I never had my set calibrated, but my Malata had this problem. I have had 5 different DVD players hooked up to this TV and the Malata was the only one with this problem.

I just received my new Jaton player yesterday, (I finally got sick of my Cyberhome) and I had a couple of questions:

1.) Is there a way for the front display to show total elapsed time instead of elapsed time for each chapter? The display button on the remote only seems to change between chapter time and chapter number.

2.)The subtitle function on the remote seems very clunky. I can't seem to smoothly change subtitles on the fly. I assumed just pressing the button cycled through the tracks, but it seems to stop when you get to the final choice and I can't figure out how to revert back to "no subtitles"

just a note on the subtitle delay - there does seem to be a slight subtitle delay when zoom functions are enabled, but it was hardly noticeable to me. In other words, it didn't detract from my enjoyment of the movie.

Trigger - just so we're on the same page - you're talking about black levels here, yes?

Yup - black levels... and I don't think it's my TV - I have different modes on my tv that I use. Vivid, which makes everything really bright and I use that for regular tv watching. Standard, which makes things a bit dimmer. Movie, which makes it look like a film being projected and I use that half the time for DVDs if they are mastered properly. Pro, which is like Movie, but it just boosts the colors a bit so its warmer than Movie and I use this for the rest of my DVDs. I asked the guy from Ultimate Electronics who delivered it to calibrate it and he said my set didn't need it although he did adjust a few settings when it got here and it seemed like he knew what he was doing.

Anyway - on everything I watch on that tv, the blacks look black, but with the Malata the blacks look washed out and when I've played with the settings on the Malata to darken it up, it kinda darkened everything else and still didn't look great. The Jaton looks good out of the box like my Toshiba did and my Sony does and my Xbox does and my Samsung did and my previous Sony did. I'm sure there's some settings to make the Malata look right, but if I don't have to mess with them, then all the better.

Okay, I've received a reply from George Cheng at Jaton and unfortunately there won't be a fix for the subtitle delay problem. Apparently, the Mediamatics chip that is used in the Jaton has been discontinued for a while, and the engineers at Jaton have a hard time getting support from National Semiconductor (who make the Mediamatics chip), so they're not able to fix it.

I'm probably going to return the player. I bought it especially to play foreign PAL DVD's and for its zoom out capabilities. I may get a Malata 520 instead.

George did mention in his email that they are indeed working on a new model, so I'll try to see if I can get more info from him. If it seems interesting enough, I might just wait a bit until it comes out.

One more thing. Does anyone use the Jaton (or another Mediamatics-based player) on an interlaced tv set? I had heard that the PAL-to-NTSC conversion wouldn't look as good as in progressive, but I'm wondering if it might not be the case with NTSC titles as well. I played an episode from my region 1 8th season X-Files box set yesterday, and there was a lot of apparent digital artifacts, shimmering and such. Anyone else notice this? I don't have my other DVD player right now (Toshiba, under repair), so I can't test to see if it's the Jaton or bad compression on the X-Files DVD itself.

Thanks.

nadeama, as I recall, the Mediamatics chip in the Malata etc is meant to perform better on progressive sets, not worse!

However, i do recall that when I went from a 4:3 interlaced display to a 16:9 progressive one, I did start to notice combing on my R1 Buffy sets. That had never been an issue when I was interlaced.

I decided to go with widescreen R2 for later Buffy sets. On my Malata 996, the PAL R2 gave a rock solid image, but I had shimmering on the R1! Go figure. Apparently there are issues with TV sets wrongly flagged as film instead of video, etc. These flaws become more apparent when you enter the progressive world. There are others out there who I'm sure can provide a more detailed explanation than myself.

Hi Bleddyn,

Yes, that's what I meant. I have an interlaced tv set and there's a lot of "shimmering" effects, especially on PAL titles, but also a bit too much on NTSC ones. I suppose I would really need a progressive tv set in order to truly enjoy the Mediamatics-based players.

I guess I'll be looking for another player that has better interlace output, even though this means no infinite zoom and x/y scaling. I've just created a new topic about this, I'll see if I get some good suggestions.

New Jaton player
 

For those who are interested, I got a message from George Cheng today and the upcoming Jaton DVD player will use a different chipset than the PSD7611K and will be much cheaper. I asked if it would still do Pal-NTSC conversion but he didn't answer (I think he simply forgot). He must be annoyed with all my emails by now, so I won't insist.

They expect to ship around May.

Trigger - It's a few months later and I was curious how the Jaton is holding up. The Good? The Bad? Any feedback would be great since I'm still deciding on a future upgrade for my Daewoo 5700, and Jaton is currently on the top of the list. Thanks!

Wasn't the Jaton supposed to have something that slowed PAL movies down? or pitch corrected the discs? Just curious...

I've been using the Jaton as my main player even though it's sitting on top of my Sony 5 Disc player. I like it alot except for the subtitle problem I mentioned. I simply don't use the zoom out on DVDs with subtitles. It's a really solid player though and I feel like it's gonna last for quite awhile. I haven't found anything that'll correct the pal speedup thing, but I'll look.

I've had a few DTS dropouts here and there, but not nearly as bad as the Malata. I'm thinking it's just me and I'm doomed to have DTS dropouts. I've never owned a DVD player that didn't give me dts drops and I've tried 3 different receivers.

Since I'm selling my Malata DAV-3600 to a friend (in the meantime, I've upgraded to an A/V receiver and 5.1 speakers), I've been in the market for an all-region replacement. I use an InFocus X1 front projector (which will accept and output a PAL signal), so the PAL-to-NTSC conversion wasn't a prime focus (nor was the x-y scaling feature), but I like having a player that will do both (just in case the X1 goes on the fritz and I have to slum it with my CRT).

Thanks to this thread (& others), I placed my order for the Jaton today with HKFlix ($199.95 delivered thru DVDTalk special offer).

Sounds like all-region players with the Mediamatics chipset are a dying breed. I had good luck with my Malata, so I'm hopeful about the Jaton.

Gee, my cheesey little Philips 727 sounds better and better every time I read one of these threads. I'm so happy I picked up 2 of these gems! :banana:

Anyone heard about the new Jaton that was mentioned earlier in this thread?

I am looking to buy a player and my needs are this: I will be moving to the UK in August and want a player that will be equally solid in outputting NTSC to Pal tv's - since i'll be taking my collection with me.

Also, anyone know of a DVDtalk style site for the UK?

If not, I may have to start one!

Thanks. Eric

More questions:
where to buy any of these (outside of hkflix, although nothing wrong with them).

The Momitsu - any reviews?

www.thedvdforums.com = UK version of DVDTalk.

I think the Jaton is still available here: http://www.togopc.com/Samples/Advanc...chfield=itemid

It's discontinued, so it'll become harder and harder to find. Haven't heard of a new version. HKFlix has a new brand of player that looks interesting - They also have a Sony 5 disc changer that would be good for PAL and NTSC output (won't convert, but if you have a UK tv that will show both, you don't need the conversion)

Trigger - Thanks for the tip on dvdforums.com - exactly what I was hoping for in my transition! I'll have no friends in the UK, but I'll be able to sit in front of my computer and be a dvd nerd!

I'm still up in the air about the Jaton. Indecision.

Thanks, Eric