London move
 

Moving to London from Canada next month and wondering if there any setup issues with the 996 I should be aware of. Will I need a voltage adaptor or just a plug adaptor? Are there any settings I need to modify apart from switching to pal output? I will be ouputting to a standard, pal interlaced 4:3 set. I'm assuming I should modify my settings before I leave and that all my Region 1 discs will play properly.

Re: London move
 

You'll need a voltage adaptor.

If you switch to PAL output it should otherwise be fine, I'd guess.

Malata 520 or 996 Question
 

I have been building quite a collection of HK films on DVD. I currently have a Sony N700 DVD player, and a Toshiba 50HX81 set. When watching some non-anamorphic widescreen discs my main problem is that depending on which which stretch mode I use, I either have short squat people, or I can't read the subtitles as they are below the viewable area. Will the x,y scaling of say the Malata 520 fix this? Can anyone tell me how the scaling of the Malata works? I'd like the people to look normal but still read the subtitles. Any help much appreciated.

James

yes, the x-y scaling will fix this. But check your TV settings before you go spending near $300.

The Malatas have superior PAL-to-NTSC conversion than just about any other player out there (there's a JVC model that is supposedly as good). Picture geometry will be accurate, unlike most other region-free units.

Malata Firmware upgrades
 

How do we know, when Malata has another Firmware upgrade.
I do have the 996 model (nov 01 firmware) and am kind of frustrated that the Malata does not play DVD+RW's , which i recorded with my Philips 985 (which records in Pal or NTSC), so i was hoping that after a firmware upgrade, it could possibly play those disc's.

need help malata 996
 

My malata 996 died yesterday. It stopped playing and output a green screen that says mediamatics while the fron panel reads only hello. I rebooted the nov 1 2001 firmward and it worked for an hour and died again. Has anyone else experienced this? Thanks for help.

i know that this question may be redundant, but is there any way to adjust the PAL audio speedup from a R4 disc? i am watching BTTF and the voices are just kinda annoying me. thanks.

No, there's nothing that can be done about that.

I'm curious, thinking about delving into the world of Malata DVD players soon - What is the nature of the audio speedup problem that one gets on Region 4 discs? Does this problem mess with the audio playback of all discs, or is it just certain ones? Does it mess up region 2 Pal discs played back on an NTSC machine?

MALATA PDVD-N996 Progressive scan freezes player
 

Hi

I just got my PDVD-N996 from GoldenShop in HK, and everytime I watch any disc in progressive mode the player locks up after a few minutes of activity.

If I switch to interlaced, discs play fine.

I have upgraded to latest firmware.

Has anyone else experienced this? or is it time to return the player.

Many thanks

I bought the same player from the same store and haven't had any problems yet. I've had it for about 6 months. I would return it.

Pal is pal is pal when it comes to speedup, it matters not where you get a pal disc. However, having said that, I have not noticed the problem until the Back to the Future discs. Marty sounds like he is on helium all through the show.

Have you seen the movie in a while? Michael J Fox has a pretty squeaky voice.

PAL discs play back at a slightly faster frame rate than NTSC. This can cause a small shift to the pitch of the audio. It is rarely ever noticeable unless you are directly comparing the two formats, and in fact many PAL discs have their pitch lowered in the sound mix to compensate for this effect.

Thanks, Josh.

Josh,

Yep, Michael does have a squeaky voice, but for me it was just more squeaky than I recall. Maybe more like a mouse on helium? :lol:

Maybe they accidentally switched the soundtrack for the one from Stuart Little!

the first n996 that i got did the same thing, then it eventually stopped working and i had to send it back to canada where i bought it from. after malata canada held my player hostage for over a month, i told them to keep it. then i bought another on nbt.electronics.com no problems in the 8 months since then.

Looking through some of the latest questions/threads it struck me that the 520 now needs its own "one & only". So I've split off all the relevant posts I could find (probably missing a few) and merged them into one.

That leaves this latest and the five previous "one-and-onlys". Any pre-996 queries might also go in here.


Benedict

warning - Malatas are sensitive to static electricity!
 

I just about killed my Malata yesterday with two rather large static electricity shocks to the front panel (when hitting the eject button). The first shock fried the display and caused all of the segments to light up and the second shock killed the display and ALL front panel buttons (except the power button, of course). So as long as I don't lose my remote I guess I am ok but I would hate to have to find a replacement for this machine.

What caused the static electricity? You can fry all sorts of electronic gizmos with a few megavolt jolts. Twice? Better wear a grounding strap next time. Man that sucks though.

Static buildup in your carpets from dry air? By a humidifier, my man!

Malata 566?
 

I was just looking around for the cheapest place to get the Malata 520 and I found this Malata 566:

http://www.lfvw.com/malata566.html

Anybody know if there is any difference between this and the 520?

Re: Malata 566?
 

Wow, that's an ugly player.

They're using a cheaper prog-scan ESS chipset instead of Mediamatics, so the 566 is basically an overpriced Apex.

Stick with the 520.