Cyberhome CHDVD400

Author's product rating:   

Picture Playback
Sound Level
Range of Features
Durability
Value for Money

Advantages:	VERY cheap .  Plays all kinds of media and formats
Disadvantages:	No frontal diplay  -  your maiden aunt would approve

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

A friend of mine, who for the sake of the pun is called Rosie*, was bemoaning the fact that she would have to give her daughter’s boyfriend’s DVD player back soon – with me so far?

*only the name has been changed to protect the guilty.

Having just introduced her to the wonderful world of DVD players, not just for watching movies, mostly mine on loan, but also for the playing of music (her HiFi/CD doesn’t work either!) and the watching of CD-ROM slide shows (she’s just bought a digital camera), I told her I’d look out for a budget model that did all this stuff.

I didn’t have to look very far. Richer Sounds has a £50 DVD player that was already enabled to play multi-region movies, although their fact sheet wasn’t too encouraging on other fronts, like whether it could play older video formats like VCD and SVCD, nor was it particularly forthcoming on the types of media, burned or otherwise, that it was prepared to handle.

The W H Smith’s website by comparison, told a wholly more comprehensive story. Not only did their machine (Cyberhome CH400) cost the same, but also using a combination of their ‘crib sheet’ and a whole host of testimonials from buyers enabled you to garner together a very wide specification for the machine.

1. CYBERHOME CH DVD400

Cyberhome is a little-known brand outside of the budget end of DVD purchasing, but even so, it is a brand with a firm following of fans.

This particular machine is quite compact (225 mm wide) compared to the usual ‘Hi-Fi separate’ size. To achieve this, it has no frontal luminous display (my 'dong' doesn't have a luminous nose either!). However, a press of a button on the remote brings up the equivalent display on the TV screen. If this sounds like a nuisance, you just have to keep telling yourself that it only costs £50, and at least it won’t be distracting you as you watch a movie - the display, not the dong! If you really must play with something luminous, then the major directional controls on the remote control are.

Setting up is easy enough, but do remember to buy a SCART lead for it if this to be your first machine (shades of buying a PC printer!). The machine is delivered with a Region 2 (for European and Japanese disks) logo both on the box and the back panel of the player. If you want to make your player multi-region, then it's easy to glean this information from various websites. Here's how it's done.

a. Press the Open/Close button on your remote control to open the tray.
b. Press the Setup button on your remote control.
c. Using your remote, highlight (but do not select) the Exit Setup option in the menu
d. Press the buttons 1, 3, 6 and 9 on your remote in sequence.
e. Press the Left Cursor Arrow on your remote, three times.
f. Press the Right Cursor Arrow on your remote.
g. Select the new ‘Version’ option, which has now appeared on the menu.
h. You will now be able to change the value to 1 for Region 1, 2 for Region 2, and so on, or 0 for multi-region playback.
i. Exit menu and close the tray

If this sounds fiddly, remember that you'll most likely only have to do this once. This renders the machine capable of operating in ‘Region Zero’, which then leaves you free to buy DVDs from whatever source is cheapest (or quickest to release the movie).

At first I had my doubts over whether this alteration to ‘multi-region’ would cause me any problems with certain Region 1 disks that have what is called RCE – Regional Code Enhancement. The normal fix for this being, to change the machine actually to Region 1 for the period of playing that movie, and change it back to Region Zero afterwards. However, it seems that the Cyberhome machine will play RCE disks without objecting even when set to Region Zero.

2. GETTING ONE

Having looked in vain on the www.cyberhome.de website for the CH400 model, it seems that it is a special model, or at least it’s not for general sale, which goes part way to explaining the price and the fact that you can only get one from W H Smiths. Frankly I wouldn’t let this put you off. At these prices, you can afford to need a new one once a year! I spent £350 on my first DVD player and it only last three years. Do the 'math' as the Americans say. It’s no wonder that they sell like ‘hot cakes’ every time they come in stock. Mine was manufactured in China some time during July 2003, and delivered to me in August 2003, so it had probably been on the move almost the whole time in between!

I mentioned a SCART lead earlier. The WHS site will add one to your order for £4.99, and you can end up with about 1100 WHS Clubcard Points as a result of this combined purchase, if you play your ‘cards’ right, pun intended. Delivery, according to the site, or rather dispatch is usually by the next working day, and in my friend’s experience, they kept their promise. Here, WHS have an interesting slant – either you pay a few quid for home delivery, OR you can opt to have it delivered to your nearest large W H Smith’s branch, for which there is no fee. This usually takes about 2-5 days, and they e-mail to tell you what’s happening.

3. WHAT WILL IT PLAY?

Firstly the formats.

Obviously, all Regions of DVD movies.

Audio CDs, but not the newer breed of SuperACDs.

MP3 files music, but only those on CD-R(W), not DVD-R(W) - some people seem to have had some success with this medium*, but not me, so there goes my chance of putting 50 CDs-worth of music on one disk! Record-able DVDs can still very much depend on make and quality of disk, so maybe I've been unlucky, or just plain cheapskate with my choice of DVD-R!

(*a good way to keep up to date with ‘techy’ bits like this is the visit the forum at http://forum.cyberhome-help.de/)

CD Slide Shows in VCD format, or even complete disks of plain JPEG files (or Kodak Format CD-ROMs) and allow them to be seen like a slide show, in much the same way that Windows Explorer will in later versions of Windows. Just one problem with the Kodak variety rather than a CD-R of JPEGS you’ve put together yourself – any portrait shots initially come out sideways.

