10.2 inches of viewing pleasure; the IS-PDVD10 is a great media player
Written: May 31 '06
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Pros: large screen in a versatile, portable media player
Cons: lack of carrying case is a downside
The Bottom Line: The IS-PDVD10 is a versatile media player with many audio and video options.
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| ivplay's Full Review: Insignia IS-PDVD10 10.2 in. Portable DVD Player |
The Insignia IS-PDVD10 is the newest, top of the line portable media player from Insignia, the house-brand of electronics from retail giant Best Buy. A portable media player at heart, the IS-PDVD10 sports a 10.2" TFT LCD screen and a multitude of audio and video features. Strong battery life and an array of cabling options make this a great player for the family on the go.
At-A-Glance Feature Set
●10.2" 16:9 aspect ratio TFT LCD display
●4800 mAh Lithium Ion battery
●AC and DC adapters included
●A/V input and output cables included
●Coax output to display to TV
●Multiple format support, both for discs and media type
●40-button slim remote with additional 'hard-wired' buttons/sliders on the player
In the box/setup
The IS-PDVD10 comes in a bright green box which contains the above pieces along with a comprehensive, well written manual. The media player itself is rather small and lightweight, attributes which work well for the portable media market. At 10" X 9" X 1 ½" and a little over two and a half pounds, this is a truly mobile offering from Insignia. The player resembles a micro-notebook in that it shares the flip-top design, and with the 180 degree swiveling action it most resembles a tablet PC. The soft rubbery texture of the black casing is reminiscent of an IBM (Lenovo now) notebook and gives the player a tactile feel which should inhibit drops due to slipping out of hand. Magnets on the lid and main body will keep the screen in place while transporting or viewing in tablet mode, and an unassuming Insignia logo is emblazoned on the top of the lid. The remote is slim and light, requiring one small lithium ion battery (included). The buttons on the player itself are silver in color and slightly raised, making them easy to press with even large hands. A satisfying 'click' accompanies each press of a button, letting the user know through feel that the function is working.
Prior to firing up the player the user must insert the battery, which is housed in the rear underneath the player. Plug in the AC power adapter and let the unit set for up to 4 and a half hours to fully charge the battery. (It took a little over 3 hours in my case) The player can be run with the AC adapter inserted, although the battery will not charge at the same time. The DC car adapter will not charge the battery, but will supply sufficient power to the unit to play movies without draining the battery.
The disc area is housed in the bottom half of the unit, under the flip-top lid. Pressing the OPEN button will release a catch that allows the lid to raise, exposing the disc carriage. Insert a disc, close the spring loaded lid and you are ready to view or listen to your media.
Media/Disc formats
When I initially received this player I was impressed by the variety of disk and media formats touted on the box. According to the box (and the Best Buy website) the IS-PDVD10 is compatible with DVD, DVD plus R/RW, DVD minus R/RW, CD, CD-R/RW, MP3 and Picture CD formats. Having discs with all of these formats except for DVD minus R/RW I gave them a shot, and all of them worked well. Discs that were burned by a variety of my disc burners all worked without a hitch. Great! Just for the fun of it I threw in an SVCD disc that I had burned prior to owning a DVD player and to my surprise it played flawlessly as well. Now that I own a DVD burner I probably won't use this option, but it is good to know that you have this available to you if needed. It wasn't advertised anywhere that I noted, but I might have missed it.
As far as media formats go, this can handle most of the widely available formats with the notable exception of DivX and the not-so-notable exception of Windows Media video files. If you burn these with the built-in software for Windows Media Center it will not play on the player, but almost any other software you use should be compatible. For audio files I had no problems with mp3 or WMA files of varying bitrates, and the scrolling track ID is very pleasing. While the random shuffling option for playback of tracks is somewhat useless for DVD and other video discs, this can be very nice for listening to an mp3 compilation, for sure. While I don't regularly use photo CD's, we did have one from a wedding that we attended that I put into the player. The disc was chock full of jpeg images and viewing them was no problem for this player. Most any other type of image file is not supported including somewhat popular BMP, GIF and TIFF formats.
