The NSZ-GT1 provides a very basic DLNA and local file playback application. FAT32 formatted drives are recognized, but NTFS is not, so usefulness is limited primarily to photos and music files. File type support is also very limited; MKV and MP4 files with AVC/H.263 and AC-3 or DTS will play, but M2TS (while recognized) either did not play or in one case, actually crashed the player. On the audio side, MP3 and M4A files work well, but WMA does not. The DLNA browser was tested with Windows Media Player 12 with very limited success. Only photos really worked properly. Videos were listed but none would play and the browser did not find any music in the library. With such limited support for local file playback via attached or network storage, the device is clearly not intended as a replacement for a media streamer or home theater PC.

Besides the HD audio issues noted earlier with “BD Mixing” disabled, the Blu-ray playback experience was quite good. It is worth noting that the Blu-ray application is not as integrated into the player as the other applications. It will launch automatically when a disc is inserted but cannot run in the background, so features like PiP will not function during use. Unlike some other players, disc ejection is properly implemented as a background task, so it will not disrupt the focused application’s experience when pressed.

During disc playback video levels were correct, but both blacker-than-black (BTB) and whiter-than-white (WTW) are clipped at 16 and 235 respectively with YCbCr or RGB output, but interestingly, BTB/WTW were not clipped for file based playback when the player was configured for YCbCr output. BTB is only useful during calibration so this is not a significant loss, but WTW content does exist in real titles so clipping above 235 is less than ideal.

Generally, other audio and video playback was pretty good, but occasionally a strange issue was noted during video podcast playback (HD Nation—left/Engadget Show—right) where a white rectangle overlaid the content—each time the issue was resolved by rebooting the player (press control+alt+delete).

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