The DivX Player Shootout

Mitashi always has interesting features and top loaded products, and this player of theirs is no different. A paper illustration runs along the joint of the top and front panel, highlighting the features this unit supports. They straightaway call it an MPEG4 player. The unit as an aluminum colored chassis, with a slightly tapering front panel. Overall it is quite regular looking, straight edged and simple. This model again has no HDMI out. Thus component, S-video and composite are our only options. There is a MMC card slot though, besides USB 2.0. Also this unit has a discrete 5.1 analog audio out. Besides it has one more unique feature, a built in amplifier for stereo speakers. It gives out about 20 watts of power to 4 ohm speakers.

Once on, we slid in the test disc and flipped the dynamic range and color patterns to see the real juice of the player. Load time was 11 seconds. We encountered one major flaw that can be spotted from any angle or background. Technically known as Y/C delay, it occurs when the color bleeds out of its borders. The frames moved along fine, but clarity was not upto the mark. Jagged lines were visible in sections.

The dynamic range of colors was good though. The player could churn out dark shades blacker than black, and various lighter shades. In DivX mode, our player did cough a bit in the beginning of our film, with clear framing. But this ended soon, and moving along the image was smooth, and satisfactory.