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Product summary
The good: DVD playback and digital media streaming in one unit; extensive file format support; HDMI output; DVD and digital media upscaling up to 1080p; USB 2.0 port up front; upgradable firmware.
The bad: Setting up advanced features can be a tortuous ordeal; user interface isn't pretty and can be confusing; navigation can be slow; no 802.11n Wi-Fi; no h.264 support; glitchy streaming of HD video, even on wired connections and off the USB drive; DVD upscaling performance is mediocre; no WPA security support; includes outdated version of TwonkyVision software.
The bottom line: The Ziova CS505 is a network media player that has an attractive feature set and promising interface, but it's undermined by quirky performance and so-so stability.
Specifications: Remote control type: Remote control (Infrared); Weight: 7.1 lbs; Product type: DVD player / digital multimedia receiver; ; See full specs
CNET editors' review
- Reviewed on: 05/30/2007
- Released on: 05/20/2007
As more people become interested in streaming media from their PC to their living room, more products keep popping up promising to do exactly that. In addition to devices from established brands such as Netgear, Apple, and Microsoft, a growing number of network media players from little known manufacturers such as Mvix, Tvix, and Helios are popping up. The Ziova CS505 is part of the latter group, and it offers both DVD playback (with upscaling) and network media streaming for a ton of file formats. Unfortunately, we felt the CS505 looked a lot better on paper than in use. The interface looks slick at first glance, but it quickly becomes bulky and sometimes just plain slow. DVD upconversion sounds like a nice feature, but it really didn't perform up to par. On the upside, streaming was mostly stable, and the CS505 did deliver on its promise to stream a ton of formats--although enthusiasts will lament the lack of h.264 support. Overall, the CS505 shows a lot of promise, but it's hard to recommend with the current firmware--perhaps a future update will smooth out some of the reliability issues.
Design
The CS505 looks like a throwback to an earlier era, before glossy black supplanted silver as the preferred color of home electronics. Head-on, the CS505 is boxy and looks like it would feel more at home mounted in a hidden equipment rack than on display in a home theater. The brushed metal look may not be the most attractive, but gives it the appearance of having solid build quality. To the far left, there's a hard power on/off switch--if you turn this off, the CS505 won't turn on when you hit the power button on the remote. Just to the right are some front panel controls, including play, stop, and chapter forward/backward controls. In the center of the unit is the DVD drive, and on the far right is the LED display and USB port.
The remote is a little below average, but passable. The biggest misstep is putting the play, stop, and fast-forward/rewind controls at the bottom of the remote--far from the central navigational pad, so we were constantly moving the remote around in our hand. We did appreciate the dedicated volume and page up/down rockers, but once we got into the user interface, we noticed that the page up/down function didn't actually work--it just moved one item down instead of skipping a whole page. Of course, you can replace the included clicker with a good universal remote, but that still probably won't solve the page up/down issue.
User interface
The main page of the user interface of the CS505 is promising--the graphics are pretty slick-looking, and the choices are simple: Music, Videos, Pictures, Settings, and Extras. Past that point, the simplicity ends. For example, if you select "Music," the next screen asks you to select a source, leaving you with choices of DVD, USB, Windows Network, Web Radio, and Media Servers. To access music on your PC, you'll select either Windows Network or Media Servers, then the name of the PC you want to browse, then the folder you want to browse--then finally you can sort by artist, genre, and so on. Not only is it convoluted, but sometimes the interface wasn't quite as quick as we'd like, and that only compounded the frustration. We understand that it's hard to pack a lot of functionality into a simple interface, but we thought the Netgear EVA8000 Digital Entertainer HD did a better job. The Apple TV, meanwhile, has an even better interface but offers less functionality.
The other problem we had with the interface is that the CS505 could occasionally get bogged down. This happened often when we wanted to switch from one media type to another--for instance, from Music to Videos. You have to go back out to the main menu to do this, and there's often a substantial wait time--up to 15 seconds. We wished there was a "mixed media" option so we didn't have to go out to the main menu so frequently. We also ran into long wait times when we were waiting for our list of files to populate. Granted, we have a large file library, but it still puts a damper on the experience. While the CS505 can be speedy going between some menus, the occasional slowdowns became frustrating.
Features
One of the biggest selling points of the CS505 is its extensive file format support. For video, it supports MPEG 1, MPEG 2, MPEG 4, DivX/Xvid, WMV, WMV HD--plus TS folders and ISO files from ripped DVDs. This extensive file format support is a major advantage over Apple TV, which is generally limited to iTunes-friendly MPEG-4 and h.264 files. The lack of h.264 support on the CS505 is the biggest omission, as it is quickly becoming one of the more popular codecs for high-def video. Also note that support for ripped DVD TS folders isn't complete, as we weren't able to navigate the menus on the discs, just play the individual files. On the other hand, you can easily surf the menus on ISO files.
Audio support is impressive too, with support for MP3, WMA, AAC, OGG, FLAC, and WAV files. Audiophiles will particularly enjoy the support for the lossless FLAC format, as it makes it relatively easy to back up all your CDs and stream real CD-quality music from a large hard drive on your PC. Of course, you won't be able to play any DRM-protected songs you've purchased on iTunes--as you can with the competing Apple TV and Netgear EVA8000--but the Ziova will work fine for the DRM-free AAC iTunes Plus songs that are now available.
You'll also notice that the CS505 lacks the ability to play any sort of DRM-protected content, whether it be audio or video. That's disappointing, as many competitors offer support for at least one type of DRM (e.g. Plays For Sure, Zune Store, or Rhapsody). On the other hand, if you like to lead a DRM-free lifestyle, you won't notice it's missing.