Personal Use
Since receiving the IS-PDVD10 we have used it in a variety of ways. First, my wife and I used the player to watch a video while out on the deck watching the boys play. The player worked perfect for this application although the concept failed us. We failed to take into account the boys interest in movies over the outdoors, and soon we had three attentive little faces glued to the player. While it didn't last long, we did notice that for this application the screen is not quite bright enough to be viewed in direct sunlight. Playing with the adjustable contrast and brightness helped some, but unless the screen is facing away from the sun it is difficult to make out the action on the screen. Having failed at this due to the child interaction, I put a compilation CD of mp3 music in, adjusted the settings to shuffle the tracks in random order and set it to playing while we worked in the garden. The speakers are somewhat tinny (as is to be expected in a player of this size) yet the music was clear and loud enough to be heard over various background noises. My wife has since used the PDVD10 to listen to audio books while planting flowers, and she was very pleased with the results… That is, she was pleased once I turned off the random shuffling track mode! The equalizer has several presets including audio books, and this does make quite a difference in sound so long as headphones or external speakers are employed. Dolby surround, reverb settings and stereo/mono presets are all present to customize the listening experience.
Over the Memorial Day weekend the family went for a camping trip to the lake. The trip over was much easier with the PDVD10, as once the boys got a little antsy in the back seat of the GMC we fired up the player. With the screen swiveled to the back and setting on the console all three boys had acceptable viewing, and the sound was loud enough to be heard over the environmental noise associated with a truck pulling a fifth-wheel trailer. The swivel feature was nice, as we could point the screen to the back and cut down on the din heard in the front seat adequately. The player was very stable in this position and only fell off the console once while driving up a steep incline over a washboard gravel road. All in all it was a pretty good experience. Once we arrived at the campsite, about 10 kids fell upon the DVD player at various times to watch their favorite toons. With this many kids crowding for a look the viewing angles were not sufficient, as some of the children around the edge had poor image quality. That didn't stop them from crowding the screen, though! For the three kids in the backseat the angles were good enough to view the show, but more than this and some get poor imaging…
My wife and I wanted to check on the weather as we had heard rumor of tornado and hail warnings, so we fired up the TV tuner in the camper and connected the player via the AV in plugs. While we were able to watch TV through the player, it was a pretty futile experience. Why not just watch the TV sitting right next to it? We reversed the cords to the AV out and were able to watch a DVD through the main TV screen with no problems, however, and I think this will be our preferred method of connection in the future.
During the return trip it rained hard, and the littlest son fell fast asleep. It just so happened that I had two sets of MP3 player headphones in the truck, (I don't recall why at the moment) so we connected them to the headphone jacks which allowed two boys to enjoy their show while the third one slept on in relative silence. I say relative as we did have a disagreement regarding the proper volume setting for the DVD, but that was reconciled fairly quickly with a few threats of 'pulling the truck over'.
During this trip we had outstanding battery life. While in the truck we had the player connected via the DC power cord, saving on battery. I brought along the AC cord to recharge the player if needed, but after watching three cartoons at an hour's length each the battery low indicator hadn't yet alarmed. Halfway through the next show we had to plug it in to recharge, and after two to two and a half hours we were ready to go again.
Overall
Overall, the Insignia IS-PDVD10 is an outstanding player. It can play most any format of media (including SVCD which I didn't find mentioned anywhere) and with the longer-than-expected battery life it is set up for a long haul. The video quality is very good, and the audio is excellent when hooked up to headphones or an external system. Multiple audio-video connections make this a very versatile player, and with a 16:9 aspect you can play either widescreen or normal video. The 32X forward and reverse as well as the zoom features are as expected, and the included speakers make this very versatile. The only thing I would like to see added to the system would be a carrying case for transportation or hanging from a seat back in a vehicle, but I am sure something can be rigged up to make this happen. The IS-PDVD10 is a very good value for the money, and I would highly recommend it to anyone searching for a portable media player.
I happily received this DVD Player from Hass MS&L in exchange for my honest review.
Recommended:
Yes
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