The first DS multimedia player card, iPlayer unveiled its official site on 15, June. It drew more and more attention since it could play majority of video / audio format directly without conversion. Now gameyeeeah shares you a full review by Chinese videogame team.
US Official Site: http://www.dsiplayer.us
The appearance
Similar to what we expected, the card is just the same as ordinary slot-1 flashcard in outline, means that you need to add another TF card as a storage of media files. The card kit is in solid quality, but has a bump IC on the front and a screw at the 5 o’clock direction on the back.
The GUI
This time iPlayer models its style after Apple, you can experience demo at the official site. It’s quite
Video
Overall the practical performance of playing video is quite good. You can fast or back forward movie by pressing left or right botton or dragging the progress bar on the touch screen. A button to pause and B to quit, Y/X to turn up or down the volume. There are three displaying mode: original size, default and full screen, however, since
Various of videos in different format are tested in this review. At first round, all of the videos below 480P (progressive scan) work perfect with iplayer (including wmv, XviD, avi, asf, flv, mpg, 3gp, rmvb and mov). Then more videos in high progressive scan are lined up to the queue, and troubles knock the door. Here is the test result.
- Tales of Abyss, rmvb, 848×480, 500kbps: in fluency but color blocks occur sometimes during the play.
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- Dokidoki Majo Shinpan Plus trailer, wmv, 640×480, 1250kbps: lag, indeed.
- Zelda DS trailer, mp4, 640×352, 1666kbps: fail, in fact this format can’t be supported right now.
So the summary might be little upsetting: iPlayer works perfectly with nearly all kinds of avi and rmvb videos which is beneath 480P. However, it rubs through other video formats (like flv, mov) which contain high progressive scan level above 480P. That’s why the official always suggests 640×480 or lower as the best resolution of video. And one more problem to those Japanese anime fans, it’s really hard to see straight the subtitles in such a small screen (resolution 256×192), we mean, that’s a sight killer.
Audio
Well, this part the result turns to be perfect, we test lots of mp3, wma, ape, flac, wav, aac,
Homebrew
iPlayer doesn’t support any ROMs but only homebrew. You can simply choose the one you want in this section, it looks more like a document browser. We test more than 10 popular homebrews and all of them are in perfect condition. Soft reset hot key are also available (default setting is L+R+A+B+X+Y) to make a quick shift between different homebrews.
Files and System Settings
In these two parts, all useful features are listed. Including file browser, brightness, language, skin, back light homebrew settings. iPlayer also can autodetect the version of your DS system and offer the consistent option for your settings.
Summary
Although the resolution limitation produced on DS, the most significant importance of iPlayer is that you can enjoy a library of videos on original DS, DS Lite and DSi without format converting. And what we most expect is that there will be more formats and videos in higher HD can be worked with this great mediaplayer card soon when its official release. Well, the price is still an unknown question, why not pay close attention to gameyeeeah informing the latest news and reviews?
, the official website at US, release about news.