VCD Movies (a previous inferior video format)

SVCD Movies (a slightly less inferior video format lacking DVD’s multi-channel sound).

Of course, being able to play a wide range of non-standard formats is of little use if the machine won’t play ‘burned’ media, since most of these will be on record-able disks. This would leave you stuck with Audio CDs (the shop-bought ones, remember those?) and DVD Movies.

However, the fact that it will accept CD-R(W) and DVD-+R(W) disks opens this list to include those slide shows, audio CD ‘compilations’ (nudge, nudge) MP3 files, and even home movies transferred from camcorders to DVD-R.

I nearly forgot. When playing a North American sourced DVD (e.g. a Region 1 disk) this will also output an NTSC format picture (525 lines, 30 frames/second). Most modern TVs will handle this via their SCART lead.

It seems that the Cyberhome machine can also convert this at source to the largely European PAL format (625 lines, 25 frames/sec), overcoming the need to upgrade your TV there and then, if it proves incapable of resolving an NTSC picture.

This really is a versatile bit of kit! I did mention the fifty quid didn’t I?

As an added bonus, it can also convert our PAL format to NTSC, which coupled with its ability to run off anywhere between 100 and 240 volts means that you can take it Stateside to show friends your holiday DVDs and VCDs. It even has a removable 'ghetto blaster' type mains lead so you can easily put the correct plug onto the system. (I keep a selection of these leads for foreign travel - my camcorder and digital camera chargers use the same one) The player's size also makes taking it abroad feasible, even in hand luggage.

There may be many other permutations of disk and media, but without an example to hand, I can’t tell you if they’ll work. For example, Audio-DVD.

4. OTHER SPECIFICATIONS

I can’t take credit for the following (except my bracketted notes), having gleaned it from the WHS website (www.whsmith.co.uk, what a surprise)

Dimensions 225mm x 240mm x 60mm (W x D x H)

Quick and Slow Forward / Backward Play
Repeat Section A to B, 1/All
Rating Level – (my note: e.g you can make PG and 18 classifications subject to password control)
Multi Language - depends on title
Subtitle- depends on title
Multi Angle - depends on title
16:9 / 4:3 TV Screen Selection
MP3 Playlist
Playback Repeat – (my note: useful if you demonstrate 'JML' gadgets in Woolworths!)
Zoom-In and Zoom-Out Function.

Of course, many of these are subject to their availability on the movie in question, for example, you won’t get multi-camera angles on an ordinary movie – these tend to be the reserve of sport videos.

"...and we’ll just switch to 'crotch-camera' to see that golfer’s swing again”.

That golfer’s WHAT swing again, may I ask?

Incidentally, the instruction manual is pretty good running, as it does into 30 pages - all in English. Well, sort of!

To be honest, this one hasn’t had to go through too much of a metamorphosis, as I suspect it’s been translated from German rather than an oriental language. The signs are there; frequent use of odd phrases like ‘in former times’ instead of previously, and how about the picture signal being ‘splintered’ into red green and blue? An easy mistake to make, especially if you think your English is so good that there’s no need to ask a native speaker. In German, a splinter is ein Splitter.

5. CONNECTIVITY

Sound output can be analogue or digital, if you have a multi-channel decoder somewhere in your hi-fi arsenal, capable of accepting the coaxial output from the machine (note: there is no optical digital output). It also has a standard pair of stereo phono plugs. Digital sound comes from its Dolby Digital/DTS decoder and sounds pretty impressive to me, when running through my Yamaha home theatre set-up.

Video connections are taken care of by a choice of the SCART lead itself, which is also capable of carrying stereo sound to the TV, and slightly more superior to ‘standard’, an S-Video socket with 'separated' luminance and chrominance, hence the 'S'. The SCART lead itself is RGB (separate red green and blue) enabled though, which would be the best option available if your TV can handle it. The rear panel also embodies a composite video output (yellow phono plug) to complete the set.

6. IMPRESSIONS & CONCLUSION

At the price, I was half tempted to get one for myself – the tempted half of me won, so I did get one for myself!

Picture quality is pretty darned good, although if you are downgrading from a more expensive machine that has now clapped out on you, you may find the picture a little muted in sharpness, but if this is your first venture into DVD, you’ll be tickled pink, especially when compared to clunky old VHS movies.

The device comes with a TWO year warranty on a return-to-base basis with Cyberhome's UK repair agent, Pulse Service.

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AS A FOOTNOTE, I PAID FOR MY CYBERHOME 400 BY FOLLOWING A LINK FROM WWW.THEMUTUAL.NET, WHICH GIVES ME A 4% DISCOUNT AT W H SMITHS (IN MUTUAL.NET SHARES - 1,333 OF THEM AT TIME OF WRITING), W H SMITHS THEMSELVES GIVE THEIR LOYALTY CARD HOLDERS 'DOUBLE POINTS', I.E. 1,000 (£1) AND I PAID FOR IT WITH A CREDIT CARD THAT GIVES ME AIRMILES, ALTHOUGH A £50 SPEND IS ONLY GOING TO KEEP ME 'IN THE AIR' A FEW SECONDS. OVERALL, THIS MEANS (approx) £3.50 DISCOUNT ON THE ALREADY LOW PRICE. NOT BAD EH?