Mintek MDP-5861 5-Inch Portable DVD Player
Output to television too dark (0 IRE instead of 7.5 IRE)
In addition to everything else, it's bad for playing DVDs out to a television. The video that it outputs is too dark. I was puzzled so I tested it on a professional video monitor. Instead of outputting a video signal with the \\"black level setup\\" value at 7.5 IRE (the standard for American NTSC televisions), the Mintek is outputting a signal at 0 IRE (the NTSC-Japan and PAL standard). This is not changeable. What a pain. If you were ever thinking of hooking this up to an American television, think again. Yes, I know that some DVD players pretend it's a picture-enhancing feature to allow 0/7.5 IRE switching (some manufacturers call it \\"black level expansion\\"), but really that switching is just to allow better compatibility with different TV systems. This model flunks.