Review : Passion DVD Player

A few weeks back I bought this new DVD player from my local supermarket, Big Bazaar. I must say that this thing has been a complete surprise.
For a long time I had been looking for a system or a mechanism through which I could play my downloaded videos and mp3 files from the internet without going through the hassle of converting one video format to the other, and burning them on Cds or DVDs.
I haven't forgotten the pains it took for me to watch a movie I downloaded from the internet a few months back on my 5.1 channel home theater system.
I had to convert the 700 Megabyte video to a DVD format, which took about 4 hours and the worst of all, the conversion software sucked up all of my computer resources and I was left PC-less for that frame of time. It was a real bad experience and to add an icing on the cake, the Audio went out of sync by the time I reached the half way point in the movie and all because of the video conversion which went wrong somewhere.
Since a long time, I was looking for some device or some sort of a mechanism through which I could enjoy my downloaded movies and audio on my LCD television and my 5.1 surround sound home theater system. A device which could also be a replacement to my old DVD player which doesn't have a component out port for my LCD TV. I didn't want to spend a lot of money on those expensive DVD players which were available in the market.
I went to an electronic store in my city and checked out some DVD players on display. I checked out this new Samsung DVD player, which had a USB port, so I asked this person in the store for a quick demo.
Ha ha, it couldn't play any movies through a USB device but could only play your digital photographs(Jpegs/Jpgs). The only DVD player they had which could play movies through a USB device, was a Sony DVD player which had support for the Divx format...but that certainly didn't mean that it could play all the movies or any movie you download from the Internet.
What about other formats? Do I still need to undergo the conversion operation for them?..And what about the price?..Well it came with a price tag of about 5000 Rupees ($100 approx).
So I came back home disheartened.
A few days later I went for some grocery shopping to a super market near my home. This super market also had an electronics section and they sold a lot of items there. My eyes caught hold of this small silver colored player which had a USB port in the front...Well it was the USB port that caught my eye actually.

At first it looked like a cheap Chinese player to me and when I looked at the brand name which read 'Passion', I was sure that this was some kind of a cheap jack DVD player...but still that USB port looked interesting. I asked the person at the counter for the price. He told me that it was priced at a mere 1395 Rupees($28 approx) only but I was hardly interested. I thought it was another of those cheap Chinese things that would die down in few days. I was still not out of my bewilderment when I heard him say, "Sir it can even play movies and mp3 files from a pen drive and it comes with a six months warranty as well".
Woaah!, It was as if he knew what I had been looking for.
Suddenly I wanted that thing so badly.

I was kinda, more interested in the product now and I started looking at it with more curiosity. On the front panel I could read Divx, Mpeg 4, Dolby digital and other formats and features. I asked him if he could connect it to a television and play a movie through a pen drive. He played a movie which he had on a pen drive for customers demo and it didn't take me long to decide I was gonna buy that DVD player.
So I came back home, with this small shoddy looking white box but was getting impatient to open it and check out all of the features of that DVD player inside it.

I open the box...

1. A sleek and very light DVD player. Its not a big DVD player in width and breadth and can be easily carried from one room to the other.

2. The front panel is made of plastic and had four buttons for power on/off, eject/open, play/pause and stop. An amazing thing is that the USB port is on the left hand side in the front and I find it a little convenient to plug in my pen drive.

3. The player supports Dolby digital and Prologic II technology.

4. It has a component out, coaxial, 5.1 channel support, S/PDIF, S-Video Out and the normal stereo and video output(composite - red,white,yellow cables).

5. No HDMI - I wasn't even expecting a S/PDIF support and component cable out, so certainly HDMI was out of question.

6. A decent remote control for the price.

Best Part

Now that this Passion DVD player was at home it was time to check what all formats it could support. I had few movies on my system.
I copied them on my pen drive and checked them for playback on my Television.
It easily played the following formats:
DivX- avi format, Xvid - avi format, MPG, MPEG4 , MP3, Jpeg, WMA, DVD files, .Dat files.
Easily reads, DVDs, VCDs, CD-R and CD-RWs.

Since most of the movies you download from the Internet are in .avi format it could easily play them.
Although I wished it could play .mkv(motoroska) files as well because they are high definition files, unfortunately it could not.
.flv files which are the ones on Youtube and other video sites were not supported as well.

Hard Disks:
I have 2 Hard disks, one a portable 80 GB( seagate laptop hard disk with external casing),
and another External Computer Hard disk 160 Gb with external casing and an external power supply(seagate HDD with external casing). Since the disks were on FAT 32 file system the Passion DVD player was easily able to detect them and play files on them with ease.
I have heard that there is a problem with the NTFS file system and it doesn't detect disks on that particular file system.

The DVD player came with composite cables(red, white and yellow cables) and no component cables.

Not tested features:
Component cable output.
S/PDIF.

The video quality is amazing. The laser head(lens) is of a very fine quality and displays images equivalent to my old Sony DVD player.

This is probably the cheapest gadget I have ever bought. Its truly a value for money. With 6 months warranty as well, what more can I ask for?
The player is available at all Big Bazaar outlets in India and also at futurebazaar.com.
The company that manufactures it is a local Indian Company in Haridwar, Uttranchal, India.
The guy at the store told me that they use a Sony lens/head and the Passion DVD player can be repaired easily if need be.
I am really happy to buy this amazing small wonder, The Passion DVD player, at such a low price. Trust me and get one for yourself today!