Panasonic DVD-LV50 5 in. Portable DVD Player

Panasonic's DVD-L50 Portable DVD Player is probably the best one on the market at the moment. The features are extensive and you can even use it as a double for your home DVD player if you don't want to buy a second one.

I recently purchased Panasonic's L50 Portable DVD Player and absolutely love it. I liked it so much, that I went and sold my Toshiba SD-6109 Integrated Stereo Receiver and DVD Player, and I now use solely my L50 for both portable DVD and home DVD.

The DVD-L50 weighs 2.10 lbs with the battery attached, and considerably less without the battery attached. The long-life battery provides up to 3 hours of viewing time and is good for over 300 charge cycles (at which point you will need to buy a new battery.) The take-home point here is that you should disconnect the battery pack while running the DVD player using the AC-adapter.

The player dimensions are 5.5" by 6" by 2" thick. It features a built-in, 5" LCD monitor with 280,000 pixel resolution for absolutely stunning picture quality with an almost 180-degree viewing angle. The touch of a button lets you select either the 4:3 standard TV screen dimension or the 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio supported by most DVD titles.

It includes Advanced Virtual Surround Sound and a DTS? audio output.

One of the COOLEST features is the "credit card" sized remote control that comes with the unit and allows you to control just about every feature on the main unit (except turning it off.. go figure?). The fast-forward and rewind features have about 5 different speeds and another cool feature is that the sound still plays during 2X play (when most DVD players cut the sound at all Fast-Forward speeds.)

Although designed to travel, as I mentioned above (that I use it as my home system) the ultra-compact "Palm Theater" DVD-L50 offers the same wide array of features found on full-size DVD decks. Outputs include S-Video Composite Video, Direct Digital Audio Output, and if you can take advantage of the hard-to-find Optical Audio Output. (Optical Cable is NOT supplied in the package.)

The 10-bit video DAC (digital-to-analog converter) provides near perfect picture quality and reduces almost every digital artifact. It also has on-screen menu icons, however if you can figure these out, please email me as I still can't understand them. (Though, perhaps if I read the manual more carefully that would help.) Of course, I'm revealing another great feature: Ease-Of-Use! You don't even need to read the manual to get it working. Just pop a DVD in and plug in the AC-adapter and you are ready to go. (If you're going to travel with it, you will need to charge the battery first!)

The DVD-L50 also has built-in speakers which function very well, though somewhat "tin-ny", a provided headphone jack allow private listening for reduced noise-pollution as any good airplane traveller would want to avoid. If you have the capabilities, the L50 also feature DTS and Dolby Digital decoding for the ulitmate stereophonic euphoria with the right home theater system!

If you can afford it, the Panasonic DVD-L50 is the way to go! Presumably, the price will drop later in the year, which may be a better time to buy for value oriented consumers! However, for those of you who are willing to splurge on yourself or a loved one, you will not regret it with this gadget!