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TESTING METHODOLOGY - TEST RESULTS

   After thinking it over i have decided on performing the same exact tests for all the Media Players i review. This occurred right after some of you emailed me while on my previous position asking for a more reliable methodology when testing such players/recorders. To be honest this may complicate things but it should also save me quite a bit of time in the process. So from now and on testing will be performed with the help of 4 specific MKV media files and several BDISO (when possible), MOV, RMVB and AVI ones, with bitrates of up to 35Mbps, something which as many of you know is not easy to come by. Of course the 4 specific MKV files are ones i ripped myself from 4 Blu-Ray titles i currently own in order to not only manage to hit the desired bitrate of up to 35Mbps but also use specific, high detailed scenes. My good old SONY 55A2000 (already 3+ years old but still my favorite) along with my latest Panasonic TX-P42S20 are the two screens i will be using for testing. In due time and when i finally see a 3D Screen that really makes me want to buy it i will also start using 3D material for testing but currently that is simply not possible and so i can't comment on 3D results. As for sound the audio/video amplifiers used with the two screens are the Yamaha RX-650 and the Yamaha RX-V463 coupled with 5.1 systems by TANNOY and Crystal Audio.

   Since the TV-101AW is basically the same as the TV-301A(W) there's not much i can say about it that i haven't already. The latest SMP8670/71 processors/HD decoding chips output better image quality (more live colors) compared to the latest RTD1186DD by Realtek but lack support for BD-ISO and FLV media file types. Now for some weird reason the Gigabit Ethernet LAN performed a tad slower than the one on the TV-301A (Realtek VS Vitesse chips?) but i really found no issues other than that during all 3 weeks of testing. What really surprised me was the performance of the onboard WLAN mainly because it worked flawlessly at a distance of 12 meters (between the TV-101AW and my modem/router) with 2 concrete walls in between.

     Bellow you will find 4 different screenshots from the 4 specific MKV media files i mentioned above featuring bit rates between 20 and 35Mbps. The resolution has remained unchanged (however the files are compressed to JPEG to save space on the server) at 1920x1080.