Digital Trends

NeuNeo HVD2085 November 30th, 2005 | by Ian Bell

Design and Features

We aren't terribly excited about the look of the HVD2085. The front of the unit looks pretty bland and there is a lot of plastic in the construction, not necessarily what we would put next to our high-end receiver, but you may be able to get away with it. The remote control also looks pretty bad, like it would be used to control a remote control car or any other toy. There are color coded sections that help to distinguish various grouped buttons. If we had to rate the looks of today's DVD players, the LG LGDVB418 DVD player we reviewed a couple weeks ago would be one of the better looking players out there, and the NeoNeu HVD2085 would be on the complete opposite end of the spectrum. But that's ok, because this puppy can up-convert DVD's to 1080p.

Feature-wise, the HVD2085 is fairly loaded. It has component video, S-Video, HDMI and VGA outputs allowing you to hook it up to just about anything. Plus it's a region-free player, so you can playback any DVD in the world on the HVD2085, perfect for those into anime or simply like to import their movies. The HVD2085 is capable of playing DVD/SVCD/VCD/CD/HDCD/MP3/WMA/Photo-CD/CD-R/CD-RW/DVD+R/DVD-R/DVD+RW/DVD-RW disc types. The manual doesn't tell you this, so check out their website for a complete compatibility chart.

The HVD2085 uses a 32bit RISC CPU and a 24bit video processing unit manufactured by AMLogic for de-interlacing and scaling. AMLogic is the only company we are aware of that makes chips supports HVD decoding. The Oppo Digital OPDV971H uses the new DCDi chip by Faroudja which we actually prefer, but this chip is not capable of HVD scaling.

The component video output will up-convert the picture to 1080p/1080i including copyrighted material (no HDCP compatibility, shame on you) while the HDMI output supports 1080i/720P/480P/576P/640x480/800x600/1024x768/1280x1024 resolutions depending on what you connect it to.

Priced at $245 dollars, you get the player, remote control, and 1 pair of analog RCA audio/video cables. An HDMI cable is not included nor are batteries, so expect to spend a little more money because you get this hooked up.

Image Courtesy of NeoDigits