DVD Player article

Choosing a Portable DVD Player

A portable DVD player is a compact, lightweight device, roughly the size of a thin, hardback book. It operates on rechargeable batteries, typically for a period of two to three hours, and therefore allows DVD content to be viewed on car, train or aeroplane journeys, or anywhere else where mains power is not available. Portable DVD players are, for example, very popular with children, and parents, on long car journeys, where they can be powered by an in-car charger.

The overall size, and weight, of a portable DVD player governs not only how clearly its screen can be viewed, but also how easy it is to carry around. If you are planning to take a portable DVD player on an aircraft, for example, you will need a model that fits easily and unobtrusively into your hand luggage, but is not so small that you begin squinting at its tiny screen after just five minutes.

The size and resolution of the screen, or display, determines the degree of comfort, and clarity with which you DVD content can be viewed. Some `mini` portable DVD players have screens as small as 4 inches, measured diagonally, but 7 to 10 inches is more typical, nowadays. A larger screen may be important if a portable DVD player is to be viewed by more than one person at a time, for example, by children in the back seat of a car. The fact that the screen measurement is taken diagonally is important when it comes to comparing the specifications of portable DVD players; a 5.8 inch screen, for example, actually has 80% more viewable area than a 4 inch screen.

All portable DVD players will allow playback of commercial DVD and CD media, but you may also like to check the specification for support for MP3, WMA, DVD-R and DVD-RW, if these formats are required. In addition, some, but not all, portable DVD players support JPEG, for displaying digital photographs, and some even include a memory card slot, which allows you to transfer the memory card directly from your digital camera.

Despite technological advances in many other areas, portable DVD players still suffer, on the whole, from poor battery life. Battery, and player, technology is advancing all the time, but if you are intending to use a portable DVD player for longer than two, or maybe three, hours, then it may well be worth investing in a secondary battery pack. An additional battery obviously takes up more space, and adds expense, but, at least means that you can enjoy a portable DVD player for the entire duration of your journey.