Coby TF-DVD7100 Portable DVD Player
Coby DVD - Big Bang for Your Buck
I am playing with a new Coby TFDVD7100 portable DVD just out of the box using a DVD I made last night. I burned a TV program from the History Channel onto a -R DVD and it worked perfectly.    I have been examining different options for carrying portable video with me using MPM, MPC, and advanced DAP players for several months. Most of these have screens that range from 1.8 inches up to 4 inches. The larger ones only last from two to five hours on a rechargeable battery. All these solutions require BIG BUCKS and are perfect for those who they think nothing of buying $500 toilet seats! But even the Pentagon strives to get a bigger bang for their buck as they look for new ways to blow things up.    I even considered a Sony PSP which has a gorgeous four inch color screen. The problem with the PSP is that the movies you must buy on the little Sony UMB disks are twice the price of a regular DVD and they can not be played on any other device! If you want to put your own video on the PSP you must buy a special memory stick costing around a hundred dollars for one gig. As a matter of fact all the above mentioned solutions require you to transcode video to make it work with each devices unique capability. IMHO that is a lot of work when one can rent video from Blockbuster or buy it at almost any store.     I began to wonder if the simple solution to a big bang in portable video, a portable DVD player might not be a better idea. I can still move video from my PC to any DVD which costs about nineteen cents per disk. Video in formats other than DVD from the Internet can be transcoded up to DVD if needed but may not look as good as material already in DVD format. Therefore I set out this weekend to look at what was on the market.      During the Memorial day weekend a large electronics store ran an ad with the Coby TFDVD7100 Portable DVD Player for under a hundred dollars. When you went into their large cavernous superstore you discovered these where nailed to the floor with a `two foot spike'. Not really but it seemed like it when you tried to buy one. They had the floor sample turned off and the only one nearby for sale was a box that someone had returned. I picked it up and was holding it as I looked at the various portable DVD players on display ranging from the advertised up to about nine hundred dollars. These were all cleverly arranged to the right of the Coby in classic retail fashion since we tend all to look from left to right. The idea is that we will fixate on a solution with a decent margin for the superstore instead of the one advertised as a loss leader.     I tapped a few of the buttons on the Coby but I could not get the screen to display anything and I assumed this piece of junk was so bad even the floor sample was not working. There was no DVD in the unit and I assumed maybe it needed one to turn on. Therefore when the sales clerk was not looking I slipped a demo DVD out of the nine hundred dollar player and popped it into the TFDVD7100.    Still nothing, and now there were several others gathered around the advertised display unit. One noticed I was holding the only one apparently for sale (a previously returned unit) and asked if I was going to buy it. I handed it to him with a resounding no; I don't buy junk at any price. The floor manager walked over and looked wounded that his superstore was accused of selling junk. We all mentioned that it apparently was dead and after examining it for a moment he flipped the power switch on the left side to the on position. He looked at us with a satisfied smile of I told you so until the demo CD began playing. That wasn't supposed to be in there! He didn't want anyone to believe it actually could play DVDs.    The picture was pretty decent, although offset to the right about a quarter inch from dead center on the lid. Looking at it more carefully the LCD was mounted with a black plastic bezel around it which was a half inch on the left and a quarter inch on the right with an eightinch on the top and bottom.    Hah, Coby had made that intentionally so the DVD unit would look like it had some kind of video defect to the casual observer.  The video was clearer then a popular Toshiba 4\\" LCD color TV but not quite as sharp as the Sony PSP.    The volume was also not as great as many of the other DVDs on display. The clerk said that is what you should expect from a low cost DVD player, they had to cut something to make them so cheap. Yeah right, the basic electronics in all these high tech DVD players is exactly the same! There are merely a few cosmetic changes and other twists to differentiate one player from another. I have to admit the odd bezel was clever twist to help slow the sale of these at the advertised price.    I looked at the display unit more carefully then. The volume was adequate for a user in a quite room but it would never do in a car full of kids. The low volume can be handed by using earphones (supplied in the box), a cassette adaptor from the headphone out line to a car radio, an FM adaptor that would broadcast the audio to a car radio/CD player, or even a set of cheap portable amplified speakers which can be had for fifteen dollars and up. There are two headphone ports so two can listen with phones at the same time, one on the left and another on the right. Coby even includes an optical out port for audio on the right side. There is also video out and with the flip of a switch, video in using the video port on the back of the player.     Whoa, wait a minute. Video in! Not all portable DVD players have that feature. That means I can take the simple video output from my Kodak Easy Share digital camera and display pictures I have taken on the larger seven inch DVD screen right away! That means any number of items we have that output video can be hooked up to this portable device. This was a big selling point for what I thought was a piece of junk!     