First Impressions

The player arrived in a rather unassuming brown box and a brief glance at the player revealed that it too, was nothing special in the visual stakes. The front of the machine has very few buttons, sporting just a power button, pause, eject and the playback controls. There is also one headphone socket and level control on the far left of the player. The playback controls (play, forward, backward and stop) are arranged in a circle divided diagonally into four and feel a bit flimsy to the touch. All other buttons are fairly responsive to touch.

Moving on to the remote control, this is a fairly compact and well-designed piece of equipment. It isn't overly complicated and every function is available by pushing just one button so no fiddly button combinations here. There are separate chapter skip and forward/rewind buttons, which is always nice, and the power button is clearly marked in red. Overall, the remote scores well.

The review model I had came without any leads or instructions, so I can't go into any great detail here as to the quality or type of leads supplied with the machine.

Moving round to the back of the player, we have the usual plethora of connection options. These include separate RGB outputs along with S-Video and composite outs and one SCART socket. Audio outputs consist of analogue stereo left and right outs, an analogue 5.1 audio out bank and optical and co-axial outs for your digital requirements.

Ease of Use

The next thing I did was connect the machine up. I opted to use the S-Video connection as this allows me to quickly and easily plug the player into the front of my TV and avoid rooting around behind the set. I also connected the optical out to my amp.

Once connected, I sat back, poked the on button and a little red light blinked into action. Unfortunately though, my TV screen remained uncooperatively blank. I checked all of my connections again, fiddled around with my TV settings and still nothing. I then decided I would try the composite video connection, as this again allowed me to plug it straight in the front of my set. Once the player was connected in this way, a picture appeared and all became clear. It appears that whoever had the player before myself had connected the machine using the SCART socket and as such, the S-Video connection had been disabled (it also appears that the composite out is always enabled). A quick fiddle around in the menu turned this back on and reviewing recommenced.

Onto the aforementioned menus then. These are a simple white text on a grey background affair and are startlingly similar to the Apex AD-600A menus (read the review of that player here). In fact, the entire menu system is so reminiscent of the Apex that it must be an offshoot of that player's firmware. Anyway, as with the Apex, they are easy to navigate and are all fairly self-explanatory.

Performance

So how good is the player as a player then I hear you all asking? Well, average I suppose is the honest answer. I started off with the DVD player's worst enemy, The Matrix (R1) and there were no problems at all that were obviously noticeable. The menus all worked perfectly, as did the white rabbit feature. However, what was quite noticeable was the troublesome lip-sync. All the way through the disc, the sound would slowly get more and more out of sync with the picture, and although this was easily remedied by prodding stop then play, it was downright annoying.

Fair enough I thought, I'll give it the benefit of the doubt and popped in Being John Malkovich (R1). Again, no problems with menus or layer changes, but noticeable lip-sync. Same with Dogma (R1) and Notting Hill (R1). Oh dear.

I then tried a number of Region 2 titles, the machine's native region, and things looked up. Godzilla (R2) and The World Is Not Enough (R2) showed little to no signs of lip-sync problems and the menus all behaved as they should. Enemy Of The State (R2) did show signs of lip-sync problems, but this DVD is notorious for it, and this is more likely a disc, rather than player problem. It would therefore appear that the player has some problems when playing back NTSC discs with regard to lip-sync, but these seem less severe when playing back PAL DVDs.

As with all good players these days, there's a secret menu hidden away (though not very well) from the user's prying eyes. This menu gives access to region selection and is accessed as follows;

• Push 'Menu' on the remote
  
• Type 3, 8, 8, 8, 3
  
• The menu appears

One thing I must mention is the DVD tray. This is a horrible flimsy affair and consists of a front flap which flips down and a rickety tray that wobbles its way out when you choose to change discs. It doesn't look or feel at all sturdy, and this could be a future source of problems.

Another problem is the general response to commands. On occasion, the tray took a full five seconds from eject being pushed, to the tray making an appearance. The problem with this is, by then I've pushed the button three or four times to try and provoke a reaction and the tray then starts to open before clunking shut again. The same applies to turning the machine on, and you often have to wait a couple of seconds before the machine whirrs into action after pushing the power button. Minor, but annoying.

There is also the issue of the front LCD display and the problem here is the colour. It's GREEN, and not a snazzy nice green, but a nasty cheap LCD watch-looking green. Ugh! This also makes it fairly difficult to read in low-light as it is a fairly dark and non-contrasting sort of colour.

Picture and sound quality was good on all tested discs although admittedly, I was using very high quality IXOS connects. The supplied leads will probably be run-of-the-mill cheap and cheerful items and it will probably be worth investing a few quid in better leads. I say probably because, as I mentioned earlier, my player came without leads.

Other Stuff

The Encore also plays back VCD and SVCDs, although I didn't have any available for test (I really must get me a few of these, so if anyone out there can supply me with a VCD and/or an SVCD that is not illegal then it would be much appreciated). I will give the player the benefit of the doubt and assume they work fine.

The player will decode a Dolby Digital signal and, although not mentioned anywhere in the official specs, there are menu options pertaining to DTS output. Regrettably, I don't have access to a DTS amp so I couldn't test whether or not the DTS signal is correctly outputted, or for that matter, outputted at all.

Conclusion

After a fairly shaky start (no signal being outputted, lip-sync, build quality), the Encore DV-450 turned out to be a fairly able player. In fact, considering the price of this machine, its performance is pretty cracking. It played all the DVDs I tried from all regions with no menu or layer change problems. All of the region 1 discs I tried did exhibit lip-sync trouble, but this could be fixed by stopping then starting playback.

This machine would be a fairly decent bet if you are restricted budget-wise. It plays the problem discs with much greater ability than something like the Samsung 709 and the Proline 1000, for a very similar sort of price.

One thing that I must mention here is that of the Sampo troubles. Many of you may be aware that this player is a re-badged and firmware upgraded version of the infamous Sampo DVE560, previously supplied by the now liquidised Magnate. Encore Direct have now taken over sole distribution of the, self-badged DV-450, and as such, you should have no worries regarding either the warranty, or history of the machine.

Overall, a cheap and cheerful multi-region DVD player that unfortunately, suffers from lip-sync issues.

Carl Prescott

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Contact Details

Supplied by: Encore Direct Price: £199.98

Pros

Very good value for money Remote hackable Simple to use

Cons

Lip-sync problems Flimsy DVD tray Slow response to commands

Ratings

Build quality: 2.5/5 Rickety DVD tray and nasty green LCD display. Ease of use: 4/5 All straightforward stuff. Easy to navigate remote and self-explanatory menus. Performance: 3/5 Copes with problem discs well but shows significant lip-sync problems on most NTSC discs. Value for money: 3.5/5 Not as cheap as some players, but copes better with troublesome discs. Overall: 3/5 Average player at a reasonable price.