Starting with the looks.I have not seen a sleeker player than 5500S just 4 buttons at the front panel with ofcourse the open/eject button.the LCD is crisp n clear but does not give u multiple simultaneous information. The tray is even more sleeker.but the problem is. in trying to make it sleeker the groove in the tray in which the media is hooked in is not of sufficient depth.result is the media sometimes slips out when the tray is moving in.other wise the tray is sturdy and does not give you a too fragile feeling.
Now for the real thing.The very first DVD I popped in was my Matrix reloaded and waited.got the "Region not supported error" mmmmmm obviously the player is not region free.but not to be disappointed.to make this player region free was a piece of cake.below are the instructions.
Power up DVD player.
Make sure there’s no disc loaded inside the tray.
Then go to the system menu, select preferences.
Enter 135566 with your remote and press ok.
A region code selection will appear. Press up or down to select 0.
Press ok and you now have a multi-region player
so now all the DVDs were playing nicely.and what ever I popped in next be it dvd-mp3, dvd-wma, dvd-jpg, dvd-divx/xvid played effortlessly.I even placed a couple of raw mpeg1 and mpeg2 files on a CDRW and it played without any glitch. So this means you don’t need to create the usual VCD/DVD for those copied/Ripped mpeg1/2 or .dat files .u just need to copy them on a CD/DVD and it will play.not even that. mixed files(mp3/wma/divx/xvid/mpeg2/mpeg1/dat/jpeg) packed in one dvd-rw separated via folders works flawlessly. Divx 6.0 though officially not supported too played nicely with no problem what so ever. The video quality in all the files I played was class apart. One thing which I presume is new I don’t know if I am wrong…….is the FF/RW capability for a Divx encoded movie.that I guess was not possible in the earlier models,
The player also supports multiple SRT subtitles, with divx/xvid.neat; very neat.
All Mp3/WMA bitrares were played 64 to 320 Kpbs with 44 as well 48 KHz frequency.
The audio is loud n clear.no manual equalizers present.5 presets available which would better be kept off.
Playback mode includes.
Single
Shuffle
Repeat one
Repeat folder.new thing
Folder.will play just that folder
AB repeat
Mp3 info includes.track time, total tack length, bit rate i.e. 128Kpbs. Its does not tell the frequency.44khz or 48khz.lastly the no of track being played along with the total no of tracks present
Jpeg slide show was a bit of pain, high resolution images takes too long to be displayed.
1600X1200 24 bit true color pic took 50 sec just give you a small preview at the corner and it took more than one minute to open in full screen mode.its so slow that sometime you get an impression that the player has hung n probably needs to be reset. Rest the jpeg output on a TV screen is absolutely clear with 200% zooming and panning which BTY is also available in the video mode.
Neat thing is that you can browse out of the mp3 folder and go the jpeg folder to view the Jpeg snap while the mp3 is still being played.cool but the drawback is.slide show does not work so you have to manually view the snaps u want.the track info is always there at the top.
Missing thing in the player is s-video and optical out.the loss depends upon ones personal preference.
Got it for 4000/- Rs