London move
 

Moving to London from Canada next month and wondering if there any setup issues with the 996 I should be aware of. Will I need a voltage adaptor or just a plug adaptor? Are there any settings I need to modify apart from switching to pal output? I will be ouputting to a standard, pal interlaced 4:3 set. I'm assuming I should modify my settings before I leave and that all my Region 1 discs will play properly.

Re: London move
 

You'll need a voltage adaptor.

If you switch to PAL output it should otherwise be fine, I'd guess.

Malata 520 or 996 Question
 

I have been building quite a collection of HK films on DVD. I currently have a Sony N700 DVD player, and a Toshiba 50HX81 set. When watching some non-anamorphic widescreen discs my main problem is that depending on which which stretch mode I use, I either have short squat people, or I can't read the subtitles as they are below the viewable area. Will the x,y scaling of say the Malata 520 fix this? Can anyone tell me how the scaling of the Malata works? I'd like the people to look normal but still read the subtitles. Any help much appreciated.

James

yes, the x-y scaling will fix this. But check your TV settings before you go spending near $300.

The Malatas have superior PAL-to-NTSC conversion than just about any other player out there (there's a JVC model that is supposedly as good). Picture geometry will be accurate, unlike most other region-free units.

Malata Firmware upgrades
 

How do we know, when Malata has another Firmware upgrade.
I do have the 996 model (nov 01 firmware) and am kind of frustrated that the Malata does not play DVD+RW's , which i recorded with my Philips 985 (which records in Pal or NTSC), so i was hoping that after a firmware upgrade, it could possibly play those disc's.

need help malata 996
 

My malata 996 died yesterday. It stopped playing and output a green screen that says mediamatics while the fron panel reads only hello. I rebooted the nov 1 2001 firmward and it worked for an hour and died again. Has anyone else experienced this? Thanks for help.

i know that this question may be redundant, but is there any way to adjust the PAL audio speedup from a R4 disc? i am watching BTTF and the voices are just kinda annoying me. thanks.

No, there's nothing that can be done about that.

I'm curious, thinking about delving into the world of Malata DVD players soon - What is the nature of the audio speedup problem that one gets on Region 4 discs? Does this problem mess with the audio playback of all discs, or is it just certain ones? Does it mess up region 2 Pal discs played back on an NTSC machine?

MALATA PDVD-N996 Progressive scan freezes player
 

Hi

I just got my PDVD-N996 from GoldenShop in HK, and everytime I watch any disc in progressive mode the player locks up after a few minutes of activity.

If I switch to interlaced, discs play fine.

I have upgraded to latest firmware.

Has anyone else experienced this? or is it time to return the player.

Many thanks

I bought the same player from the same store and haven't had any problems yet. I've had it for about 6 months. I would return it.

Pal is pal is pal when it comes to speedup, it matters not where you get a pal disc. However, having said that, I have not noticed the problem until the Back to the Future discs. Marty sounds like he is on helium all through the show.

Have you seen the movie in a while? Michael J Fox has a pretty squeaky voice.

PAL discs play back at a slightly faster frame rate than NTSC. This can cause a small shift to the pitch of the audio. It is rarely ever noticeable unless you are directly comparing the two formats, and in fact many PAL discs have their pitch lowered in the sound mix to compensate for this effect.

Thanks, Josh.

Josh,

Yep, Michael does have a squeaky voice, but for me it was just more squeaky than I recall. Maybe more like a mouse on helium? :lol:

Maybe they accidentally switched the soundtrack for the one from Stuart Little!

the first n996 that i got did the same thing, then it eventually stopped working and i had to send it back to canada where i bought it from. after malata canada held my player hostage for over a month, i told them to keep it. then i bought another on nbt.electronics.com no problems in the 8 months since then.

Looking through some of the latest questions/threads it struck me that the 520 now needs its own "one & only". So I've split off all the relevant posts I could find (probably missing a few) and merged them into one.

That leaves this latest and the five previous "one-and-onlys". Any pre-996 queries might also go in here.


Benedict

warning - Malatas are sensitive to static electricity!
 

I just about killed my Malata yesterday with two rather large static electricity shocks to the front panel (when hitting the eject button). The first shock fried the display and caused all of the segments to light up and the second shock killed the display and ALL front panel buttons (except the power button, of course). So as long as I don't lose my remote I guess I am ok but I would hate to have to find a replacement for this machine.

