MUvi 18

MuVi 1.8

Sep 12, '08 9:58 PM for everyone

Category:	Computers & Electronics
Product Type:	Other
Manufacturer:	Crypto (the greek seller )

This is  the successor model bought as a replacement  for the IQ zion that  returned in the selling company as inappropriate for its specifications

As with the previous article for Zion , Zion did not offer mp4  direct format but even worse its audio socket was too thin for my audio headphone plugs,but neither using plug adaptor is a good solution . Both  had the same price : €44 There are some differences however:  The muvi model 1.8 inch screen over the 2” of Zion and operates  vertically

Apperance:

In the picture: The player has a design  as a  mobile phone, though it has a plastic case  . Really  it has nearly same design as my Nokia 6300 , tat uses a black colored front panel  .

Buttons are  very simple : - and + act only for volume , the middle is used for A-B playing , ie between two defined points , or just for audio recording in case you are tuned to the radio

On the center is the powerup/down and pause buttons 

ON the bottom are the previous /next buttons and a  menu button in the middle

Treating as external drive:

As most gadgets , Zion is recognized as external drive, preformatted with  FAT 32  Therefore it is compatible also to Win 98 computers. My computer, having a  uncommon problem with the windows XP system behaves  patially as Win98 (can copy up to 123 files in the root directory under FAT format  ) works pretty  good with this format

And here is one of the  worst problems: File transfer is  very slow. The 2 MB  can take up to 45 minutes to be transferred . I think that the   designer uses old 2 GB cards of less than 40x  speeds Could prefer if the memory was of the stick model (as Usb sticks ) that can transfer about 2 GB in less than 5 minutes
 

Operations

Music , video , radio ,picture , text  , recording ,file manager, game and adjustments

In music  it only recognizes/plays  mp3 and wma files . Other audio files are not recognized .
ON the playback , there  are some adjustments  made from  setup menu
There  is a  sequential and random operation. But after monthly  testings I found:
·        on random operation in contrast to most other players , the previous selection plays a new random song instead
·        good audio comparable to Creative’s , so it has  excellent  audio
·        WMA s  , in contrast to all mini players so far tested, offer  audio of the same high quality  without any ‘tricles’and compressions.
·        playing  VBRs and using display shutoff , upon sudden display on show the current bit rate indication 
·        maximum volume is 40 which is extremely high. Normal volume for my ears is 11 , inside the city about 17-20 and inside bars 22-25 for normalized mp3 files.
·        all mp3 bit rates are supported .WMA  rates lower than 44  are not supported ….

In video it supports its own .AVI  format  with the program included in the CD   . And meaning that it supports  only (and still partially  )the files converted  with the  program of the enclosed CD . The program is called  Avi Converter

I installed this program . It is called Av converter CHN EN package ,and after installation, it consumes  22 MB of hard disk space. Though much of space the program is very simple

Once you push the ‘add‘  a dialogue opens asking  you the video resolution , he path of source and target , the target name , the  quakity the aspect ratio and the cutting points ,activated after scope.. As er the user guide it supports only latin filenames or it does not do anything! Video resolutions start from 128x 96 , 128x128 , 160x128 ,176x132 ,220x 176 and 320x240 .

The best resolution for this model is 160x128 , but I used sometimes 128x96 with little  success . It did not recognize trimmed videos that were then compressed to the very low  resolution neither any other resolution!

The highest resolution 320x 240  with quality setting to low is my best setting for videos being uploaded  to Multiply . Having  tested  several video transcoding programs so far, this program works best for Multiply .As fpr example Super and Media Coder shift audio and /or ‘tremble’ picture , Prism  results on the other (a simple but powerful video converter from the company making Foobar 2k) does not play on Multiply
 

Radio : a standard 88-108 FM radio but adjustable to 78-108  by the Japanese standards . About 20 memories and surprisingly  very good sensitivity , very close to  my Degen 1102  radio 

Relatively ‘tuby’ audio in a parallel listening with Degen 1102 .Little bassier  than the Creative
There is also ability to record  from FM with same  audio quality  .The resulted  audio is WAV of 320 kb  32kHz ,playable by most audio programs but cant be converted. I have  tested several programs  with some of them crashed

But if someone insists  finding a solution , Foobar 2000 audio player  is the only able to convert this file into any other format

Text : it is  a simple text browser  capable to set also bookmarks (!) Could like to see it supporting  PDF’s

Game: the game is a  very simple tetris . As I am not interested  in playing games , I skipped using it

Picture mode:

In picture mode , most images with less than (appx? )250 pixels  are shown immediately . Bigger pictures seem  ‘rubbing’ over the previous  picture . GIF and  JPG modes are supported but still some sub modes can’t  be played

File manager: It shows all files of a given directory .and ‘calls  the supported application’ to lay the file

Settings

Here is the list of  settings

• Music >  folder repear setting
• Playback , standard , random
• 6 preset  equalizations:  std, rock , classic , 3D , jazz, pop
• Equalizer
• FM satandard : Chine , Europe , Japan , USA
• Recording ; standard, high
• Standard and economical display
• 5levels  of display contrast
• Sleep time : 10 , 15, 30 60 120 minutes

My remarks

As in result this tiny  little player is basically an advertising  lie in terms of what it should  do (in pure terms as mp4 player that supposed to play m4a and m4v formats that was one of the reasons  I bought it )

However bypassing  this logic as a media player is relatively  good for what it can play. Possibly the best for it is its low price

As for example , the most important disadvantage  is its very low  transfer speed

At second is good  for doing  promo  material  from the odium or other shows I record . Please look at  my vide section  on what I show 

For the above  reasons  I have bought 3 items  in total for me and for  beloved persons