The Start SD-2010VNK v2 DVD player is a player that is targeted at the "plays everything" market segment. It plays DVDs, CDs, CD-Rs, Video CDs and MP3 CDs.
This particular market segment is crowded with players priced at around $500. I have tested a number of these players, all of which have significant flaws, and none of which have performed all of their claimed functions to my satisfaction. The Start SD-2010VNK v2 is priced above these other market entrants, with a suggested retail price of $999. However, for the very first time, I can confidently recommend this player to those of you who are after a "plays everything" DVD player as one which performs all of the tasks that it promises to perform, and performs them very well indeed. There are a few minor operational niggles with the player, but there are most definitely no major flaws with the player, which is more than I can say for any other entrant in this market segment.
The front panel layout and functionality of the Start SD-2010VNK v2 is exactly the same as the v1 player that it replaces. Only the internal circuitry has changed. Accordingly, I have replicated and slightly expanded my comments on the front panel from my previous review of the v1 player.
The left side of the front panel carries the power on-off switch and the controls and sockets for Karaoke mode. The power on-off switch is a microswitch and hence has quite a soft touch about it and will place the player either in ON mode or in STANDBY mode. STANDBY mode can also be entered with the remote control.
The center of the front panel carries the disc tray and the fluorescent display. This display cannot be dimmed, and is a little too busy for my liking.
The right side of the front panel has the tray OPEN/CLOSE button, and the basic DVD navigation buttons; CHAPTER SKIP forwards and backwards, PLAY, PAUSE and STOP. Additionally, a MENU button is present. On the surface this seems like a nice inclusion, but in practice it is essentially useless for DVD playback as there are no arrow keys to allow menu navigation. Pressing the tray OPEN/CLOSE button does not turn the player on if it is in STANDBY mode, which is a minor annoyance.
The rear panel of this player is equipped with a excellent selection of outputs. From left to right;
Whilst this is not the worst remote control I have ever seen, it isn't
far off it. Other than the nicely laid out arrow and Select (Enter) keys,
there seems little rhyme nor reason about the layout of the rest of the
controls. The PLAY/PAUSE button in particular is very badly placed and
takes a lot of getting used to. My wife stared at this particular remote
for some minutes before figuring out where this button was, which is never
a good sign. I found the button easily, but only because I knew where it
was from prior experience with this particular remote control.
The DISPLAY, AUDIO and SUBTITLE buttons are all but impossible to locate and the MENU key even more so.
The operating range and angle of operation of the remote control were also not fantastic, with the player insisting on the remote control being at quite a shallow angle to the player for remote control keypresses to be recognized. The player also tended to respond very sluggishly to remote control keypresses.
Based around a perennial favourite MPEG decoder chip of mine, the C-Cube ZiVA-3, the Start SD-2010VNK v2 produced very nice quality images indeed, albeit a little on the soft side. There were no MPEG decoding anomalies, and the only two minor glitches I noted with the video output was a very occasional vertical skip in the image, both when in motion, and when viewing still menus, and the very occasional dropped frame.
Subtitles had a habit of frequently defaulting inappropriately to ON when the player commenced playback of a DVD. This was partially correctable within the setup menu by changing the default Subtitle language to AUTO.
The review player was marked as a Zone 4 player, but a hidden setup menu (turn player on with no disc in tray, press 9-8-Select, then set region code to 1-8 for manual zone mode or 14 for auto zone mode) allowed the player to be set to either a specific zone or to automatic multizone mode. In auto mode, the Start SD-2010VNK v2 happily played both Region 4 and Region 1 DVDs, including The Patriot R1, which is protected with RCE code. This setup menu also allows Macrovision to be disabled if your display device is incompatible with Macrovision.
The fast forward and fast reverse functions of this player are of average smoothness, and are available at x2 speed and x8 speed.
RSDL layer changes resulted in a short pause of between 1/4 and 1/2 a second.
The DVD player knows a fair number of language names, displayed as three character abbreviations. Unknown languages are displayed as DEF.
Functional key-presses on the remote are accompanied by various on-screen icons. The Menu and Play icons appeared all too frequently and generally inappropriately when navigating through on-disc menu structures, which became mildly annoying after a while.
Subjectively, there were very occasional and extremely subtle hints at audio sync problems, but nothing that I could definitely call out of sync. Objectively, the analogue vs digital delay in this player was -10 milliseconds, consistent with the subjective observations. I don't believe anyone will ever have an audio sync problem with this DVD player.
DTS digital output is supported by this DVD player. MPEG audio bitstreams are output digitally as quite distorted Linear PCM audio.
The on-screen display for MP3 playback is arranged into Albums and Tracks, with each subdirectory on the CD-R being considered an Album. Actual track names are not displayed, so specific tracks on the CD need to be referred to by the Album and Track number.
A nifty feature of MP3 playback on this DVD player is the Intro function, which plays back the first 5 seconds of each MP3 and then skips to the next.
There appeared to be no shuffle function for MP3
playback, so playback will only occur sequentially.
| Test Disc Format (all Princo CDRs) | Results |
| 108 MP3s in 7 subdirectories | 
Found all files. |
| 108 MP3s in root directory |
Found all files. |
| 128Kb/s, 256Kb/s, 320Kb/s and Variable Bit Rate |
Had some difficulty when playing the 320Kb/s MP3 immediately after the
256Kb/s MP3 but correctly played this back after 10 seconds of distorted
output. Direct selection of the 320Kb/s MP3 resulted in normal playback |
| Multisession CDR |  Only
found the first session. |
| Screen Saver |
|
| Zoom |
|
Plays CD-Rs
Plays MP3s
Region and Macrovision free
Poorly laid-out remote control.
On-Screen Display icons crop up excessively.
Subtitles default to ON frequently.
| Video | Component Output | |
RGB Output | |
| Audio | DTS Output | |
MP3 Playback | |
| Plays CDRs | |
|||
| Conversion | PAL-50 | |||
| Inbuilt Decoder | Dolby Digital | |||
| Performance |   |
| Build Quality | |
| In Operation | |
| Compatibility | |
| Value For Money | |
| Product Type: | DVD-Video, Video CD and Audio CD player |
| Region: | Zone 4 (Australia/New Zealand & South America), but the test unit played back discs from all regions including R1 RCE discs |
| Signal System: | PAL / NTSC |
| Serial Number Of Unit Tested: | 122000157 |
| MPEG Decoder: | C-Cube ZiVA-3 |
| Audio Frequency Response: | 4Hz - 22kHz (48kHz sampling)
4Hz - 44kHz (96kHz sampling) |
| Signal to Noise Ratio: | 98dB |
| Dynamic Range: | 90dB |
| Total Harmonic Distortion: | 0.003% |
| Dimensions: | 430 (w) x 340 (d) x 85 (h) |
| Weight: | 4.5kg |
| Price: | $999 |
| Distributor: | Start Digital Co
151-153 Clarendon Street South Melbourne VIC 3205 |
| Telephone: | (03) 9696-9299 |
| Facsimile: | (03) 9686-3733 |
| Email: |
© Michael Demtschyna
27th January 2001