Customer Reviews

GoVideo PVP4040 Pocket Cinema Portable A/V Player with 3.5-Inch LCD

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

firstly there is substitute firmware around, not hard to find, that really makes this unit work fantastic.

secondly the prices of these are half of what you see here so look around.

I am confused at the previous review because I easily get 2 hours on the onboard lilon battery (not to mention the ac and dc adapters). the killer app is that it takes standard sd card flash mememory and one gig cards are now south of ninety bucks. since the pvp4040 can be bought for one hundred bucks that means less than two hundred bucks get's you a very cool device able to hold over almost four hours of mpeg4 video on "fine" (native 480x240) resolution.

it converts easily to mpeg4 with its own decoders (quite cool and simple) and you can record off of your pcr,or as I do off your pc using any dvd you own or any tv program you captuer if you have a capture card like an ATI. I keep 20 full length 90 minute two hour films converted to mpeg4 at 240x480 on my hard drive. they take less than $5 worth of hard drive space and I can stick two of them on an sd card in about one minute (actually my nine-year old can).

my kid loves this unit for the car. it goes anywhere in your pocket and is a lot hardier then portable an easily broken portable dvd players.

Goto this Yahoo Group below to get the lastest goodies about this PVP404 unit. Like the hard to find firmware updates.. Join the group and stick around!

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GoVideoPVP4040/

CONS: the battery life needs to be improved, but folks are already on the case locating cheaper battery alternatives to the Govideo OEM battery..

F.

I bought this a year ago, and was very disapointed. It had very few features, was hard to use, and SD cars cost so much, it was worthless. Now, there is a firmware update you can get through yahoo groups, that adds all the features of the expensive units, and SD cards are reasonable. I love my new year old toy. You can record video with a timer, and on a 512mb SD card hold 6 hours of video. Everything you need is in the box. Very satisfied. Life is good when the stuff you already own gets better..........

Although I purchased a different unit, the GoVideo 8440 Portable DVD Player, it played exactly 6 movies before dying. GoVideo replaced it with a refurbished model, which arrived in non-working condition. In addition, the original 90 day warranty is still in force, GoVideo refused to extend it to the refurbished unit. Sitting on hold now with customer service waiting for a answer... I heartily recommend NOT BUYING any GoVideo products unless you are prepared for wasted money and time on hold with customer service.

Gives a new life to family movies
Reviewer: Gavin Wilson from Thames Ditton, Surrey United Kingdom
It's fascinating to contrast my experience of this device with the reviews of others. This in itself is testament to the flexibility of the machine.

My situation is that I had several Video8 cassettes gathering dust. They contained priceless material -- films of my children growing up -- but I hadn't got around to watching them for a while. I was also aware that the non-digital format was outdated, and that viewing the films would become increasingly more difficult over time, as the tape ages and manufacturers stop making compatible players.

But with this device, you just plug the camcorder in, press 'play' on the camcorder and 'record', and you're transfering all your analogue material across into digital format. (They come across as .ASF files which Windows Media Player recognises.) Brilliant!

Rather than copy a whole Video8 tape across as one huge file, I tend to break it up into five-minute segments, simply by pressing the 'stop' button, then re-starting.

Anyone with old analogue video material should get one of this type of device. Judging by the other reviews here, the PVP4040 seems as good a device as any.

Most people should pass on this device.

It is probably about 1 or 2 years behind the current portable a/v technology; the screen quality is barely adequate for video or picture playback; the interface is awkward to use; the battery life is short (maybe 45 minutes for video playback and picture viewing); and finally, it is difficult to encode video clips for this device.

Cool concept, small form factor, nice design, but it does not work very well.