I own both the Xbox and the Malata... yesterday I bought the DVD kit for the Xbox and popped in Ring (R0 PAL)... the conversion is actually slightly BETTER than the Malata's (on my screen - 36" Sony Trinitron). I don't know how well it handles Anamorphic DVDs, and it doesn't yet do region free stuff, but the PAL conversion to NTSC is outstanding. The Malata seems to have this weird effect to the conversion - maybe it's just on my setup, but the Malata's picture has some strange effects where the picture borders the "black bars". It's hard to describe, but... if you drew an invisible line down the center of the screen - on the top left side the picture seems to jump up and down every second or so by one pixel and the same with the bottom right side where the picture borders the "black bars". It's barely noticable, but it's something that doesn't happen with the Xbox's conversion. Also - I think the color saturation is slightly better with the Xbox's picture. Now Ring isn't the best transfer or anything, so I'd have to check with another disc of higher quality (and PAL) to say for sure. Soon they are coming out with a region free kit for the Xbox in Europe - I wonder if it'll work here in the states. That would be cool. I understand the Malata is a progressive scan player, but every time I set it to Progressive Scan the picture just becomes scrambled. Perhaps I'm trying the wrong DVDs or I just don't know what I'm doing... but given that the Progressive Scan feature doesn't seem to do anything, I'd be more than happy to use the Xbox as my region free player with PAL-NTSC conversion instead. If anyone hears anything about the region free DVD kit for Xbox - post the news here. I know this thread could go to the Video Game forum, but I think that this news in particular would be more appropriate for International DVD enthusiasts. Just a heads-up to anyone interested in getting a Malata or a Sampo or some other region free player (the Xbox also allows you to play some cool video games, so that's a bonus feature the Malata doesn't have. )

I don't have an Xbox but the progressive scan mode on the Malata does work. I have a Panasonic widescreen HDTV and I set my Malata 996 to progressive and DVDs look absolutely incredible. I have no problems like you describe so it's probably a set-up by set-up situation.

Hey Trigger a couple comments on your post. First the moving line on the left side of the screen will go away if you set the video filter to still instead of movie or smart mode. Second unless your tv is HD I don't think progressive scan does anything.

You are correct sir! If you don't have a progressive scan TV the progressive scan won't do anything for you. The progressive scan is stunning on the Malata so yes it does work...

Also you may want to check you X, Y scaling you may not have it all the way out to the edge. That kinda happened to me when I panned the picture over and there was more picture on one side than the other. Something to check anyway...

But the video filter is the first thing to check.

You're right - I don't have an HDTV and I thought of that just a minute ago and came back to correct myself (but as I see I've already been corrected) about the progressive scan thing. At the time I couldn't figure out why though. Anyway - I'll try the filter thing if you tell me how. It's not the X-Y scaling cuz I've messed around with that alot and it doesn't help with the shaking picture. It's barely noticeable (and I have a keen eye for things that aren't right) so I can live with it. Another problem I've had is with a couple discs from the R2 South Park in which motion is very choppy. Perhaps the filter thing will fix that as well. I'd like to find out.

Overall though - the X-Box has great potential to be the next best Region Free DVD player. Just have to play the waiting game for awhile until they come up with a way to make it region free. I'm glad you all have such good things to say about the Malata though since I thought maybe I bought the wrong thing... I guess it's all pretty much settings and the hardware I'm hooking it up to.

I'd also like to add a note on sound. I have the Hi-Def audio/video pack for the Xbox and with the optical audio cable, the sound is amazing. I am using coax with the Malata, so it's not a fair comparison - but the Xbox has much more vibrant sound than the Malata. I suppose if I were to try a DTS disc I might find that the Xbox doesn't do DTS, but maybe it does. I'll let you know unless someone already does.

To change the filter you need to go to the expert menu by pushing setup. Then go to Video and after that I think it list the video filter. Where you can select the settings STILL for most PAL except some like the Truffaut MK2 discs and In The Mood For Love French 2 disc which I think movie works better on. With those discs on STILL I get major combing. Quality wise I don't think the Malta is great for a standalone player, but for PAL discs it is great. On the Sothpark discs I think someone said that the filter setting should be Camera 1 or 2.

Hey also on sound it might not be set up right. I know out of the box I could not get Dolby Digital to work untill I turned the speaker settings to off instead of the speaker size.

This topic has just started on the HTF.

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...threadid=56926

I've been salivating at the idea of a region-free Xbox for a while now. Here's hoping somebody gets it right for our country!

Maybe I am reading this wrong but from the sound of it you think the XBOX is better because of the hidef audio pack? If you are using the same amp it is all in your mind because the malata coax out put (I assume you mean coax digital out for audio) is digital and the best that anything could theoretically do is equal the malata output (audio).

you'd think that, but it's not true. There's this thing called jitter...

I just tried watching Ring 0 on my Malata (Ring 0 says it's region 0, but it's region 2 so I couldn't play it on my Xbox) and the flicker was there - I tried switching the picture to still and the flicker was gone but there was alot of banding when there was movement on the screen. I switched it to smart and the flicker came back. Guess I just have a bad one or else my TV sucks or else I suck. Who knows...