Page 1 of I`m thinking about getting a Kiiro 838.Any good?

Right then i`m totally fed up with my pacific 750 freezing all the time during the good bit of a film,so i`m considering a Kiiro 838 because of the vcr freindly option.Any ones view on this machine appreciated.Cheers.

Ok, if you do a search of this forum you`ll see my review of the machine that I posted a little while after buying it, plus some other info that may be useful. Perhaps I can relate my experience of ownership, 6 months on?
Well, it`s still a good little machine for the money, although it does have some niggly little problems sometimes. Sometimes, when playing some discs, (eg Groundhog day, Mystery Men, both R2, although there have been others) it produces a sort of weird grey ghosting around fast moving colour segments, ie when an actor moves. Mystery Men also had real problems, with the image jittering about halfway down throughout the film. Although having said that, I cleaned the lens recently and the problem seems to have gone. Also, sometimes, the machine locks up and you have to switch it off and on again to eject a disc. This is possibly an overheating issue - the case is small (very small in fact) so the components (similar I think to the Dansai 852, and identical to the Yelo 800, both much bigger machines) are doubtless much more closely packed together, so producing, I imagine, more problems if they get hot. I think also that it has problems with discs that are either dirty or scratched (The World Is Not Enough R2 particularly, as well as Session9 R3 - although I suppose that`s more of a user issue than a machine one! What else? Well, sometimes it has not recognised a disc, and had to be switched off for a couple of minutes, although again, I`ve not had this problem since cleaning it.

Despite this list of niggles (which aren`t major, to be fair) i`ve been pretty impressed with the Kiiro. I liked particularly its small size, its looks (I got the black one), its built in dts decoder, the fact that it plays most if not all discs, and its multiregion and macro free (vcr friendly) out of the box. It`s a good priced player, with an excellent spec. It reproduces an excellent picture - very good black definition. If you can live with the occasional small problem, and lets face it, most electrical devices have them, it`s a worthy player. I got mine from Special Reserve, but I think they`ve since put their price up by a tenner. Amazon have it at a good price, and so do afterhours.co.uk, although I can`t vouch for them - maybe someone else can?

One thing I would say about this player is that there doesn`t seem to be the community for it that has been built up around other players eg Sampo, Scan etc. If anyone can correct me, please do, but there doesn`t seem to be any online Kiiro resources or `fan sites` as such.

One more thing. I`ve noticed in the past few months that more and more people are asking about this player. Perhaps it`s time Reviewer reviewed one? Especially in the light of Dan`s excellent Scan SC2500 review.

Hope this helps.
Bb

ps, did I mention that it`s small?

Thanks for that.I`ve ordered one so i`ll see now what its like.It can`t be no worse than my pacific.thanks for advice again.

Bill, you said
"Amazon have it at a good price, and so do afterhours.co.uk, although I can't vouch for them - maybe someone else can?"
I got my Kiiro 838 from http://www.afterhours.co.uk/Shop/idx1.htm & I`m very happy with the service I received & the price I paid.
Not had any problem discs yet, but then I`ve only had the thing for a week!
I would highly recommend this player & afterhours to anyone.

Cool. Glad I could be of service, and glad that afterhours are good too! I think you csn also get it from either http://www.firebox.com or http://www.boysstuff.co.uk - i forget which, but it`s £159 there, which is a bit pricey.

To re-iterate what I said earlier - are there any `fan` sites out there? If I was more technically able, I would probably set one up myself. Most, if not all of my Kiiro info/experience has been posted here anyway.

Bb

I have a few questions about the KIIRO.

Whats the Menu screen like for playing Mp3`s?

Can it play Mpeg video burnt to a CD-R as data like my Dansai 852?

The menu is ok. You can select folders and individual tracks - its kinda like windows explorer, so pretty familiar. You can play individual tracks, or in sequence, or randomly.

As for mpegs burnt to cdr, yes, you can. The menus for the kiiro are very very similar to the dansai, and I imagine they have similar firmware. Any tech-heads know?

Hope this helps micoman. Are you planning on buying one, or is it just for comparison purposes?

Bb

Thanks for the info. I just like to have some info on all the cheap macro free players about incase people ask me or my Dansai 852 dies.

So you have had a Dansai as well? How does the picture compare to the Kiira??

Still got the dansai. Well, it`s my parent`s player. I don`t use it much/at all, although i`ve watched a few films on it. I think the kiiro has a better picture, but I do have it going thru a gold-plated, oxygen-free scart, which may make a difference. The Kiiro seems a bit better built than the dansai, ie less plasticy, although as I think I mentioned before, the menus are very similar, which implies to me that they have similar firmware. The front panel layouts are very similar too, although instead of headphone jacks the kiiro has microphone ones, for its karaoke feature. They also share a very similar remote - same shape & size, very similar button layout, although the Kiiro`s is a bit more subtly coloured!

Back to the picture, I think that perhaps the kiiro has better contrast than the dansai. In my opinion the colours on the dansai can appear a bit washed out sometimes, whereas the kiiro is always quite vivid, and very sharp. Again, as i`ve said elsewhere, the black definition is particularly good, which in my opinion is an important indicator as to picture quality.

So, do you still have a mico then? How does it compare to the dansai? Regarding the kiiro, if you do a little digging (ie search google for "kiiro 838") you`ll find a few mixed reviews (mostly on amazon). It seems there`s no middle ground with the kiiro, although the people who have negative things to say about it seem to be the ones who had faulty ones. If it works, the concensus seems to be that it`s great. I concur.

Bb

Sorry not got back sooner, I loose track of all my posts!

Yes I still have my Mico A980 and I do think the picture quality was slightly better than the Dansai. I have the Dansai connected by S-Video as Im short on connections as I have two VCR`s connected as well.

As I`ve said before I bought the Mico more for Mp3 and my home made VCD`s more than DVD. I also wanted a Macro free player.

The Mico was very basic at playing Mp3`s so when I heard about the track name list with Mp3`s on the Dansai I jumped for it. It was also a bonus that it is also able to play Mpeg videos burnt as data. I find this very handy for the music videos I download. This lets me make one CD with Mp3`s and video on.

Thanks for the info anyway.