Philips PET702 7-Inch Portable DVD Player Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)This is a relatively nice unit, but whether or not you should buy it depends on what you watch.It is solidly built, easy to use, plenty loud, and the picture is bright and clear.However, I tested it extensively with various commercial dvd movies and discovered the following:1) widescreen movies in 16:9 aspect ratio (most modern movies) look great as that is the size ratio of the lcd display. 2) ultra-widescreen movies look fine also, though one gets the expected horizontal black bars across the bottom and top of the screen as the pictures adjust to fit the width of the lcd display. 3) old movies and most TV series are a serious problem.One would expect that the player would auto-sense the older 4:3 aspect ratio and display the pictures to fill the height of the display and put vertical black bars on both sides.But, no, every dvd I tried was stretched to fit the 16:9 lcd display width, with the result that all people look like they're 5 feet tall and 3 feet wide (exceptionally funny and ironic on fitness dvd's actually).Really gross distortion and, to me, absolutely unwatchable.Yes, one can go in and manually alter the aspect ratio to 4:3 in the Setup menu (make sure the lid is up or that there is no disc in the player, or one is locked out of this feature), but this setting has no effect on how old movies and TV shows are shown on the lcd display - all are distorted as they are stretched width-wise as I describe above.Perhaps this setting affects the video output that could be fed to a full-size TV set, but I didn't check on that because I bought this unit to view only as a portable.I've spent a couple of hours scouring the web for solutions to this problem with no luck.Needless to say, as a fan of TV and pre-1960 films, I'll be returning this player.Too bad, as it seems very nice otherwise.If you only watch newer movies, I would recommend that you go ahead and purchase it.Good picture, more solidly built than most, and inexpensive.

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Product Description:
Portable 7" TFT LCD portable DVD, 16:9 widescreen, Plays DVD,DVR+R,DVD-R, MP3, CD, Play your favorite movie or listen to you favorite MP3 music or even look at your jpeg picture photos fany time or any place.Has an up to 2 hour rechargeable battery and comes with car adaptor and ac power supply.Simple and easy to operate, built in stereo speakers allows you to enjoy your movies and music wherever you are.