Panasonic DVD-LV55 Portable DVD Player
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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.<br />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.<br />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.<br />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.  <br />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.<br />The LV55 is able to play DVD-Video discs with Dolby Digital or DTS sound, audioCDs, 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.  <br />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.  <br />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.