Info and forum posts by 'Prof C Monkey'

RE: Aiwa DV370 or Tosh SD210??

Even the Techtronics website says that their chipped version of the 210 needs `preliminary checks` (ie hot swapping) before it will play RCE disks so I think you/we will have the exact same problem whatever. I`ve looked around in this forum & the general opinion is that this work-around does work, even tho it`s a bit of a pain.
(see http://www.dvd.reviewer.co.uk/forums/thread.asp?Forum=211&Thread=59408 for more on this)

I`ve been looking thru old dvd mags & the Aiwa seems decent enough, tho one thing you might want to consider is that is doesn`t output a RGB signal from its SCART socket - believe me you are missing out if this is true, the difference between RGB & plain composite is staggering! (DVD, issue 3, spring 2001 for the review of the Aiwa)

I paid £180 from RS in Leicester & was lucky enough to get the last one in the shop - some bloke ordered it, forgot to pick it up on the Saturday & they let me have it on the Monday. I also got last month`s What Hi-Fi with a £20 off voucher for the Tosh. Haven`t seen this month`s but probably worth a look on the off chance...

RE: Aiwa DV370 or Tosh SD210??

I bought the SD210 from RicherSounds last week after much deliberation & for the money you really can`t do better - best buy in 4 mags!

Haven`t tried any RCE disks myself but I`m pretty sure you can `hot swap` - put in any non-RCE region 1 disk, watch the FBI warning, eject, swap with the RCE disk & play (can anyone else confirm?)

Don`t know much about the Aiwa (except that it`s £20 more) but I can vouch for the Toshiba - use an RGB scart and sound & video are pretty damn near perfect

Whatever you do, don`t buy from Techtronics until you`ve read the Retailer Reviews section on this site. Do a search for Techtronics & have a look at what 99% of the people who contribute to this forum thought! I was tempted to buy a macro-free player from them but cancelled my order as soon as I found out about their customer (dis)service. Instead I went to RS, got the player, a decent scart lead & a 3-year warrantee for the same price.

My advice? Go for the Tosh (from RS or anywhere else but Techtronics) & you won`t regret it - I don`t. All I have to do now is persuade my other half that we really need that £1200 32" wide-screen TV to go with it...

RE: Cyberhome 528 NTSC

Hmmm, I get the same thing on my Panasonic TV (TX21) when playing R1 discs, but only when using an RGB signal - not with plain video (whether this eliminates the problem or just hides it due to poorer picture quality I don`t know.)

My player`s a Tosh 210 and works fine with region 2 & 4 discs so it must be an NTSC issue with Panasonic TVs. If you can choose to output a video signal from your CH528 then it might remove the banding - I havn`t tried S-VHS as my TV doesn`t have an input but that might clear it up without losing picture quality. Hope this helps...

This item was edited on Wednesday, 24th October 2001, 21:29