CYBERHOME CH 505 compatibility review
 

I just burned these days 3 compatibility PAL CDs including sequences of 1 Minute to test diff resolutions on standalones in PAL.

- 352x288
- 352x576
- 480x480 (NTSC res. at PAL FPS as many PAL users do use that one to obtain even more CQ)
- 480x576
- 528x576
- 544x576
- 704x576
- 720x576

all resolutions where encoded at 25FPS (PAL) using CQ / min300, max2500, padding=off, that means standard KVCD Settings.

One CD where ...
...mpeg1 encoding and mpeg1-nonstandard muxing and vcd-nonstandard generating/burning using NERO was used

One CD where ...
...mpeg2 encoding and mpeg2-SVCD VBR muxing and SVCD-nonstandard generating/burning using NERO was used

One CD where ...
...mpeg1 encoding and mpeg2-SVCD VBR muxing and SVCD-nonstandard
generating/burning using NERO was used.

Conculsion:

That Standalone CH 505 eats everything with one exeption!!:
If using Nero to treat the SVCD VBR muxed mpeg1 files for generating a non-standard SVCD, the resolutions of 528x576 and 544x576 will do come out wrong! But when in this case VCDeasy is used to generate these mpeg1-SVCD muxed files to generate SVCD 1.0 cue bin files, it appears well.

In case of DVD-R I got no problems!
I use cheap brand DVD-R which come in a 25th pack for 29,95 Euros (The store - as informative for germans - is called CONRAD Electronic and the DVD-Rs are the "home"-brand of Conrad). Burned using the TmpgEncs internal DVD burning engine. In case of burning a DVD+-R using NERO you have to use the UDF/ISO Template in NERO! not the wizard!
All KVCDs and KDVDs are burned using a Pioneer DVR105 with latest firmware.

The CH 505 was mail-ordered for 89,90 EUROs at Amazon.de which delivers in germany within 2!! days where shipping is FREE.


The Picture Quality:
Nice! no stuttering or jerky appearing, sharp enough, very well structured OSD settings.

Audio Quality:
Well, in my case I did a connection via TOS Optical digital link to my 5.1 Receiver and everything sounds perfect.
There have been reports that if you use the CH 505 internal 5.1 decoding via 5.1 cinch outputs at the back or the stereo mixdown cinch outputs the sound do appear too silent. But I didn't test that.
The latest online-Firmware at www.cyberhome-europe.de will fix this problem.


Connections:

- Component outputs for direct beamer connection - NICE!
- Fbas (yellow cinch) video output
- S-Video (Y/C) output (which I do prefer)
- digital audio output as optical and coaxial connection = maximal hardware-receiver digital audio connection compatibility
- Euro Scart connector

The only not that good thing of this CH 505 is that you have to switch the total power-off at the back of the Hardware, at the front you only can switch to standby .... and I do like to switch all my machines at home to total-off except the VCR where the clock and settings are set.

The CH 505 is avaiable in Black and silver design