The good: Affordable universal DVD/Audio player; ultra-low-profile design; plays DivX files; reads MP3 files from DVDs; excellent overall disc compatibility. It has many uniques features which are not there in other DVD players in the market. Responsive customer service.

The bad: The fast forward speed is only 8X for DVD. The Fast Forward to DivX is 16X.

The bottom line: This is a DVD-Audio player which supports many media & formats and at an affordable cost. However, many features offered are not currently talked about in the market.

Review date: 10/28/05

Introduction:

Not long ago, the DVD players were very out of reach of most average person due to high price factor. Once the players manufactured in Pacific Rim countries started to come to the market, price dropped. Now one can get a versatile Media players that can handle wide variety of formats DVD/VCD/SVCD/DivX/mp3 …etc. All these capabilities are bundled in DXP-1000 at a very affordable cost.

Design of Avayon DXP-1000

The silver Avayon DXP stands just under 2" tall and measues less than 10" deep, and 17” wide, can fit in even the most cramped home theaters. Considering the player's small dimensions, its display is very legible. As soon as you load a disc, the DXP-1000 automatically identifies its type--CD, SACD, DVD-Video, or DVD-Audio--on the player's display and on your TV.

Moving around the on-screen setup menus is a straightforward process, and it will be worth your while to familiarize yourself with settings so you can best use of this versatile player. However the default settings work fine to start with. The small, dark gray plastic remote gives the usual array of large, well-labeled buttons.

Features of Avayon DXP-1000

DXP-100 supports almost any available media you might want to play. It supports media type: CD, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW and plays file formats: DVD, VCD SVCD, MP3, WMA 7/8/9, MPEG4, XViD, Divx 3.0/4.0/5.0, JPEG.

It supports different subtitles files .srt, .sub and .smi format. In Audio connections, it supports all possibilities like output channels 2.0/5.1, DTS, Dolby Digital. It supports Karaoke with 2 microphone sockets.

Video connections are S-Video, Composite Video and Component Video.

It supports progressive scan on NTSC and PAL to take advantage of expensive plasma TV’s you may have or may buy in future.

With standards of DivX yet to be finalized and changing from time to time, like any other Divx capable player, this player is also like computer can be updated with improved firmware. But currently available DXP-1000 players are up to date with latest firmware and one doesn’t need to update if before starting to use it. You should check from time to time www.avayon.com and download latest firmware and update the player as and when needed.

Avayon DXP-1000 is not a region free DVD player. The unit you buy here is set for region 1. However if you google this unit you will get a procedure to make it region free. You just need to google for its codes to be applied on the remote control. No DVD player manufacturer can sell DVD players region free out of the box as they are prohibited from doing so to avoid DVDs of one region from playing in another region. Same applies to DVD playback software or DVD ROM Drives, but this strategy has failed as once you buy any of these products, it can be made region free and any DVD you buy anywhere in world, you can play it.

Check out the product sheet from Avayon in pdf format click here

Experience with Avayon DXP-1000

Following are my personal experiences with this player. I have been using this unit for last 4 months (roughly played about 80 DVD/DivX/mp3 CDs/JPEG CDs. These comments are in comparison, with two other appliances similar to this one Panasonic DMR-E50 and Daewoo DVD Player DVG-3000N.

I have found DXP-1000 to be far superior in performance compared to other two players that I own. The picture quality is superior and the audio is simply marvelous.

Since I am authoring DVDs, sometimes the written DVDs may not play on the other two players and more often than not, they did play on DXP-1000. This device seems forgiving to some of the flaws of the media/writer almost like the DVD player on a PC.

With all the comparative checks with other two players, DXP-1000 performed superbly. For a $70 player, it's a stunner.

In terms of compatibility, the DXP-1000 is the best amongst all that I have tested. It plays almost every piece of recordable media. It handles MP3 files from recordable DVD discs--that's 4.7GB of MP3s if you're counting--as well as a range of DivX files from both recordable CD and DVD. Overall, progressive-scan video playback was very good.

Where to Buy

1) B&H ($69.95)
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?A=details&Q=&is=REG&O=productlist&sku=340190
2) Amazon(79.99)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002X6GX0/104-8745346-1631955?v=glance&n=172282&v=glance
3) DivX Hardware (79.99)
http://www.divx.com/hardware/detail.php?p=20
4) JandR($74.88):
http://www.jr.com/JRProductPage.process?Product=3995425

About the company

Avayon Technologies, Inc. is a very recent entry in entertainment device world. This Nashua, New Hampshire, USA based company is recently formed by ex-executives of Computer companies who realized that future is not in PC boxes but in entertainment boxes which have some of PC functionality and can be used in living room. Presently, DXP-1000 competes in North American market directly with many units which offer similar features. Many products sells at same price range and have similar offerings at first glance, but as you use the product, uniqueness emerges. Unlike any other similar products, Avayon has yet to become available in rest of world. The company is still working on having distribution tie-ups with importers around world.