What caused the static electricity? You can fry all sorts of electronic gizmos with a few megavolt jolts. Twice? Better wear a grounding strap next time. Man that sucks though.

Static buildup in your carpets from dry air? By a humidifier, my man!

Malata 566?
 

I was just looking around for the cheapest place to get the Malata 520 and I found this Malata 566:

http://www.lfvw.com/malata566.html

Anybody know if there is any difference between this and the 520?

Re: Malata 566?
 

Wow, that's an ugly player.

They're using a cheaper prog-scan ESS chipset instead of Mediamatics, so the 566 is basically an overpriced Apex.

Stick with the 520.

I've got the 996 from November 2001. It's started to experience DTS dropouts. :(

Would the firmware upgrade (available at hkflix.com) fix this problem? Does this file work for all Malata models? If I perform this upgrade, is there anything I should be aware about beforehand? Thanks!

Unless your player has the switch in the back, you will have to pay someone to do the upgrade for you. It does fix DTS dropouts.

Looks like all I have are audio/video ports. :( Any idea who will do the upgrade and what the cost is?

Is this likely to happen again in the future? The reason I ask is, since I don't have any non-region 1 DTS discs, I'm just trying to justify the cost of the upgrade.

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? :)

The front panel on my Malata 996 is dead. I no longer see anything on the display, and none of the buttons work. The remote, however, functions properly.

Does anyone have any suggestions how to fix this? Or does anyone have any diagrams of the inside--i think something got fried due to static electricity.

Thanks,
-Kyle

Yep, same thing happened to me. I touched it one day and sent a huge arc from my finger to the unit and now I have the exact same problem. I would imagine that getting it fixed will cost more than it is worth but if you find out differently please do let us know.

I just use the remote now (but it is a royal pain in the butt to do that).

Wish I could just order a new front panel for the N996 somewhere and install it myself.

Anyone have an old, broken one they don't need anymore? :)

-Kyle

I'm experiencing the same problems as some others on this thread I think. My N996 plays interlaced fine, but resets when playing progressive - is this a firmware issue? or something hardware related? Any help appreciated. Thanks.

I was playing a R4 PAL disc, and at some point, the onscreen display stopped working (the one that says "Pause" when you hit pause, or the display options (bitrate and such) when you hit display). I stuck in a R1 disc to see if it would trigger something, but nothing changed. I've got one of the old 996's without the ability to update firmware. This is the first (and only) problem I've ever had with this player. Help!

After testing some discs this weekend, the problem seems related to playing PAL discs progressively - is it possible I have a setting wrong? Any help appreciated. Thanks.

Malata remote
 

>>The front panel on my Malata 996 is dead. I no longer see anything on the display, and none of the buttons work. The remote, however, functions properly.

Ironically, after about two weeks of use, the remote for my Malata 3600 seems to be dead though the player is fine. Maybe we should move in together.

Have others had trouble with the Malata remotes? I'm not talking about its lousy layout, but about having to push 20-30 times to get anything to happen. Yes, I replaced the batteries, but it didn't make a difference. This just developed while I was watching stuff tonight. Huge pain in the butt.

Do I just have a defective one?

Filmgeek,

I just switched to the JVC 602 (courtesy HKFlix) and I have to say, going from the Malata remote to the JVC remote is like going from Hell to Heaven. (In other words, yes I know exactly what you mean - had the same problem).

Re: Malata remote
 

I had the same problem with my 996 remote. So I did a little research and bought a Sony RMVL900 learning remote. It will learn every button on the Malata remote. I even programmed it to learn 7 other components. You can't beat it for the price. It functions like some learning remotes costing 3 times as much.


http://www.etronics.com/product.asp?...00&SVBName=293

Replacement Malata Remote?
 

The wonderful high-quality remote that came with my Malata N595 was dropped by a sibling and shattered into a zillion pieces. Which begs the question, where can I get a new one? I went to Malata Canada, but their Accessories page won't load for some reason. Any other outlets or suggestions? Also, how much can I expect to pay for a piece of junk like a Malata remote?

Re: Replacement Malata Remote?
 

<b>bcelmins</b>, you don't seem to have much luck with those <A HREF="http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=202850" target="_blank">malata remotes</a>! As well as the info in this now-merged thread, you can also follow <A HREF="http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=149323" target="_blank">Hannibal's link</a> in your thread of last year.