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Datel Max Media Player + 4GB HDD Review

Bkid was kind enough to post a review in the forums! With his permission, I have added it to the hardware review section.. Check it out!

 

I preordered it about 5 days before it came out WITH next day shipping, so I literally got it ASAP. What's an extra $16 next day shipping cost?

Well, well, well..Where do I begin?

Let's start with the pictures:
(The pictures were rather large, so I just linked them for the 56krs)

(Click images for a larger view)


The first picture right out the big brown box. Look how pretty it is.. =o


Everything taken out of the box, and my DS just sittin there lookin all anxious.


Comparing it to the size of the DS. Even though it looks big, it's actually quite small.


Picture of it in the DS. See, told you it was small. =P

Now the review:

When inserting both the DS card and the HDD, I noticed that neither was that tight of a fit. Lucky for me, huh? Also, the HDD isn't EXTREMELY HUGE AND BULKY like many sites I've seen have said. It's actually quite small in my opinion...

When I first turned it on, it showed the nintendo ds logo then immediatly when to the browser screen, seeing as how both slots where filled with a DS card and the drive. it looked like a normal browser. A few folder icons here and there, with some files in a few of them. A "shell" file, which I just HAD to look into, turned up some interesting files. A "Games" folder then caught my attention, and I double tapped to open it, revealing a "Readme.txt" which I, for some reason, could not click on.

I then backed out of that folder and entered another folder called "MoonShell", which I had no idea what it was. Turns out it's the program that you use to pretty much read every file. I don't think you HAVE to use MoonShell, I'm sure there's other types of the same program on the internet, but that's what it came with. I then opened the moonshell.nds (.nds files...is homebrew coming?). It then showed me a list of folders at the top, and a clock, information box, and a help/controls box. I started looking through the files, opening a few of them just to see what they did. Most of the files were .txt, so I decided to do a little reading. I went back to the Readme.txt file in Games, just to see what it was. turns out it read:

http://www.ndshb.com/
http://nintendo-ds.dcemu.co.uk/

OH MY GOD IT SUPPORTS HOMEBREW!

After messing around a bit with MoonShell I decided to back out. But what's this? You can't quit out of MoonShell, or so I haven't figured out yet. So I just turned off my DS.

I then took out the link cable, which was of fair length, and made the appropriate hookups to my usb port and the HDD's port. As I read in the instruction booklet, XP reads it as just plain mass media storage. NO LAME/COMPLICATED programs needed to transfer files. Well I decided to put a few files on my DS, just to see how it would turn out. I took a handful of the Lawn Wakes along with To Cure a Weakling Child and threw them in the Audio File. I then took out the link cable and turned on the DS to check out the files. They played alright in MoonShell, though I did hear some crackle/skipping at times. I then turned back to the instruction booklet toward the FAQ. It told me that the specifications for the codec may be too high for MoonShell or for the DS. I just think it was because the audio files were ranging from 160-208kbps. So if you are going to listen to music on your DS, don't be an audiophile about it, it's not going to sound perfect. I also put some videos on there, which obviously didn't work because I didn't convert them, but I'll do that later.

Now, since the instruction booklet didn't seem to point this out, I decided to make a new Images folder and put a few files of each common type (bmp, jpg, and png) in the folder to see what it would recognize. Happily, it read all three types, but if the image was too big, it didn't auto-scale. I had to scroll around using the D-pad just to see the entire picture. The quality was great, too.

Now for the video. I had to take a break from writing this review to convert a few video files. You can download a video converter from Codejunkies Max Media Player minisite, located at http://us.codejunkies.com/mpds/index.htm. I unzipped and looked at the three .exe files. One was dpgdec.exe, which decoded files for playback on your PC, one was dpgenc, which obviously encoded the video for your DS, and one was dpginfo, which got info on a specified video file (which has to be in the DS format at the time). So I clicked on dpgenc. The program looked very easy to use. Actually, it looked something like this. I just used the smallest video I could find at the time. This 27.2 MB, 2:10min MPEG file took about 45 seconds to encode using the following options:

Audio: 32000hz @ 112kbps
Video: Width 128 (default), aspect 4:3, Bitrate 128 (default), framerate 15fps (default)

The file size after conversion was a mere 3MB or so, but I can see why considering the size/quality. I was pretty sure that I would have to up those frames too, because 15fps sounded like a complete mess waiting to happen. Unfortunatly you can only select up to 24fps, but I have come to find out that running it that high will make your video distorted and skip alot. I saved the file to my desktop, then transferred it to the HDD. Sure enough 15fps did NOT cut it. I'll remember to up that number next time I encode anything. Also, I thought I heard a slight crackle in the music every once in a while, but it was fine other than that. The video, of course, wasn't anywhere close to DVD quality, but it was actually really good. I'll have to remember to encode some anime before going on any long trips.

It can run a select few homebrew games and apps. I think because these files were meant for other types of media, and because this is so new, some games/apps will run while others will just straight up bug out on me. Overall, the Max Media Player is a must for any avid DS owner, and is a great accessory for storage and gaming. When the exception of a few flaws with audio, the overall performance was fantastic.

PS First post. =D
-Bkid


Images were edited by Lynx and watermarked to reduce direct linking. Thanks again Bkid for the review and allowing me to post it here.

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