My experience with Rowa versus ZensonicZ330

[komencanto]

These are two of the cheaper Mpeg4 players around, which you can get from strathfield to start. I bought the Rowa a while ago (several months) and at first it was OK. It would play most files, although it seemed to be pretty temperamental with many of the files that I downloaded, requiring reencoding and such. However, it got more and more irritating, sometimes just stopping in the middle of a file, not allowing fast-forward or rewind, sometimes playing files, sometimes not playing the same one, and then finally saying DVDs were scratched when they played fine in my computer and other DVD player. Also, the player was just a pain: the remote was dodgy, turning on and off required the remote and the buttons on the player were quite hard. No firmware ungrade so far either. Also, a DVD fell into the player from the CD drive one time, partly because of my own stupidity but yeah.... weird. I'm not sure if I got a dodgy machine or that's how they are and I'm willing to give the Rowa guys the benefit of the doubt, but my experience was not good.
In the end I got sick of it and took it back to Strathfield. They were willing to take it back, send it to the manufacturer and for a bit of money give me the Zensonic Z330. So far I've upgraded the firmware (nice to know they notice) and it's played everything I've thrown at it. It also has a nicer design and remote with nicely layed out menus. Hopefully it stays that way! At this point I would recommend going with the Zensonic rather than the Rowa, but other people may have different stories that I'd be interested to hear.
Cheers.

[davidf]

These are two of the cheaper Mpeg4 players around, which you can get from strathfield to start. I bought the Rowa a while ago (several months) and at first it was OK. It would play most files, although it seemed to be pretty temperamental with many of the files that I downloaded, requiring reencoding and such. However, it got more and more irritating, sometimes just stopping in the middle of a file, not allowing fast-forward or rewind, sometimes playing files, sometimes not playing the same one, and then finally saying DVDs were scratched when they played fine in my computer and other DVD player. Also, the player was just a pain: the remote was dodgy, turning on and off required the remote and the buttons on the player were quite hard. No firmware ungrade so far either. Also, a DVD fell into the player from the CD drive one time, partly because of my own stupidity but yeah.... weird. I'm not sure if I got a dodgy machine or that's how they are and I'm willing to give the Rowa guys the benefit of the doubt, but my experience was not good.
In the end I got sick of it and took it back to Strathfield. They were willing to take it back, send it to the manufacturer and for a bit of money give me the Zensonic Z330. So far I've upgraded the firmware (nice to know they notice) and it's played everything I've thrown at it. It also has a nicer design and remote with nicely layed out menus. Hopefully it stays that way! At this point I would recommend going with the Zensonic rather than the Rowa, but other people may have different stories that I'd be interested to hear.
Cheers.

I am currently on my 6th Mpeg 4 player and it is by far the best, LG8900, of all the units that half past thru these hands the XMS888(replaced once), Tevion 978 and the LG8900 are the only ones that work the same as when they came out of the box.

the xms558(2 units 2 deaths), the Rowa(wonderful until it lost the front panel) and then the zensonic 330 a reasonable unit that is still working but on a regular basis needs to be completely powered down as it seems to forget itself and locks up or refuses to eject discs or the display blanks out.

For price value at the moment nothing will touch the LG8900 which can easily be obtained for around $150.

[cafeman]

However, it got more and more irritating, sometimes just stopping in the middle of a file, not allowing fast-forward or rewind, sometimes playing files, sometimes not playing the same one, and then finally saying DVDs were scratched when they played fine in my computer and other DVD player.

Haven't had any problems with the vast majority of what I've been watching. It has a known problem with DivX 3 encoded movies where it loses audio sync, but other than that, it's played everything I've thrown at it. Just don't encode using DivX 3. The only exceptions are the same ones that affect all the players - 3 point GMC and the like.

Disc compatability is lacking, but I've personally been lucky so far. Plays Ritek discs just fine.

One of the nicer features of the Rowa in particular is that it offers a good variety of over and underscan options, which are especially nice if you're watching stuff with burned in subtitles. The LG couldn't display some of the stuff I watch because the overscan was too great - the bottoms of the subtitles got chopped.

Also, the player was just a pain: the remote was dodgy, turning on and off required the remote and the buttons on the player were quite hard. No firmware ungrade so far either.

No argument there. It's crying for a firmware upgrade to improve disc compatability and a few bugs, but they don't seem to be in a hurry to chase it up with the manufacturer. I doubt one will ever be released. More's the pity, as they've missed a good opportunity to be what could have been the best player on the market in the price range.

DivX 6 support is also very poor, and I doubt it'll ever support it properly. More's the pity.

[Gaia]

Does the Z330 play .mkv and .ogm files too?

And how does it handle files encoded in the H264 format?

Thanks...


In the end I got sick of it and took it back to Strathfield. They were willing to take it back, send it to the manufacturer and for a bit of money give me the Zensonic Z330. So far I've upgraded the firmware (nice to know they notice) and it's played everything I've thrown at it.