Well at this point I was sorry I had handed the `last' Coby DVD player away.As I wandered out of the DVD area I passed a partial pallet of boxed Coby TFDVD7100 portable DVD players with a sign on top that said they were two hundred dollars. That code, TFDVD7100, looked familiar so I grabbed one and walked back to the advertised display. There was no question that this was another retail trick so that if anyone caused a scene saying they failed to have sufficient stock for the sale they could easily prove that was not the case. You see I have been there and done that when I worked for Kelly and Cohen years ago. There is an art to running a superstore with expensive items and advertising offering low, low prices. Two other tricks I remember where spray painting the inside of an advertised  freezer black and the outside of an advertised portable color TV an ugly grey. The antenna was also disconnected in the back so the customer could not get a clear picture in spite of all his best efforts.    ;>)      So for a period of time while the clerks were not looking I tipped all the customers as to how they could grab the bargain if they were sharp. I like helping these `super stores' move their advertised product!       Well now that I have the time to look at this purchase I see that it is rather well made compared to some of the more expensive DVD players that were on display.  First there is no exposed plastic latch waiting to be broken. The included Coby remote control is nice enough for the price, I have seen better. It is slim and easily drops in your shirt pocket.  There were all kinds of cords and adaptors that are usually extra cost items or optional extras with other DVD players. The thin rechargeable lithium battery, 7.4 volts at 3400mah is very slim and adds only about three quarters of an inch to the height of the base when attached. It needs a nominal nine volts to charge.     I also bought an Energizer rechargeable DVD battery pack rated at 9.6 volts for 4500mha which should add another three hours to the total playtime for a total of over six hours totally portable video away from supplies. The extension battery pack can also be used to power a digital radio scanner and other nine volt devices if needed. IMHO this was a better solution than buying another Coby battery as a backup.    This Coby DVD player also has other uses. I can burn images from my camera to CD and display them on the Coby. I can drop audio magazines in MP3 format that are on CD into this player and they will play. For that matter I can bun CDs with MP3 files such as audio books and lectures and carry them in the car with this player. A person who wanted to could rip several CDs into high quality MP3 and burn them all onto one CD or DVD and play them in the car using this Coby instead of a CD changer. Your imagination and needs are the only limit.    As this Coby sits and `cooks' on my desk I notice that there is the distinct smell of out gassing from the electronics. This doesn't bother me but may alarm other purchasers. The purpose of leaving new electronics on continuously during the first few days is to get them as hot as possible in normal operation so that if any new component is marginal it will fail immediately and I can exchange the Coby for another one or get my money back. If it makes it past the `burn in period' it probably will last its expected lifetime with out any trouble.  Burn in adds to the manufacturing cost/time and it explains why some units are more money at retail. I am sure Coby skipped this step.    One last note, Lithium batteries do not have a memory like NiCad's so frequent recharging a PARTIALLY discharged lithium battery is desirable. Do not leave the battery on the charger after it is recharged, heat can kill a lithium battery's life. Lithium batteries have a finite number of times they can be recharged from a fully discharged condition, but recharging a partially discharged Lithium battery doesn't count towards that lifetime maximum. Lithium batteries also have lifetime that begins when theyare manufactured, so even if you don't use them they will fail after several years of shelf life. Enjoy your DVD lithium rechargeable, take care of it, and it should last you several years.    I hope this simple narrative helps you in looking for a bigger bang for your buck in selecting a portable DVD.    ---        THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX!    You may get an even bigger bang out of your DVD buck.     It sure beats the cost and worry of carrying a laptop and this thing comes with a REMOTE CONTROL and all you need to connect it to other displays!    6/26/2005    PHOTO ALBUM    Remember those days when you sat on a sofa with a picture album as you shared memories with some of your family and friends? My wife of thirty seven years received a CDROM with over 300 photos from an old friend in Florida. She proudly showed me how she viewed them using the desktop PC while I was gone. I had a brief case of heartburn as I asked her if she remembered to scan the CD for viruses before she used it. Off course not, she never thought about that since it was from her friend. I again demonstrated how to check even CDs from friends. Fortunately this time it was clean.    She wanted an automatic slide show instead of opening one photo at a time.  Since she now was hovering over my shoulder I demonstrated how to view them as a slide show on the PC and we enjoyed the pictures again together. But the experience was not the same as when you sit together in the living room.    Again the Coby TFDVD7100 came to mind, portable like a book, feels like a book, operates from a battery, remote.    I took her into the living room where I dropped the CD in the Coby and sat her down with it. To her delight even this home made CD with multiple folders that someone else created played just fine. As expected it ran its own slide show automatically as soon as it was turned on. She didn't even have to press play. Now she and other can experience a photo album in their hands just as they have done for years but electronically.    By the way this way they can not even infect your PC with a virus if they forget to check the photo CD first. ;>)        Vic