Yamada DVX-6100 DivX Review

Overall Rating

Plays everything you throw its way!

Cheap-looking remote control.
Manual could describe some of the options with more detail.

UMAX is a company that made its name with its quality-made scanner range for years now. When I first saw the name of this player (UMAX Yamada), it was easy to be sceptical for two reasons:
1)UMAX is famous for its scanners, so what do they know about DVD player design?
2)Yamada sounded to me like a name rip-off of Yamaha, an unfortunate choice of name for this player.
So I was sceptical until I read the reviews of people who already bought this player. I went for it and bought one too. My initial scepticism was blown to pieces when I actually layed my hands on the machine itself. I couldn't have been more mistaken. This player is excellent.
Got it a few days ago, and updated the firmware on it before using it. To download the latest firware for it go to http://www.umax.de/WebNew/index.htm
Obviously you need a CD writer to burn the firmware file on a CD in order to upgrade the firmware, and don't forget to read the included text file before burning the firmware on CD. If you are not sure on how to make a data-CD with the firmware on it do not do it yourself, ask someone who understands CD formats to do it for you.
So far this little beauty played everything I threw at it. You can download mpg, mpg, avi asf, mp3, DivX files etc. or create your own and don't have to convert them to a DVD, or VCD or a SVCD, just copy the files as they are on a CD or DVD (preferably a re-writable one so you can have the option to erase the files you don't want later), and put the CD/DVD in the machine, it will open an Explorer-type window like a PC, and let you browse the files and play them. If you burn JPEG pictures on a CD or DVD it will automatically play them as slideshows. It has worked well with both UDF and ISO formated CDs/DVDs, no matter if they were CD-R/RW or DVD-R/RW or DVD+R/RW, it played them all. I ripped my camcorder footage on the hard drive of my PC creating AVI files and copied them on a DVD, which played perfectly on the Yamada. Before I got this player I had to convert all my camcorder footage to DVD or VCD in order to play them on my Sony DVD player(the Sony couldn't even play SVCDs, and it costed almost double the money of the Yamada). Now I just burn my camcorder AVI files on CDs or DVDs and can watch them on my TV without further encoding.
DVD playback quality is really good and I recommend for you to use the S-Video connection for better picture quality. A SCART cable is included in the package but I DON'T recommend for you to use it, it is not gold-plated and remember that a SCART connection on older or cheap TV sets will produce worse picture quality than S-Video. An S-Video to S-Video cable is not included, so you have to buy one, a gold-plated one for better results.
Overall, a great player at a great price. And upgradeable too by updating the firmware when new ones become available. Thumbs up to UMAX for creating this machine and making it availble at such a good price.