Kiiro 838d Review

Overall Rating

Plays anything (DVD CD VCD SVCD CD-R CD-RW OKO MP3 CD-DA CDIFMV) Good picture and sound. Small size (midi format). Multi-region. RCE capable. VCR friendly.

Won't play Enhanced audio CD,s or CDG disks (not many do!). Permanent Logo. Ping on opening tray. Nothing really.

The Kiiro 838d is a small DVD player (320x75x277mm) yet is able to play everything that is thrown at it, it is multi-region and plays RCE disks right out of the box, no hack is required, what's more it's VCR friendly as well!. It also has on board dolby digital and DTS decoders, so all you need to do to complete your home cinema system is add a multi channel amp + speakers.

This player appears to be from the same stable as the Dansai machines but with many improvements. When you first use this player you notice that the disk tray does not fully extend from the front panel, this is because it in-fact contains a modified DVD-ROM drive mounted behind the front. On the right hand side is the main circuit board with the power supply board mounted vertically on the left avoiding possible interference present on some players.

The rear panel contains one SCART socket (RGB capable), an S-Video connector, an RCA video out, 6 phono audio connectors (for decoded AC3/DTS out), 1 RCA digital audio out and a digital optical output. Once the digital audio out is enabled the analogue outputs are disabled, in the same way once RGB out is selected the composite and S-Video outputs are disabled.

The front panel contains more than most despite its small size. Unusually, it has enough controls to allow operation without the remote! It also has 2 microphone inputs for the karaoke functions. This display is blue and shows the usual functions.

The picture output is sharp and well defined and not far removed from many more up-market players, although it is best to use the RGB out as the composite does suffer from a fair amount of chroma patterning. It is able to output both PAL and NTSC for any disc, the conversion to PAL is full not just PAL 60, so you could use it to back up your region one disks to tape!.

The audio out does suffer from a small amount of lip sink error with some disks and the analogue is fairly quiet (as is common). However there are numerous adjustment due to the on-board decoders.

Two annoying points are firstly the ping the machine makes whenever a disk is ejected! A DVD logo is also permanently displayed whenever in STOP mode and when playing CD`s or MP3 disks. Mechanically this is not the quietest of machines but isn`t too obtrusive.

In conclusion I must say this is a very decent player which has no problems with disks that other players cough at, and at this price it's a bargain. I certainly recommend it.

Performance 8 Quality 7 Features 10 Value 10.
From Amazon (£99.99 reduced from £129.99)

Members' Comments onFreeky.'s Review

• damo. on 27th Jul 2002

  A well written review with just the sort of info you need. Made a change from reading a single negative comment.

• Hutch. on 2nd Aug 2002

  Good review with all the sort of info you need. Helped make up my mind to buy one and so far you are right i give it 10/10 as well.

• loz99. on 7th Aug 2002

  I like the review,you prepared your asessment thoroughly
  before submission. I have had a Pioneer 345, 2 Yelo,
  2 dansai 852's and now 2 Kiiro 838's.
  Like yourself I like the Kiiro 838 a lot.
  What I'd like to know is how does this machine cope
  with DVDR movies etc? I heard a rumour from a friend
  of mine that it can't play them at all.
  Do You have any idea if movies etc recorded on
  standard stand alone dvd recorders ie Panasonic or
  Pioneer etc can be played back on The Kiiro 838?

• Freeky. on 11th Sep 2002

  My information is the the player will play DVD-R and DVD-RW disks, but DVD+R & DVD+RW are uncertain.
  
  I have tested with a DVD+RW disk which would not play.

• devilfysh on 29th Sep 2003

  I have just purchased a dvd burner (SONY DRU-500a) and cannot find a brand of dvd-r or dvd-rw that plays correctly on the kiiro 838d without skipping. I have tried Bulpaq Orange 4x dvd-r, Memorex 1x dvd-rw and datawrite green 2x dvd-rw. Can anyone help?