NeoDigits announces the HELIOS H4000 HD Upscaling DVD player

With all the fuss over HD optical discs, sometimes we forget that there are some nice low cost solutions to tide our HD cravings over till the next-gen format players drop in price. NeoDigits' latest offering into the crowded market of DVD upscalers -- the highly versatile H4000 -- is a great example. This player not only supports DVD, SVCD, VCD, CD, HDCD, MP3, WMA, MPEG 4, and DivX but also allows users to output nearly any resolution over its three high-def outputs. Say for instance a person wants to output 1080p over component, this player can do that (just like its older brother); or perhaps a higher-end A / V enthusiast wants to output the signal to an external video processor at 480i via HDMI -- that's kosher too. All-in-all there are eleven different resolutions that the H4000 can output over the composite, S-Vid, component, HDMI and VGA jacks. We hear ya if the whole HD DVD/Blu-ray battle is just to scary right now to jump feet first into at least a $500 investment, but maybe the $169 tag on the H4000 will be a tad easier to swallow when the player is released on October 17.

[dunk @ Oct 10th 2006 2:58PM]

i wonder it apple's iTV might incorporate similar technology to get "HD" out of their video downloads?

[craig @ Oct 10th 2006 3:20PM]

I wonder how this will compare to the OPPO opdv971h.

[Marc Bergman @ Oct 10th 2006 3:13PM]

My OPPO is a better deal and accepts movies via SD and USB Flash drives and comes with the HDMI cable at $149

[intheknow @ Oct 10th 2006 3:45PM]

Will the Oppo upconvert via Component?

[Rick Lyon @ Oct 10th 2006 4:23PM]

Just because a cheap DVD upscales doesn't make it HD. You're just getting an upscaled picture, not a HD one by any means. And with no mention on the scaler used, there is no telling if the upscaled picture will look better then native 480p. This also has no baring on BRD and HD_DVD as this is just upscales, it doesn't play HD encoded movies. There are tons of upscaling players to look at right now, the Panasonic S90 being one.

[tristanfey @ Oct 10th 2006 7:18PM]

We all know this. The thing is most people look at their DVD quality and then look at Blu-Ray or HD-DVD and they don't see enough of an increase in picture quality to warrant the high price of the players or the movies. Its not like the obvious difference when it was switching from VHS to DVD. Not to mention the cost of replacing their library of movies (to justify their HD player purchase). Upscaling DVD players bridge that quality gap even more and at a small cost compared to the HD players.

[hawkeye @ Oct 10th 2006 4:26PM]

Depending on how useful that network interface is, it seems like it's better than the Oppo for practically the same price. Does this or the Oppo allow playback of high-def DivX/XviD or WMV content?

[Mojo_Yugen @ Oct 10th 2006 5:06PM]

Doesn't look like the 4000 has any network connections. Unless I missed that somewhere (the 5000 does though).

[Jamie @ Oct 10th 2006 4:39PM]

@Rick, unless they have changed scalers from thier old upscaling dvd players the Neodigits players have gotten great reviews from the AVS community.

Also don't forget the Neodigits players are all region free.

[Mike @ Oct 10th 2006 5:27PM]

Very nice low cost player, I'd jump on this if it supported DVDA or SuperAudio discs.

[Jon @ Oct 10th 2006 6:06PM]

Does it play H264 MP4 files?

[artifex @ Oct 10th 2006 7:14PM]

Anyone have a link to a shootout review between this and the two Oppos?

[David Beamish @ Oct 11th 2006 5:57AM]

I think mine will arrive sometime soon. I also have an Oppo and a Helios X3000.
The 4000 seems pretty nice and a good deal too especialyl with the component upconversion which for me personally is good as my receiver only switches component not hdmi and I dont have my kit that near my LCD. The X3000 wasn't *quite* as good picture as the Oppo I have but it was pretty close, plus you get a ton more functionality with it.

None of them play H.264 files as its VERY processor intensive and wil lrequire a new chip I am led to believe.

[aaron @ Oct 13th 2006 6:56AM]

The X3000 and X5000 models are the two network units. The H4000 is the new upscaling dvd player without networking. The h4000 is due into the states by the end of this month. X3000's are in stock now, X5000's are coming in the first week of November.

[alexis @ Oct 23rd 2006 3:33PM]

Let me remind you guys that OPPO makes the Neodigits Models...

So comparing 169 to 199$ makes sense when one gives you SD and USB fuctions.

[DKDiveDude @ Nov 9th 2006 4:25PM]

Received my Helios H4000 5 days ago and have a few comments.

A very small sleek player with as can be seen on the picture top, there are no buttons on the front, all buttons Power on/off, eject and the others are on the top which already annoys me. Another annoyance when you click the eject button with a disc inside and the power off, the disc loads first instead of ejecting the disc, and then after you have waited for it to load you can finally click eject again for it to eject - how stupid is that? When I click the eject, I want the player to do what I want, not play the disc. Also the players goes into screen saving mode 5 seconds after you paused a clip or movie!?! The morons at Helios need to come up with a firmware to fix that crap (eject and screen saving)!

One cool thing is that the player will automatically play a disc from the point in time where you last ejected it, in cases where you had to stop and insert another title. I don't now how long or big this memory is though.

