Black Boxes: AIWA XD-DV290U DVD Player
Manufacturer
Aiwa
800 Corporate Drive Mahwah, NJ 07430
(800) 289-2492
www.aiwa.com
Price: $250
When looking for a smart DVD player you'll want one that has some interactive features: items beyond stop, play, on/off. And you'll want a player that has the speed to keep up with interactive DVDs. The Aiwa XD-DV290u has some features that make movie watching a little more interactive, but unfortunately, the model we tested did not hold up well with truly interactive DVD titles.
Opening the Box
The 17x3.2x12-inch Aiwa XD-DV290u weighs in at 7.7 pounds and comes with S-video and composite video output and digital and analog stereo audio outputs. The straight-forward onscreen setup allows you, among other things, to activate parental controls by establishing a rating system and a password. You can also select the TV aspect ratio (letterbox, pan scan or wide screen) to suit your TV. In the sound department, if your system supports them, you can choose from normal stereo to Surround or 3D sound modes.
The Features
The Aiwa has a few interactive features. The XD-DV290u has a zoom function that allows you to zoom in on a frame magnifying a portion of the image either four or 16 times. You can activate the zoom in either play or still modes and a frame appears with the magnification in the upper right hand corner. We were able to move the frame around the picture and lock onto the portion of the frame we wanted to magnify. The quality of both four and 16 times zoom looked good without a distracting amount of artifacts. The unit also supports multiple language subtitles with disks that offer this option.
Some DVDs have scenes shot from multiple camera angles. For those disks, the Aiwa allows you to see various angles simply by pressing the Angle button on its remote.
Crowded is the word that best describes the remote for this player. We feel it has too many instant access buttons for its own good. The buttons themselves are small and sit close together which makes it tedious. While it gave us quick access to every conceivable menu item, we found ourselves searching for the more crucial buttons like enter, stop and play. Though a user will undoubtedly get used to it as he or she plays with it over time, we feel a bigger remote with fewer buttons would have made for a better user experience.
Inter-inactivity
While the Aiwa XD-DV290u has some features that allow interactivity, it did not work well with interactive DVDs. For our testing purposes, we used Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective an interactive DVD movie/game that has a number of short vignettes with branching plot lines and I'm Your Man, an interactive movie with branching plot lines.
We found that with both discs, the Aiwa was slow in switching from scene to scene and was sometimes unable to do so at all.
For example, when we selected one of the branching options in Sherlock Holmes DVD, the Aiwa locked up and would only display a freeze frame. We had to open the tray and close it again to restart the disc, and we had to restart our movie/game from the beginning.
We tried the disc in another DVD player to see if the problem was with the DVD itself. The same disc played fine in the second player (a unit from another manufacturer).
We also found that when we tried to skip to the end of a segment the Aiwa was reluctant to perform the task. When watching I'm Your Man, the viewer is periodically offered options that determine the course of the movie. 90% of the time, these interactive option buttons did not display on-screen when they were supposed to.
The unit would display two of the three options on some occasions, and other times just one. When we moved the navigation arrow in search of the option button and positioned it where the option should be it, would appear. Again, we tried the same thing with another unit, and the icons appeared as they should.
In the End
If your looking for a DVD player that will play movies and allow a limited amount of interactivity, then the Aiwa XD-DV290u will do the job. If you are looking for a smart DVD player on which to view smart DVD titles, you'll need to look elsewhere. We found the XD-DV290u slow to react, when it did at all.
Video Out: Component, S-video, Composite RCA
Audio Out: (digital/analog) SPDIF (RCA, optical), Stereo RCA
Dimensions: 17"x3.2x12
Weight: 7.7 lbs.
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