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Panasonic DVD-LV55 Portable DVD Player

Panasonic DVD-LV55 Portable DVD Player

List Price: $899.99
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: AWESOME!!!!
Review: Simply put; worth every dollar. Incredible versitility and fun to use. Good sharp picture and sound and truly the small screen is very viewable.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Best product I've ever bought....
Review: The quality is second to none! Not only was I shocked at how wonderful and workable the five inch screen is - when you hold it on your lap, it's the same ratio as watching on a 52 inch TV several feet away. The surround sound is incredible and really works - even via headphones! I sit in my back yard late at night and enjoy great movies - the overall enjoyment and relaxation is better then watching from a large screen TV in my living room. This is the best product I've ever bought!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Great Product, but.....
Review: There are a lot of good things to say about this portable DVD player except one. Whether a full screen or widescreen DVD is being played, there's about 3/4" blank space on each sides of the screen (left/right). That may not sound like a lot, but when the whole screen is only 5" long, loosing almost 2" does make a difference. Although it is possible to stretch (zoom) the movie to cover full screen, it makes the picture look distorted. Furthermore, if a widescreen movie is being played, it also take about 1/2" from top and bottom. Because of this, you may want to consider the LV75 model if you want to see the picture a little bigger.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: great portable dvd player
Review: this is a great player because it is light weight and very compact. the dolby sound was great. the picture is perfect. you can play cds on it too so you dont always have to watch dvds. when ever i travel i always take the player.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Great for the plane, hotel, and road trips!
Review: This little unit, while being on the small side in terms of screen size, is great. I travel cross-country on planes at least twice/week and have never been able to sleep while sitting in the ever-shrinking, upright, rigid airline seats; this device has made these sardine-can trips bearable!

Pros: better than expected sound out of little speakers; ease of hookup to full size monitor; easy-to-operate controls on both remote and unit top; bright picture, even in bright light conditions; electronic brightness and color adjustment controls; battery life (3.5 hours with a "0" brightness setting on a -5 to 5 scale) that averages better than listed in the specifications (2.5-3 hours); stands up to jostling and bumping of airline travel well (skip-free play sideways and inverted); extended electronic sound processing features (simulates theatre surround modes while using headset); healthy substitute for full-size DVD player in the home

Cons: battery cannot charge while unit is plugged in and in use (i.e., must be turned off to charge); remote cannot be used while unit is operating on battery power; manual is poorly organized, but after a couple of times through, the technically-challenged can operate this unit; no carrying case or headphones packaged with unit; lack of dynamic range dampening feature requires a quick finger on the volume control when using a headset; (not completely sure about this but) optical output jack on the back of the unit is not truly optical-cable compatible

Suggestions: for successful audio during air travel, get a noise-dampening headset that either covers the ear completely or some headphones/earbuds that insert into the ear canal; if you connect to external monitors routinely, invest in an S-video cable as well (not included with model, but RCA style video and audio cables are).

I compared this 5" model to the larger screen Panasonic model and found that the extra money for the latter wasn't warranted. With this unit roughly 15 inches from my eyes, the picture is crisp, but not too grainy ("liney") and I have yet to come across a movie where something wasn't resolved well enough on the screen to see it.

I give it 5 stars for overall quality and ease of use minus a star for not including a case and headphones. Bottom line: pros far outweigh cons, great bang for the buck.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Great for the plane, hotel, and road trips!
Review: This little unit, while being on the small side in terms of screen size, is great. I travel cross-country on planes at least twice/week and have never been able to sleep while sitting in the ever-shrinking, upright, rigid airline seats; this device has made these sardine-can trips bearable!

Pros: better than expected sound out of little speakers; ease of hookup to full size monitor; easy-to-operate controls on both remote and unit top; bright picture, even in bright light conditions; electronic brightness and color adjustment controls; battery life (3.5 hours with a "0" brightness setting on a -5 to 5 scale) that averages better than listed in the specifications (2.5-3 hours); stands up to jostling and bumping of airline travel well (skip-free play sideways and inverted); extended electronic sound processing features (simulates theatre surround modes while using headset); healthy substitute for full-size DVD player in the home

Cons: battery cannot charge while unit is plugged in and in use (i.e., must be turned off to charge); remote cannot be used while unit is operating on battery power; manual is poorly organized, but after a couple of times through, the technically-challenged can operate this unit; no carrying case or headphones packaged with unit; lack of dynamic range dampening feature requires a quick finger on the volume control when using a headset; (not completely sure about this but) optical output jack on the back of the unit is not truly optical-cable compatible

Suggestions: for successful audio during air travel, get a noise-dampening headset that either covers the ear completely or some headphones/earbuds that insert into the ear canal; if you connect to external monitors routinely, invest in an S-video cable as well (not included with model, but RCA style video and audio cables are).

I compared this 5" model to the larger screen Panasonic model and found that the extra money for the latter wasn't warranted. With this unit roughly 15 inches from my eyes, the picture is crisp, but not too grainy ("liney") and I have yet to come across a movie where something wasn't resolved well enough on the screen to see it.