I love being able to record several AVI (Divx) files onto one DVD disc and then choose which to play upon insertion in player.

I did a few A/B tests using component cables on my RCA F38315 CRT HDTV, using the Helios H4000 and my Denon DVD-2900 and have a hard time to distinguish a difference, or rather if the Helios H4000 output looks better. It does not look worse at least, but of course it does make it easy when the Helios H4000 invokes a screen saver within 5 seconds of pressing still!!!

[vanguardd @ Dec 6th 2006 12:47PM]

I received mine a week ago and I have a Mitsubishi 65" WD-65732 which has the ability to do 1080p over HDMI. This dvd player will not display 1080p on this tv! I thought maybe it was my tv I contacted Mitsubishi and they did their troubleshooting on it. I then asked Neodigits and told me it was a known issue with some TVs displaying 1080p. Isn't the whole idea of advertising it as an upscaling dvd player that can display 1080p over HDMI and component the whole idea of this dvd player? They said they are working on a firmware to fix this problem and that it is due around the end of December.

It did play my divx files very easily but with many of the fansub anime I have it cuts half of the subtitles off and at least from what I saw in the settings there is no way to adjust the edges of the screen from the dvd player.

It is really disappointing when the main feature of 1080p does not work with a pretty popular DLP tv.

[Godzilla @ Dec 11th 2006 11:49PM]

about the subtitles, try using the VGA connection (if your TV has a PC input) usually PC inputs don't crop the image as you'd loose the start button, time etc
this is exactly the reason that i will be soon gettting mine (to watch anime with subs off DivX discs).
along with the multi region stuff, i'm interested in what the upscaling will look like, but i'm not expecting that much difference (i hope i'm wrong though!)

[BoBB @ Dec 14th 2006 6:15PM]

My HD Hitachi has great 720p and 1080i pictures. When playing a non copyrighted DVD movie using the H4000, I find that the upconverted picture quality at both resolutions has less detail than the non converted 480 picture. My TV doesn't do internal upscaling and I saw the same results on my buddy's much more expensive setup.

I will be returning this DVD player.

[BoBB @ Dec 14th 2006 7:30PM]

Connection by the way was via component video.

[Skyguyz @ Jan 10th 2007 8:20PM]

I received my Helios H4000 a couple days ago. I have 2 Hi def sets: Sanyo 1080i native HDTV & 480p native resolution Optoma H31 projector, (capable of up convert to 1080i.)

Impressions on 1080i HDTV connected with HDMI & Component cables: The unit starts fine and all controls work as advertised. It converted to 1080i but with some strange very slight color wave. In 720p it looked better than standard 480p DVD. Cannot really see the worth on this particular HDTV. The projector was fed via component cable and since it only has a native res of 480p, it would not convert any higher than 480p. If I used the HD button which switches res, the projector would get a "no source" error. In other words, your display native resolution will be the max resolution the H-4000 will up convert to.
The main reason I bought this projector is it will play almost any media format on disc, (DVD-R DVD+R DVD-RW DVD+RW VCD SVCD MPEG, etc.) I burn lots of different format movies on DVD and cd and this player can handle them all.
I also plan on upgrading my projector to a native res 1080P so this player will then use its full potential.
Bottom line:

Pros:
-Price
-Plays any media on disc
-easy to understand on screen menu
-multitude of outputs. HDMI/Component/S-video/toslink digital audio, Component digital audio. In short, the best array of output connections possible
-Comes with HDMI cable
Can up convert to 1080i or 1080p if your native resolution is either.
-starts DVD at beginning of movie skipping all those unwanted ads/previews, (smart start-every DVD should have this.)
-Can up convert via component cable. A very big, big, big feature!


Cons:
-somewhat flimsy DVD tray
-Up convert- does not up convert to all HDTV's. *I don't know why my 1080i HDTV did not look that good. I'm sure different result vary from
TV to TV. I used it on 720p and felt it looked only somewhat better than 480p. At 1080i it did not "Wow" me. Stuck on 480p with native res 480p Projector for now.

When I had it hooked up to my projector on 480p and switched it to any higher res I got the error message of no source. The only way to get a picture back was to completely unhook the unit and hook it up to my 1080i HDTV and switch it back to 480p, then hook it back up to my projector and leave it on that setting.

Final thoughts:

This is a unit that plays all types of media. A very strong point. The up convert feature may work well with your HDTV as long as it has a high native resolution.
There have been others that have had up convert problems on their HDTV's and many that have it work well. Only way to tell is to hook it up to your projector or HDTV.

With the Blu ray/HDDVD war going on, this well may be a good unit at a great price in order to play your current standard 480p DVD collection. I am keeping this unit and will see if it performs on a replacement 1080p projector.
Buy it to replace your tired DVD player and don't put too much in the up convert.

1=Bad 2=not so good 3=fair 4=good 5= fantastic

Build quality 4
Up convert 3-
Connections 5
Media accepts 5
Overall performance 4-
Support unknown
Price 5
Included accessories 4+

[kt vaiphei @ Nov 16th 2007 7:00AM]

I am fom India and interested in bying the helios H4000, please let me know if there is a store that ship this product to India Thanks k t vaiphei.