Page 1 of Mico A980 or Scan SC-2000?

Don`t get me wrong, I have been very happy with the Aiwa as a DVD/VCD/MP3 player.

However, I was hoping to use CD-Rs/RWs for creating home videos from mini DV source, and I`m finding the drop to VCD quality unacceptable for playback on the Aiwa. So the key missing feature in the Aiwa for me is SVCD/XVCD support.

Despite all the negative comments regarding the Scan and the Mico, they both seem pretty good machines with SVCD support (not sure about XVCD or even miniDVD). I like the Scan`s ability to take firmware updates via CD-R updates and the support from Nelly on these forums seems good. Does the Mico have this ability or would it require eeprom updates?

Any constructive comments from Mico (Carrot you there?) or Scan owners appreciated. BTW how do these machines handle MP3 files - is it similar to the Aiwa or better/worse, I`ve never seen any screenshots of the mp3 user interface for these machines. What about PAL/NTSC conversion?

TIA
Jez
P.S. My Aiwa`s only 2 months old - any bids?

Scan owner

vcd+svcd playback is very good and Mp3 playback is very good also.

Dont know about the Mico

Jezebabe: The MiCO is the perfect machine for non-standard home-brewed XVCD/SVCDs. However my first tests with X(S)VCDs (MPEG2) show bad jitter at DVD resolutions! 720x576 etc. They look like theyve lost half their frames.
XVCDs (MPEG1) look great! I can go up to 5000 kpps at DVD resolutions before the speed of my CDRWs and loader become factors.
This is twice the bitrate that most players can handle.
Infact, I`ve never heard of a player that goes beyound 3,500 kbps so The MiCO is the tops!
Perhaps with CDRs I may go much higher! I`ve also tried 10,000kbps and the MiCO damn well takes it!!!

To most people, MPEG1 is the same quality as MPEG2 but results in a 5-15% larger file (dependant on source). Standard SVCDs play well. I`ll be trying unstandard 640x480 XSVCD today as I here they look great. Will let you know tonight.

I cant get MiniDVD to work on the MiCO. And I`ve tried all authoring software except Scenarist NT. If you have a miniDV source you`d really want this! I doubt the SCAN can do this, but at least you have firmware updates, so hope is not lost.
http://www.vcdhelp.com has a VCD/XVCD/SVCD/MinDVD compatibility list. Check this out before you buy.

MiCO, have so far ignored my requests to get a firmware update.
They seem to think I`m an industrial spy!!! They have at least told me that CDR upgrading is the norm at MiCO.

MP3 bitrate range for the MiCO is superb and sounds great from 32-320Kbs and even down to 22,050Hz. The implementation in software is SH*T though. No filenames and no fast-forward/rewind or pause. Stop it and it`ll start again at the beginning of the track. You can move from album-to-album as well, which makes listening most acceptable.
It also read discs fast (20secs) and with recursive directories. Also, it`ll read filenames (long too) with ANY DOS character. (Just wont display them!)
I`m not surprised you havent seen screenshots for MP3 playback...

Here it is [MP3 logo] A 1/14 T 1/9 T 00:01:45 [Repeat Logo] [Play Mode]
A=Album (Directory) T=Track T=Current Time In Track.

That`s it. COL (Crying-Out-Loud)

NTSC-PAL Conversion is there. But I dont like the extra artifacts each conversion mode brings.
I have a multistandard TV which solves this problem. NTSC->NTSC Great. PAL->PAL Great.
Most annoying thing of all, there is no AUTO mode. Manually selecting NTSC/PAL output in the BIOS is a pain.

All these annoyances could be put right with a decent firmware upgrade! I`m still waiting....
Perhaps the new `S` model has these fixed. Or maybe the 990 which is due to be shipped here soon.

And before you ask. NO I DONT WANT A SWAP :-) But perhaps ask Briley!

I`ll upload the manual and a the MP3 screenshot by tonight. Take a butchers.