Photo support is standard, with the CS505 handling JPEG, BMP, GIF, and PNG file types.
The CS505 is capable of streaming using either a uPNP (Universal Plug-and-Play) server or standard Windows file sharing (also known as SMB). The CS505 comes bundled with two uPNP server apps, Windows Media Connect and TwonkyVision. We certainly appreciated the inclusion of TwonkyVision, but were disappointed when we actually got it installed, because it was only version 2.9, when TwonkyVision is currently up to version 4.3. The older version is missing some key functionality, and you'll have to pay for an upgrade to 4.3, although there's a 30-day free trial. After several hours of tinkering, we were finally able to get SMB file sharing working on the CS505. We loved the ability to browse our files using SMB, but unfortunately this feature was too buggy to be reliable. Sometimes we could access it, and sometimes we couldn't. And sometimes we'd access it, and halfway through, all our shared folders would disappear.
There's also an additional feature, in the Extras section of the main menu, which is weather. Even though you can get weather pretty much everywhere these days, we actually liked this feature, and it worked like a charm. You can't get more info (like, say, an hourly forecast), but it's still nice for a quick glance to see if you need to take an umbrella.
Connectivity is pretty good on the CS505--which is to say, it's pretty much the same as you'd find on an above average DVD player, plus a few extra network niceties. For video, the highlight is the HDMI output, which can upscale your video to 720p, 1080i, and 1080p resolution. Component, S-video, and composite ports guarantee the ability to connect to any older analog TVs as well. Audio can be carried using the HDMI connection, but there's also both optical and coaxial digital audio outputs, along with a 5.1 analog multichannel output and (of course) stereo analog audio out. On the front panel, there's also a USB port that can be used for quick flash drive hookups or other USB mass storage devices (though it won't work with iPods). For networking, there is an Ethernet port with wireless 802.11b/g connectivity. Unfortunately, it lacks the latest 802.11n speed that the Apple TV has, which allows for faster speeds--especially useful for high-def video. Also note that there's no WPA wireless security, so you'll have to downgrade your whole network to the less-secure WEP format to use the CS505. These days, there's really no excuse for that.
We definitely liked the way the CS505 handled aspect ratio control with nonanamorphic DVDs (as well as our digital video files). Some HDTVs, such as the HP LC3760N and the Philips 42PF9831D, do not have aspect-ratio control when fed high-definition sources, so it's nice to have the upscaling DVD player handle it. This is not an issue for most high-quality DVDs, which are anamorphic, but nonanamorphic wide-screen discs will look distorted unless the player correctly recognizes them.
We tested this using the original nonanamorphic Carlito's Way DVD, and the CS505 automatically put it in the correct aspect ratio, although windowboxed--in other words, with black bars on all four sides of the screen. To compensate, we were able to use the CS505's zoom function, which lets you zoom in or out in .05 increments. This level of flexibility is really nice, and we were easily able to fill the screen using the 1.25 zoom without cutting off the picture.
Performance
Streaming performance was decent using the wired Ethernet connection. We had no problem streaming DVDs and FLAC files to the wired Ziova using either a wired laptop or a wireless (802.11g) laptop. High-def material was another story, as it was barely passable using a wired laptop (still too many dropouts), and definitely not passable using the wireless laptop. We can understand the wireless dropouts, but wired connectivity should be solid. We tried the same high-def files using a USB flash drive, and we still didn't get solid playback, which leads us to believe that the CS505 might not be capable of playing back some high-definition video files smoothly regardless of network speeds.
Wireless performance was better. Of course, we couldn't stream high-def content, but we had a good experience streaming DVDs with our laptop wired and the CS505 connected wirelessly. When we had both the laptop and the CS505 wireless, we couldn't stream DVDs without some major hiccups, but at least FLAC and MP3 music files streamed without any stuttering.
Ultimately, our biggest annoyance was just of overall stability. For example, under SMB sharing, we'd get an error trying to play one MP3, but then it would work under uPNP sharing. One time we were playing a FLAC file, and it wouldn't let us adjust the volume. Another time we were streaming a DVD with both the CS505 and the laptop connected wirelessly, and it froze, requiring us to reboot. Another issue is that changing settings often requires a reboot of the CS505, which takes almost a minute. While any one of these isn't a deal breaker, altogether it hampered our enthusiasm for the CS505.
DVD performance
We started off testing the DVD player performance using Silicon Optix's HQV test suite. Things didn't get off to a good start with the initial resolution test, as it couldn't quite pass the full resolution of DVDs. It did better, although not great, with the next test with a rotating line, as it only started to show jaggies in the yellow section. It went on to fail the next test, with three pivoting bars that were all full of jaggies. Other detail tests confirm the soft image quality, but it did pass a 2:3 pulldown processing test, as it kicked into film mode after a few seconds..
We moved onto the Windows DVD Test Annex, and things didn't get much better. Besides failing a chroma bug test, another test where the "flag" on the DVD alternates between film and video mode caused the video output to go completely black, only to return a few seconds later--something we've never seen before. Yikes.
On the upside, we were able to confirm that the player does have 2:3 pulldown processing, as it correctly rendered the introduction to Star Trek: Insurrection, with the hulls of the boats and the railings of the bridge rendered as smooth, curved lines. We also looked at the movie Seabiscuit, and the CS505 struggled with the difficult intro sequence.
Overall, the DVD playback is probably passable if you're not picky about video quality, but enthusiasts would be better off with a dedicated DVD player. Luckily, Ziova offers the CS510, which is essentially exactly the same as the CS505, except without the DVD player.
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