The DivX Player Shootout

This one is a looker, with an unconventional curvaceous shape, comprising fluid curved edges and surfaces. It is not sleek; in fact it has considerable thickness or depth. Samsung calls this their ‘pebble” series. The top surface is wiped clean in gloss black piano finish, with a single Samsung logo printed in the center. Buttons are shiny silver logos flush mounted on the top surface. The tray looks flimsy, and I doubt if it will last for more than a year. It is light in weight, a good thing for portability.

Connectivity wise, we have a component output, besides a single HDMI. It upscales to 1080p, but on the other hand there is no discrete 5.1 analog audio out. Most importantly there is a USB 2.0 slot, for use with our drives.

Once turned on, we access the menu via their tiny, globular remote. The menu has a basic set of options, where we set the output to 1080p. The brightness, contrast and color can be changed, albeit crudely. Loading time was 12 seconds, for home menu to appear after disc insertion. The first complaint I would like to make is that the remote is weak, it needs high focus. Our DivX video played almost smoothly, but there was occasional stutter in vastly different scene changes. This was on closer observation. The color was very fine, no banding and patchiness in darker parts. Even pure luminance info was highly detailed; I was really impressed by the detail in extreme whites and blacks.