Carrot

Thanks Carrot, I can always count on you for an in-depth response!

Would be interested in the manual & screenshots - thanks again.

I noticed at VCDHelper that the Mico has question marks against
DVD-R, miniDVD and XVCD - they obviously need to update their info regarding XVCD.

X(S)VCD looks interesting but I guess I could live with SVCD/XVCD ;-)
Does anyone know if the Scan can do X(S)VCD?

Cheers
Jez

The Scan can at least do XVCD because it can plays VCD that have non-standard bitrates (1150Kbits video + 224Kbits audio).
I can play without problems a VCD encoded at 1000 + 192 Kbits (I did that to fit a 1h27 show on a 80min CD-R). It plays as well a VCD encoded at 1690 + 224 Kbits without any glitches.

So absolutely no problems for that, but I didn`t go as far as Carrot concerning this aspect.....


Mp3-wise it plays any bitrate, in any form (Constant and variable bit rates). The quality is excellent, I checked with my headphones several times on a lot of examples). The firmware 2.04 and above corrects the sound glitches that I detected in the 1.93 version. So now this is perfect.
Long filenames are coming soon. The display is fine, with a sort of explorer displaying your directories and with which you can browse your CD. It is very quick to recognize the CD by the way.

The Scan mp3 mode has 2 main displays. One is the directory display which shows the CD directories with 8 character names. When you select a directory OR if there are no directories then you get the mp3 track display. Currently this shows 8 character filenames but according to Nelly at Scan, this will include long filenames. However, there will probably be some truncation of names (say 32) because you don`t have much display space. The mp3 track list shows 2 columns of tracks, each with 5 tracks in each column together with a 3 digit track number. You can select any track by its track number using the remote, press Play to start playing the first track, then the second, etc. or use the Shuffle mode which is a pseudo shuffle. You can also use Repeat 1 or Repeat All tracks. When a track is playing, the mp3 ID tag is scrolled across the bottom of the screen showing Artist, Album and Track Title.

In my experience the Scan copes really well with different types of mp3 and I would say that if Winamp can play the track, then the Scan will also play it. It will tolerate non mp3 files on the CD as well which can be useful.

This item was edited on Thursday, 1st February 2001, 12:27

The Scan mp3 reading is also fast. I tried a 128 track, single directory CD-RW and it read the tracks 7.5 secs after closing the door.

Thanks for the info on the SC2000.

Is there a manual available online? I have scoured the Scan webpage but can only find the advertising page for it.

So, as far as mp3 goes, the Scan seems to have the edge over the Mico at least as far as user interface goes. I quite like the Aiwa "browser" and the Sc2000 sounds similar.

Also, according to VCDHelper the Scan is also able to play XVCD/SVCD.
If it can do X(S)VCD and/or miniDVD that would be a clincher.
Can anyone try it? Nelly?

Cheers
Jez

To: ppravier

Thanks for the info, I wonder have you tried the XVCD images at VCDHelper

http://www.commcenter.de/vcdhelp/xvcd-2500kbit-352x240.zip
or
http://www.commcenter.de/vcdhelp/XVCD-NTSC(3.500kb).zip ?


Ta
Jez

I have tried the second file you have above. I converted to mpeg using VCDGear and used WinOnCD 3.8PE to burn a "SVCD Extended" CD-RW.

It played on my PC perfectly using WM7 and the DVD Emulator that comes with WinOnCD. However, it behaved strangely when the default mpeg player RealPlayer8Plus played it. The sound was broken up, e.g. played about 0.2 secs or sound then missed the next 0.2 secs of sound.

So I tried it on the Scan (v208) and the picture played perfectly in full screen but the sound was the same as when I played it on my PC. The file example above is NTSC so this may have had something to do with it. My Scan is set to PAL. I changed it to NTSC and the effect was the same except the TV picture was in B&W. (I think this is a TV thing).

If I get some more time I will investigate further and let you know.