the manual (german and english german first though)

http://www.dkdivx.co.uk/DVD-339%20deutsch%20&%20englisch.pdf

TV DISPLAY
The program’s screen format (4 : 3 normal TV
/ 16 : 9 wide screen) is specified by the DVD.
Please note that this format might not
necessarily match your TV’s screen format. In
this case this will be helpful:
— NORMAL/PS: Choose this mode when
your TV set has 4 : 3 screen format. The
picture will fill the screen but some right
and left portion will be cut.
— NORMAL/LB: Choose this mode when
your TV set has 4 : 3 screen format. The
picture will appear in its entire width but
framed by black bars at the top and the
bottom.
— WIDE: Choose this mode when using a 16
: 9 wide screen TV set.

Thanks for the suggestion about the simpsons mate, will give it a shot.

Also, I changed the settings from 4:3 L/B to 16:9 Wide the day I got the player but my problem is that on my old dvd player, when the menu/film was 16:9, my DVD player would change my TV automatically, but with this new DVD player the TV stays the same all the time and I have to change the aspect ratio manually which is simple to do but if a 4 year old dvd player can send a signal to my TV to change aspect ratio, why not a brand new one?