Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)The portable DVD player is a marvel of technology, and the Sharp Moviegoer is an excellent example of the genre. Although it is very much a luxury, it's something that any movie-lover or fan of gadgets would love. At the moment there seem to be three main options for portable DVD players, and I considered them all before deciding on the Sharp. They are: the Panasonic Palm Theater, the Pioneer LC-10 and the Sharp DV-L70U Moviegoer.
The Panasonic is the most popular, easiest to find and also the cheapest (especially given recent price reductions). It is also a nice size, but the trade-off is that you only get a 5" screen, which is a bit on the small size. I was able to try it out at a local electronics store, but wasn't that impressed with its performance when using non-anamorphic discs (those not enhanced for widescreen TVs). I found that "zooming" the image to fill the screen resulted in too much pixelation, and stretching it also resulted in some noticeable distortion. Given the large number of non-anamorphic discs out there, I found that unacceptable.
The Pioneer has a 7" screen and is at a similar price, but from what I have heard, it is somewhat large and heavy with the battery. Thus, I decided on the Sharp. I am quite pleased with my decision, with a few minor exceptions.
First of all, I am very happy that I decided to go for the bigger screen. Although the 2" difference between the 5" screen of the Panasonic and the 7" screen on the Sharp may not sound like much, it really does make a difference. The screen seems almost twice as big to me. It is a very good quality screen (and Sharp is famous for their LCDs). The colors are vibrant and bright and I found no "dead" pixels or other imperfections, although it did seem slightly brighter towards the bottom. There are several controls that you can use to adjust the color, brightness and tint of the LCD as well.
I was also pleasantly surprised at how well the unit handles non-anamorphic movies. I didn't find a big difference in picture quality with these discs. There are several options for viewing non-widescreen enhanced movies. You can display them with no modification at all (showing black bars to either side of the screen), you can stretch the image with the "stretch" and "smart stretch" options (which distort the image a little by stretching it horizontally to fill the screen, but don't really result in a loss of picture quality) or you can "zoom" them, which means that you digitally resize the picture to fit the screen. This last option resulted in the same sort of pixelation I noticed on the Panasonic, although it was slightly less noticeable. One last option that may not be immediately obvious is using the image zoom option. This allows you to zoom in on one portion of the screen (and there are three different levels of magnification). This is fun to play with, since you can see small details with surprisingly little pixelation. But I also found that using the lowest level of magnification zoomed the image on 1.85:1 letterboxed discs just enough to fill the screen. This resulted in almost no pixelation (as opposed to the "zoom" viewing option I mentioned above) and you only lose a small portion of the image on the sides. In any case, there are plenty of options to play with -- which one you choose is largely a matter of personal preference.
The unit itself is good looking, with a high-tech brushed aluminum look. It is impressively thin and light without the battery. With the battery it does become a bit more bulky (about the same size as three DVD cases stacked), but is still relatively light. My only complaint about the esthetics of the player is that the battery connects to the unit with an external cord. You can see this in the images that are available on this site, but I didn't really notice it until the player was here in front of me. I found this to be a somewhat inelegant solution, and it stands out a bit when compared with the otherwise excellent design of the player. One other small complaint is that despite the large number of buttons on the unit, there are several features that are only accessible via the remote (the most important being forward/reverse search, slow motion and zoom). The remote itself is also fairly large, which does limit its portability a bit.
Battery life actually seems slightly surpass Sharp's claims of 3 hours -- you should easily be able to finish any movie with plenty of time to spare. The recharge time for the battery is a bit long (5 hours) and the battery also doesn't charge when you are using the player.
A few random features that I liked: optical digital output so I can record mindiscs digitally; the ability to use the LCD to monitor an outside source like a TV signal, a camcorder or video game; adjustable backlight that you can also turn off when connected to a separate TV; the unit will also output DTS and Dolby Digital signals to your audio equipment.
Despite a few minor flaws, I think the Sharp is the best overall player on the market, and anyone looking for a portable player should give it a close look.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Sharp DV-L70U 7" Portable DVD Player
The DV-L70, the industry's lightest portable DVD player available with a seven-inch LCD screen, offers an extended three-hour battery life, a 16:9 widescreen ratio and Virtual Dolby Surround. In addition, output from a video camera can be played back through the DV-L70 for crystal clear, convenient viewing on the player's large LCD screen. It provides high quality entertainment experience in the home or on the go. For outstanding sound, the DV-L70 incorporates a 10-bit D/A converter that processes 8-bit digital DVD data with four time's greater accuracy, resulting in playback of high-resolution video images with clarity and crystal clear resolution. A built-in Surround decoder circuit provides dynamic theater-quality audio playback of Dolby Digital 5.1 sound using only two speakers strategically placed into the base of the monitor screen.Sharp's exclusive Digital Gamma Correction feature enhances picture quality by affecting the level of bright images. This results in a clearer picture that allows viewers to enjoy movies in all types of lighting environments, even in extremely bright rooms. Digital Super Picture is another Sharp exclusive which increases the sharpness level of DVD software to enhance picture quality. Digital Super Picture also reduces noise that's present in Video CDs and other AV media, for crisp and detailed images. Equipped with Dolby Digital Surround decoders, Sharp's DVD players enable viewers to experience theatre quality sound in the home. In addition, Digital Theatre Sound compatibility permits the DVD players to maximize the high quality surround sound now available in many pre-recorded DVDs and to fully utilize the newest breed of surround sound that is meant for both movies and music.
Click here for more information about Sharp DV-L70U 7" Portable DVD Player
0 comments:
Post a Comment