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"Great product, great portability." on by Pro Edit
Pros: Good screen maintenance, whole unit cleans up well. Multiple presentation modes. Ability to display images from something other than a disc. Multiple power sources. Product size vs Image size.
Cons: 6 hour battery life max, (if headphones are used and the screen backlight is set to minimum brightness).
Summary: I am an independent camera operator / videographer. Since 1991, my work has been seen on national television.
The 3 main selling points for me with this product were; 1) The classy looks for business lunch meeting presentations. 2) Portability and ease of maintenance. And finally 3) The ability to send audio and video signals to the unit for preview before rolling tape in the camera.
Much of my work is single camera productions with the client present on the set location. Having the ability to show my client what the camera is "seeing" and "hearing" is always a major plus! This makes for little to no suprizes with the finished product after editing.
Being highly mobile and packing light is tops on my list for single camera on location work. Having three different power source options, (AC / DC and a rechargable battery plate), was another major selling point for me. Because of the 12 volt, (negative ground), powering option, I can use this unit at any location for longer than the 5-6 hours stated by Sony.
The fit and finish of this product make the statements of, "Excellence" and "Professional" to my clients. I see it on their faces. While I am not a Sony product fanatic, (meaning I'll buy anything that has the Sony brand name on it), I know a good product when I see it, and this one suited my needs perfectly. -
"not bad, less than expected from Sony - I would say 6.5" on by donaldov
Pros: great aesthetics and feel .. its a Sony
Cons: disappointing contrast
Summary: I did something I never do when buying electronics. I bought this one sight-unseen. My previous player (Panasonic LS50 died and would cost $170+ to repair). I figure you have to look at these units as pretty much disposable anyway, so I bought a Sony. Any and every other Sony product I have ever owned performed great and I expected that it should be just fine.
Out of the box, I have to say that I was impressed. The look and feel of the unit is great. I like the all black look and the Hard Coating over the display actually serves to create a nice integrated panel - you don't feel like you have any wasted real estate. The battery is a slim element with the same footprint as the overall unit and is pretty slick. The controls are ok. I actually don't like them below the screen. If you are holding the unit in your hands, your thumbs more naturally go to the top side of the player as opposed to the screen. Also, the control dial is pretty small so getting it to respond correctly can be tricky. I did like the ability of the screen to rotate all the way around and fold over so the unit can be used as a tablet. All in all, I think the look/feel/controls are better than most I have looked at.
Viewing a DVD on the other hand is not all that pleasant. I was very disappointed at the darkness of the picture. I adjusted the contrast and the brightness, but to little avail. The picture by default is very very dark - and I mean unwatchable. Daylight scenes were dark and night scenes were almost completely black. Adjustments to brightness/contrast resulted in washed out picture. Oh the angst of buyers remorse. I did find a solution, however. I had to tilt the screen about 5-10 degrees TOWARDS my face. Typically, these things perform better tilted somewhat AWAY from your face. With the screen tilted to me, I could get the picture as the movie was intended. I am thrilled to have found a solution, but A, this isn't the preferred ergonomic viewing angle, and B, I suspect this will not work well on a flight being shared by two people. One other complaint is that the unit has very little to offer in the way of controls. While trying to resolve the contrast issue, I had hoped to find additional presets carrying embedded picture configurations which may have helped. None were to be found. You have only the most basic ability to adjust the picture. On a positive note, I did think the picture was pretty good - maybe not as crisp as the Panasonic, but as good or better than anything I looked at in stores for a similar price.
I bought this sight unseen because none of the retailers had this unit on display. I wonder is the Sony reps have also experienced this picture contrast/display angle issue and decided to keep them off the display shelf. On the other hand, maybe I just have a faulty unit. I don't know. I will keep it as I can reasonable watch movies now, but I would have expected more. -
"Decent player with great battery life" on by yophoto91
Pros: Price, Battery Life, Includes car adaptor
Cons: Screen is average but it gets the job done
Summary: I looked around for a portable DVD player that would suit my needs and decided to pick up the Sony dvp-fx810. I went for this model because I wanted a player with battery decent life. This player feels pretty solid in your hands. The "door" for the DVD changer feels a bit flimsy but it gets the job done. The tablet feature is a nice addition that I find very useful at times. There are some glare issues that can annoy you at times but I guess that is with any portable device that has a large screen. As said in the Cnet review its hard shiny lcd surface doesn't help the problem. However, there are ways to minimize the glare by tilting it in different directions. Annoying but possible to work around. Sound quality from the speakers was surprisingly decent in my opinion but the max volume isn't nearly loud enough. This doesn't matter to me because I will be using headphones 100% of the time to help conserve battery. Now to picture quality. I saw some of the other reviews for this player right before I received mine and I was very concerned if I would be satisfied with it. It turned out to be a lot better than expected. Don't get me wrong, the screen is definitely cheap and of average quality but it gets the job done. People need to remember that this is a portable device. A nicer screen will probably consume more juice and cost more. Upon turning on the DVD player for the first time I was surprised by how bad the text looked (the words: DVD Player) but once I popped in a DVD it looked much better. Subtitles are easy to read. Battery life was better than expected. Although Sony claims 6 hours I was expecting to get 4 and a half. It was nice to find out that a fully charged battery can squeeze out about 4 hours and 50 minutes (using headphones at medium volume and turning down the backlight a bit from the default setting). The buttons on the player feel pretty solid and the joy stick works pretty well. When hooking this player up to a TV its output quality is excellent. All in all I'm pretty satisfied with my purchase (cost me $185 shipped). Would recommend this player if you are concerned about battery life.
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"Excellent Quality and Features" on by cantaffordit
Pros: Elegant design, doesn't look cheap like most. Simple to use, excellent picture
Cons: doesn't support secondary formats like VideoCD or DivX
Summary: I use this only for commercial DVDs and home video, so it has the perfect fature set for me. Good quality, and the battery sits under the player rather than hanging off the back the way cheaper styles do. Very nice unit.
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"Don't buy this dvd player" on by ceceandlee
Pros: small size, attractive, nice headphone
Cons: picture quality very poor
Summary: This is the only time I have ever bought any electronic equipment without reading the cnet ratings from actual buyers. What a mistake. I have always had great quality from sony from tvs to dvd players to cameras. This was the first time sony has disappointed me. The picture quality is extremely poor, grainy, blurry, and poor color. Even after adjusting everything possible it was only a slight improvement in quality. My old Mitek, which is old and falling apart still wins hands down in picture quality. I am giving this to the grandkids and buying something better.
Sony DVP-FX810 user reviews
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