Skyworth - Another Opinion

[pc99]

Hi there, I just took delivery of my very own Skyworth 1050P and thought I'd post my initial comments.

Overall, I'm impressed. The quality of the DVD decoding is streets ahead of my old Pioneer 515. The pictures produced on My Toshiba MT1 projector are much crisper and with a lot less 'jaggies'.

The mechanism is pretty quiet in operation too. And there are cool blue lights on the front (which stay on even in standby mode).

Auto region and RCE compatibility work flawlessly.

However there are a couple of downsides.

The player plays MP3 files on CDR/RW however it's seems slightly fussy over certain brands of disc. Also it doesn't play variable bit rate properly (which is how all my files are encoded).

Also, I can't get a picture to display properly using progressive scan outputs for a PAL disc. My projector only seems to support 480P (NTSC progressive) and when a PAL disc is played the picture is shifted to the right and down and about 20% is chopped off the bottom (I assuming the missing bit is the 96 extra lines of 576P over 480P).
I'm not sure whether this is just my projector or the player that is the problem here, but currently I can only use progressive for NTSC discs. Most of my collection is NTSC so it's not the end of the world, and the picture even through S-Video is better than my Pioneer player.

I'm currently using the component progressive outputs. I tried using the VGA output. In this case I got a full picture from both PAL and NTSC discs but I get some flickering, pulsating bars of darker and lighter colours on the screen, making the picture unwatchable.

Anyway that's all I've managed to discover so far. I shall have a more extensive play at the weekend.

If anyone has any solutions to any of my PAL problems please get in touch.

Regards - PC99

Here is a copy of my post over at the pro-scan forum - similar displacement - though not on PAL discs.Someone suggested it may be a "synch"problem between the skyworth and the projector(HT200) - my problem just occured - was fine initially.

Sat down to watch a movie last night, and ended up sad and confused- after 4 hours of twiddling !!.
I hope this is something simple - maybe it`s not even the Skyworth - but when I put in the dvd (toy story 2 , region 1) - the image was not centred on screen -in fact it had moved up and to the left , leaving about a 4 inch gap at the bottom and right side of the screen.I shifted over to tv(s-video) and the picture was perfectly placed.

After trying about 20 dvds, both PAL and NTSC,a number of problems became apparent

1. The auto switching feature is not 100% - I noticed when changing a pal disc to a NTSC disc, the picture was constantly "jerky" - like it was running at the wrong speed.A manual change to NTSC solved the problem.

2. this image shift is a major problem - I paused the THX logo on Toy Story2, and tried to centre it on the screen - couldnt do it.It remained to the left -I tried moving it over, using the "positioning" feature of the HT200, but only managed to move it a little - to centre it rquired moving the projector to the right (leaving a gap on the left).

Is this a problem of the Skyworth, or the projector ?

Is it due to the connections ? (progressive component)

Anyone else experience this kind of problem with the Skyworth - or any other player ?

All thoughts welcome - I really want to get this sorted tonight if possible, before I contact hivizone about a possible fault.

THANKS GUYS

[Gary Palmer]

uh oh.... :-(

Gary,

Hopefully this is a case of me doing something stupid, rather than the Skyworth - although there have been a couple of others over at AVS who mention similar probs.

Let us know when you get yours - I`m sure you will have no problems.I will try the vga-vga again tonight, see if that helps

[pc99]

Tiberious,

It looks like my problem is different from yours. I think the PAL prog. scan issue is definitely just that my projector can't handle it. I looked in the manual and it mentions 480P but not 576P.

However my problem with VGA could be a problem with the player as the banding happens on both PAL and NTSC discs in this mode.

But for now I'm happy with prog. scan using component for NTSC and S-Vid for my few PAL discs. The decoding quality is so much better than my Pioneer that it's still an improvement.

Hope you get your problems sorted out.

Cheers - PC99

I`m pleased to say the problem appears to be solved ! - hurray !!!

I tried hitting the auto synch button on the HT200 2 or 3 times - image moved around the screen .On the 3rd press - bingo !!
Hopefully it will stay that way.

Also tried the vga connection again - got a picture this time , but there were translucent vertical bars across the screen - bit like watching through plastic curtains !! - not good - allthough PAL was much better than NTSC.

The picture via component is so good, I don`t see this as an issue - all those awaiting this machine will not be dissapointed !.It just makes me wonder what we will see when the big boys implement the Faroudja chipset into their machines - one day, all machines will be made this way !!

[Gary Palmer]

Hi Tiberious

I may still be in the poo !

My projector does not have component inputs so I was banking on the VGA output for progressive scan.

We'll see what happens when I get it !

If the S-video output is very good I can always fall back on that......

Keep posting your findings !
Gary

Gary - it maybe the projector which is not optimised for VGA.Having said that, I did read someone else post about the problem.
We`ll see.S-video is not breathtaking - but not bad (from memory) - butI`m sure you could sell it pretty easily if you had to (keep my fingers crossed for you though - it IS good !)