Does anyone here own a Raite DVD/VCD/S-VCD/MP3 AVPHILE player?

What is the quality of DVD play as compared to say a Pioneer DV-525 or other DVD players? Also.. what is the difference between the AVPHILE 715,714, 713.. etc... are the higher number or lower numbers the ones with better features?

I am trying to decide between getting a Raite AvPHILE, or a Pioneer DV-525, or the Apex 600.

I am leaning towards the Pioneer, but it can only play high bitrate VCDs up to 2500 total bitrate, where as I hear the AVPHILE will play a high bitrate VCD all the way up to 8000! From what I have heard so far, a mpeg1 at a bitrate of 3500 at resolution of 704 x 480 ntsc will give you a near perfect clone of the original and about 25 minutes to a half hour of time on a cd-r. I have only heard this from one person though and have not been able to find a store that carries the Raite to try it out.

What about the Apex? Has anyone tried that machine and pushing the limits on it?

I want to be able to play high bitrate VCDs.. but I also want very good quality DVD play, and I heard the raite may be pretty shoddy when it comes to DVD picture quality, with artifacts and such.

Any respones from those of you who own one are appreciated.

- Michael

-- Blackout (blackout@blackout.com), April 01, 2000

Answers

I have both the Raite AV Phile 715 and the Pioneer DV-525. I decided not to look at the Apex 600 because it overheats and doesn't support long file names for MP3s.

If youre really into VCDs I would suggest the Raite AV Phile 715. The Pioneer just wasn't made with VCDs in mind. The fast-forward on the Pioneer is clunky and once you press play after fast forward you loose the audio. You then have to stop and resume play to get audio back. Quite annoying. The only bad thing I have to say about the Raite, it that it doesn't seem to have a stop/resume feature, or at least, I wasn't able to find it. Also, if youre going to use the Raite with digital audio you have to select SPDIF from the setup screen manually. Not a big deal, but I will piss you off if you hook up your system and don't get sound right away. RTFM on that one.

The picture quality seems plenty good. I can't comment seriously about the picture quality because I haven't done any A/B testing with the two units and I don't have two identical TVs to do a side-by-side comparison.

My primary DVD transport is a Toshiba 2108 and the TV is calibrated to that DVD player. I use the Raite for VCD playback only.

I suggest you go to Frys and buy both on a credit card. Test them out, see which one you like best. Then return the one you like least. You may have different needs. Most peoples opinion on picture quality is poor because they don't even calibrate their TV/Monitor or have a low end TV/Monitor. When you get a DVD player make sure to pick up a copy of Video Essentials to calibrate your TV with it.

That's my $0.02 for the day. Let me know if you have any more questions on what I wrote or the Raite 715 or Pioneer 525.

Take care,

-- Michael S. Gilmore (mgilmore@san.rr.com), April 01, 2000.

what is the highest bitrate vcd your RAITE will play?

-- ndumu (ndumu@hotmail.com), April 02, 2000.

TO MIKE Gilmore, hey Mike if your losing the audio after fast forwarding then have to hit the stop/resume to get the audio back your encoding/or burning is the problem. I make highrates all the time and use the NTI to burn them, the fast forward goes smooth and i do not loose the audio when i stop fast forwarding, it plays fine.

to MIKE BLACKOUT: get the apex ONLY as a backup player. the pioneer and raite are far better. the Pioneer will play up to a bitrate of 2500 as will the apex. Note the following info regards a 74min cd: At 3000bit rate your looking at less the 25mins per cd. So if your doing stuff at 3500 you might be looking at 20-22mins per cd, which to me isnt really worth it. a 2500 vcd can yeild from 32-close to 34mins per cd. So if you encode sopmething at 8000 you might be looking at less then 6mins. I like the fact that it can read bits that high, but unless they start making cd burners which can encode similar/if not as a dvd (affordable anyway)i will stick with the 2500 bit rate, the pic still looks damn nice and very close to your original

-- Doug (mazinz@aol.com), April 02, 2000.

How is the picture quality of the Raite on DVDs though? I have heard it has a lot of blocky artifacts in dark scenes, is this true? Would the quality of the Pioneer 525 be better for DVDs and just use the raite as a vcd player, or can the Raite hold it's own against the Pioneer?

Also.. the reason I need the high bitrate is to get full interlaced video mpeg1 working. Have you tried this? As I said it works on the Pioneer but sometimes it plays the wrong field first and you get jerky motion. How does the Raite handle a 704 x 480 mpeg1 taken from full 60 field interlaced video?

The reason I want this to work s that many times I have to produce a looping video for a client, and this would be the perfect solution if it works. The Raite players are around $200 bucks and at a 3500 bitrate, you would pretty much get DVD quality.. if only about 25 minutes of it. Plenty enough to play a looping video, or a film short.

PS: Where is a good place to buy the raite at a low price? I heard Fry's but I don't see them anywhere on the web. What's their phone number and are they reliable and do they have a return policy?

- Michael

-- Blackout (blackout@blackout.com), April 02, 2000.

hey Mike,

unfortunetly i cannot help you on the playback of dvds on the raite. I just own the pioneer and apex. I also could not help you much with the interlaced field problem you have (i remember reading about that in an older post of yours), as i capture in mpeg to start with since i own the dazzle(although i have had to convert to avi then back to mpeg on some occasions). I could swear someone once said something about the raite being at circuit city??? But do not hold me to that last xomment though.

-- Doug (mazinz@aol.com), April 03, 2000.

Doug, I guess I should do some more experimenting with the Pioneer. Currently I've been using Adaptec EZ CD 3.0 and 4.0 to master and burn my VCDs. I'd like to try NTI. Where can I get a copy? Also, the difference could be a firmware difference or such. Again I'll look into it.

For VCDs though, I would prefer a Chinese product over a Japanese. The Chinese are truly concerned about playing VCDs, not just having it as another feature to print on the box.

Also, Ive noticed that some older software VCD players wont play the VCDs I make with Adaptec 4.0, so Ive gone back to using 3.0 exclusively. Just so when I trade VCDs theyre more universal. Just a tip.

Doug if you could send me a version of NTI, let me know. Id be interested in trying it out.

Also, why would you have to convert to avi then back to mpeg on some occasions.

Blackout, the Raite will also play MP3s and SVCD if you interested in that kind of thing.

-- Michael S. Gilmore (mgilmore@san.rr.com), April 03, 2000.

Can anyone who owns / has access to a RAITE answer this - What is the maximum bitrate vcd it can play?

-- ndumu (ndumu@hotmail.com), April 04, 2000.

to Mike Gilmore

the nti site has a trial version you can try out: http://www.ntius.com/

the reason for mpeg then avi then to mpeg, well the whole response to that is in my post "if you ever had a sync problem with the dazzle, read this"(by the way the post is still up). To make a long story short although before most people blaim the dazzle, it is NOT the dazzles fault. What happens sometimes only to CERTAIN tapes is after i convert with the panasonic, the vid.audio sync goes out. And after countless testing its not the dazzle, the same problem happens to the the same movies over and over so its defiently something with the tape. So to fix this, the virutal dub program offers the solution (see post i made) and thus a conversion to avi is done. it still looks good after final mpeg encoding as my avis are done at full 100%

-- Doug (mazinz@aol.com), April 04, 2000.