NeuNeo HVD2085 1080p DVD Player Review

HDTVs are one the hot items of 2005, but after installing one in your living room, you might discover that without an HDTV signal, the TV is just magnifying a low-resolution image up to the native HD definition of the TV. Depending on how good the TV is at magnifying low-definition images, you could witness artifacts, blurriness, and blocky pixels. These problems are mainly due to the fact that High-Definition Televisions often come with a magnifier chip that does a poor job. The HVD2085 player has been designed to do a better job at converting the low-resolution video from a DVD to HDTV resolution. The review starts below.

Test configuration
We tested the HVD2085 on a Panasonic PT-50LC14 50” retro-projected LCD TV. We used both the VGA and component inputs. Unfortunately, the player did not come with a HDMI cable. Our reference is a Media Center Edition (MCE) PC equipped with a FX5200 card connected via the VGA port.

Image quality
Let’s get straight to the point: image quality. In our opinion, this DVD player does a much better job than most. It exhibits much less visual artifacts than many DVD players, thanks to the magnifying (up-scaling) algorithm. Colors were good “out of the box” without any tweaking, and that’s nice because most people don’t change these settings. We did notice that the image was somewhat darker than other systems*, especially when using the VGA connector.
* We compensated for the brightness in our photos because we wanted to compare the details, not the colors.

Overall, the NeuNeo does well. It provides an image quality that is comparable to our media center PC. However, we think that the media center provides a better movie experience because it is crisper (Obviously, the MCE box is much more expensive). You can see in our comparison photos that the NeuNeo output is blurrier (both running at 720p). On the other hand, the Media center image is noisier. In this case, you have to trade blur for noise as NeoDigits’ algorithm removes the film noise…but also fine details in the image. The good news is that NeuNeo can provide an update to their algorithm because their chip is programmable, which is not the case of many DVD players, including high-end ones.

720p and 1080i looked exactly the same on our TV because its native resolution is 720p. Although it is possible that using 1080i/p would be better, I would not expect much from doing so because the original DVD movie resolution is 720x480 pixels. If anything, the image should about as blurry.

User interface
There are a few things that we really liked such as the ability to switch a number of things on and off without going to the DVD menu: subtitles and language are our favorites (switching language doesn’t work with all DVDs).

Parental control is available with no less than 8 levels of rating. It works with a classic password.

The TV system option lets one choose one of the 11 video modes available at the moment. The important ones are: NTSC, PAL, 480p, 720p, XGA, SXGA. The SXGA mode (1280x1024) did not work because it exceeds the 1280x720p native resolution of the PT-50LC14 HDTV. Fortunately, if the display goes black during this process, pressing the VGA or NTSC button on the remote control puts the DVD player back into a “standard mode”.

The remote control does not have the regular VCR buttons (user manual page #7), and is a bit weird. After one week, we still have not gotten used to it, mainly because we are still using “standard” remotes. I would suggest to NeoDigits to use a more standard layout for the VCR buttons. For additional information about the options and user interface take a look at the user manual.

Media Compatibility
This player is compatible with most media disc: DVD/SVCD/VCD/CD/HDCD/MP3/WMA/Photo-CD/CD-R/CD-RW/DVD+R/DVD-R/DVD+RW/DVD-RW (from neodigits.com)

Region-Free
Neodigit’s HVD2085 is region-free out of the box, if you care about imported movies. We tested it and it works without a hitch. Note that most DVD players can be hacked to be region-free, but if one doesn’t want look for a hack, this player is ready to go. Design The look of the HVD2085 is one of the weak points, in our opinion. It is competing with expensive and better-looking DVD players and could benefit from a nicer industrial design. It looks cheap and few people would guess that there is a programmable RISC Processor inside the box. Our $65 Philips DVP642 looks better.

What’s in the box?
• DVD Player
• Remote Control
• AV (video, audio L/R or components) cable
• Manual
• Power Cord

Pricing and final words
Pricing is higher than we expected: at $245, it will compete with HDTV-friendly players like the Samsung HD941 that have good upscaling capabilities too. The HVD2085 is not cheap and NeoDigits will have to convince buyers to choose it over known brands, even if performance is comparable. The HVD2085 has the leading edge when it comes to connectivity (every connection type is present) and upgradeability (programmable chip).

Finally, while everybody is waiting for HD movies to come out, NeoDigits already has a limited set of titles encoded in 720p resolution. That’s one of the rare options that you have today if you want to watch DVD movies in HD.

Links
Photo Gallery
NeuNeo HVD2085 home page – Specifications
Neodigits web site
NeuNeo HVD2085 user manual

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Another review of the same device
Design Technica review of the HVD2085