I give it 5 stars for overall quality and ease of use minus a star for not including a case and headphones. Bottom line: pros far outweigh cons, great bang for the buck.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Amaze your friends!
Review: This piece of gagetry is a technical wonder! The picture is amazing given the small screen. The headphone surround sound is awesome too. The only problem I have had with this is with the button to open the case to insert the DVD. It sticks a little and I have to use alot of pressure to finally get the thing open. Other than that I love it and love showing it off to my friends. Best investment in electronics I've everdone. If its small screen size (which is perfect for me) bothers you than get the LV75 but it has all the same features.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: pretty darn good.
Review: This was a lot better than I had even hoped for,you forget you are looking at a small screen after only a few minutes as the quality is so good and I was amazed at the sound as a couple of reviews had said it could be poor.Controls take some getting used to as they are so small but not an impossability to use.Overall I loved it.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: great product but needs more "stuff" to be a true traveler
Review: Though the LV55 is advertised as having a 5" screen, the actual viewable screen size is 4.8" diagonal, with a 16:9 width-to-height ratio just like a widescreen TV. There are several "display modes" that let you change the image size. One of them lets you enlarge a non-anamorphic image so it will fill the whole screen (albeit resulting in a more pixellated, less sharp display). One of the display modes turns off the display, so that you can save battery power while playing audio CDs.

The LV55 has a screen resolution of 280,000 pixels, which comes to about 700x400 pixels. This is less than the 720x480 resolution that a DVD is able to deliver, but it is enough to give a clear, sharp picture.

This player only lets you adjust color saturation and brightness, and not hue and contrast. Using "Video Essentials" and "Avia Guide to Home Theater" to test the display, I find that the display has a slight over-saturation of red, and cannot display certain grey scales (which could cause "dithering" in playing black-and-white movies). Also, the player has some built-in edge enhancement that strikes me as rather excessive, resulting in "halos" appearing around borders.

The display also has the common overscan problem, which results in a little bit of picture cut off from the left and right sides of the image. Overscanning is common on most consumer CRT and LCD displays.

The built-in speakers produce expectedly tinny sound, considering the player only uses 13 watts of power. A good pair of earphones or headphones is a must, but even so, the advantage of a 5.1 soundtrack is totally lost without 5.1 speakers. There is a "dialog enhancer" feature that raises the volume of the center channel sound, which is useful in a noisy environment. There is also a "dynamic range compression" feature that lowers the volume of loud sound if you feel the soundtrack is too overwhelming.

The LV55 is able to play DVD-Video discs with Dolby Digital or DTS sound, audio CDs, and Video CDs (VCDs). Although the manual says it does not play CD-R discs, it does play CD-R discs that are copied from audio CDs and VCDs.

The player can also send Dolby Digital or DTS signal to an external DD/DTS decoder's optical input, although you need to obtain a miniplug-to-Toslink cable yourself. It can send its video signal (via RCA or S-Video cable) to an external monitor. It can also receive video from, say, a camcorder, so you can view it on the display.

With the battery pack attached, the LV55 weighs 2 pounds and is 1.5 inches thick, which is a little too bulky for me. But I do like the fact that the screen can be flipped open to an almost 180-degree angle, and that the playback is not affected even if I don't hold the player horizontally; that gives me great flexibility in viewing positions.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: ----
Review: Though the LV55 is advertised as having a 5" screen, the actual viewable screen size is 4.8" diagonal, with a 16:9 width-to-height ratio just like a widescreen TV. There are several "display modes" that let you change the image size. One of them lets you enlarge a non-anamorphic image so it will fill the whole screen (albeit resulting in a more pixellated, less sharp display). One of the display modes turns off the display, so that you can save battery power while playing audio CDs.

The LV55 has a screen resolution of 280,000 pixels, which comes to about 700x400 pixels. This is less than the 720x480 resolution that a DVD is able to deliver, but it is enough to give a clear, sharp picture.

This player only lets you adjust color saturation and brightness, and not hue and contrast. Using "Video Essentials" and "Avia Guide to Home Theater" to test the display, I find that the display has a slight over-saturation of red, and cannot display certain grey scales (which could cause "dithering" in playing black-and-white movies). Also, the player has some built-in edge enhancement that strikes me as rather excessive, resulting in "halos" appearing around borders.

The display also has the common overscan problem, which results in a little bit of picture cut off from the left and right sides of the image. Overscanning is common on most consumer CRT and LCD displays.

The built-in speakers produce expectedly tinny sound, considering the player only uses 13 watts of power. A good pair of earphones or headphones is a must, but even so, the advantage of a 5.1 soundtrack is totally lost without 5.1 speakers. There is a "dialog enhancer" feature that raises the volume of the center channel sound, which is useful in a noisy environment. There is also a "dynamic range compression" feature that lowers the volume of loud sound if you feel the soundtrack is too overwhelming.

The LV55 is able to play DVD-Video discs with Dolby Digital or DTS sound, audio CDs, and Video CDs (VCDs). Although the manual says it does not play CD-R discs, it does play CD-R discs that are copied from audio CDs and VCDs.

The player can also send Dolby Digital or DTS signal to an external DD/DTS decoder's optical input, although you need to obtain a miniplug-to-Toslink cable yourself. It can send its video signal (via RCA or S-Video cable) to an external monitor. It can also receive video from, say, a camcorder, so you can view it on the display.

With the battery pack attached, the LV55 weighs 2 pounds and is 1.5 inches thick, which is a little too bulky for me. But I do like the fact that the screen can be flipped open to an almost 180-degree angle, and that the playback is not affected even if I don't hold the player horizontally; that gives me great flexibility in viewing positions.


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