I've today purchased the best piece of no-name electrical equipment EVER!

All you other Brits, reading this, you need to buy one too!!!

Maplin are selling this unit for £39.99 and it's worth every penny.
http://www.maplin.co.uk/S...eria=A07FK

I've never raved about a gadget before but I just felt like I had to tell somebody.

Firstly, I'd just like to say that Maplin is the new Tandy, in regards to their staff having no idea what they're selling. I plonked the box on the counter and engaged the counter-assistant in some polite banter. I stated that £39.99 was an amazing price for a DivX-compatible player with S-Video out; Progressive Scan; Component out; 5:1 Dolby Digital out, etcetera... The counter assistant gazed at me blankly and said, "It doesn't play DivX but it does play MPEG4. It says so, on the box." I assured him that DivX is a type of MPEG4 but he was having none of it.

Anyway... It's a cheapo no-name unit courtesy of Yamada Electronics and it plays EVERYTHING. Okay, maybe it doesn't play Real Media (perhaps it does - I haven't tested it fully) but it does seem to play everything else. CDs, CD-Rs, CD-RWs, CD+Gs, DVD, DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW and DVD+RW.

The DivX playback (whether from a CD or DVD) is fantastic with no jitter, loss of audio-sync or hesitation. It may take a few seconds to start showing a DivX avi once you press "Play", but once it's rolling, it's perfect.

You can search at 32x speed too. This is especially useful for DivX files, as most don't have chapter points. I believe the new version 6.1 DivX codec allows for menus and Chapter Points but I've never "come across" an avi file with these features.

It's not an officially-certified DivX product - but who cares?

I don't know if it's region-free or can be made region-free. This has never been an issue for me anyway, as I make "Region 0" back-ups of all my DVDs.

The unit's styling is appealingly retro. It looks to all intents and purposes like a miniature DiscoVision laserdisc player from 1979!

Here's the Chili Style 630-X



and here's an early Pioneer DiscoVision player!



The cover actually slides to the right, like a top-end Bang & Olufsen stereo or a De'Lorean car door! I can't explain it. It's a thing of wonder to witness. I can imagine that the sliding door may well be the first component to break - but at this price who cares?

If you're into retro furnishing (like I am), you've got to get it! You'll love it!!!

Not only that, but it's wall-mountable! You can hang it vertically on a wall. The discs clamp onto the spindle in a pleasingly secure way.

It's got separate outputs for five-channel speakers, so I'm assuming that there's a decoder built-in. I haven't read all the manual yet. I can't stop playing with it. It's also got an Optical Out output as well as the aforementioned phono-plug Component Out and a Scart outlet. Be aware that the unit doesn't come with a Scart lead!

If 5.1 channel output, S-Video out, retro-styling and DivX playback wasn't enough, it also has one typically bizarre Japanese feature...

It's also a karaoke machine!!!

Yep, it's got a microphone-input and "Mic Input Volume" dial. Not only can it play CD+Gs with lyric display but it has a filter for voice-removal when playing back regular audio CDs! I haven't tried it yet. I know that these filters usually cancel out everything in the centre of a stereo signal (and usually sound terrible) but I'll give it a go, later.

It can output either PAL, NTSC or Quasi-PAL to an NTSC television or Quasi-NTSC to a PAL television. You can freely change the player's output setting from PAL, NTSC or AUTO.

The only drawbacks I've found thus far are...

01. When you're in the set-up menu, there doesn't appear to be any "Exit" option, once you've finished choosing your preferences! I had to turn the unit off to escape from the set-up menu.

02. There's a button on the remote labelled "Direct" which doesn't appear to do anything and no reference is made to it in the Engrish manual.

Other than that, I love it and want to have it's babies!

LOL he said "Engrish"

Tom said:

LOL

Yeah, I use it as a term of endearment. It's very concise Engrish but Engrish all the same.

Oh dear, I'm sounding a bit xenophobic or something.

i want one!