Customer Reviews

Initial DVD-5820 Portable DVD Player with 5.8-Inch Screen

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I bought this for my husband for his Christmas present. I was skeptical about getting it because I thought for the price it would be a piece of junk, but I was sooooo wrong!!!! This is a great portable dvd player for the price! The picture is great, the sound is good, and it is not complicated to work at all!
My husband does a lot of driving for work and takes this with him every day & loves it! It has 2 hours battery life for watching dvd's, and 4 hours battery life if you are just listening, not watching the screen. But, you don't have to worry about battery life half the time because it comes with a car charger and a home charger.
You can also plug it into any TV and use it as a regular stationary dvd player!!! We have it in our bedroom to watch movies at night! It works just as good as the dvd player in our living room!!!
Can't beat it for the price!

I bought this portable DVD player to watch DVD movies and my own home made DVD+R's at work, to my surprise it plays everything it advertises and also DVD+R's and DVD+RW's, one thing it fails to mention and it really should is the Surperb Audio system for earphones, the built in speakers are no better than whats on a laptop but put on a very good pair of earphones and tweak the audio from the built in equalizer, bass boast and super boast and you have the sound and feel of very large and good theater sound system, its about the best sound system I have heard from a portable item. Picture quality very good, widescreen is a plus. This will also play VCD, XVCD, SVCD, XSVCD of any bitrate and resolution, I made a 704x480 at 4000 bitrate as a non complaint MPEG2 SVCD and it played it back perfect.

About 2 yrs ago I forked out about [$$$] for a top name state of the art portable dvd player and eventually sold it ... because I felt so guilty for buying such an expensive toy.
I bought this one thinking it was okay to indulge since it was so much cheaper and thinking it would be inferior to the one I had before--I was wrong...this brand offers more than the name brand of more [$$$] offered 2 years ago. This dvd player has superior sound, picture and bells and whistles that a toy of this magnitude should have. The fact that it comes with a car adapter and a four-hour battery should be enough that one buys this one instead of the [$$$] huge screen-name-brand (and lets face it, buy a laptop if you want a huge screen). The only thing that I have a problem with, and this is by no means initials fault, is that it is a square size instead of rectangular, so it doesn't fit into the old case I had bought for the old one...I can't praise this item enough...If your looking for a fun, portable toy for a great price...this is it.

"Who is Initial? I've never heard of them." Is what I said when I first received the Initial 5820 portable DVD player. It had been a gift from a friend who had received it as a free gift, as part of a special promotion from Phillips-Magnavox.

I had been considering buying a recognizable name brand portable DVD player, when a friend told me to wait. I'm glad I did.

I didn't expect much (considering Inital is an unknown brand), but it's unfair to judge the product before seeing how it performs. The picture quality is excellent - As good as a 5.8" widescreen LCD display can get. The colors are very vivid and natural-looking. The display itself appears to be flawless with no visible "dead pixels" which tend to plague LCD screens. The 5.8" screen seems to be a perfect size for a portable player - not too big, but not too small.

The built-in speakers aren't the greatest in the world, but they get the job done and don't sound bad by any means. Since it's a portable player, my main interest is being able to catch-up on my movie watching while riding on the train to and from work every morning. With that said, I listen to the audio with a pair of good headphones (Koss Pro-35 from Radio Shack) and I must say that the sound is outstanding.

Feature-wise, Initial included all of the features you commonly find on a full-sized player. Although not all of them are accessable on on the player-itself, they are available via a fully featured, credit card sized remote control.

If you need another stand alone DVD player to hook-up to an extra TV, this portable little dynamo can do the job. It features a digital coaxial output for audio, and a 1/8" to RCA Video and Audio (sorry no S-Video).

Overall, you get a high quality portable player - for a relatively low price. If you are considering a name brand machine, give Inital a try - for the price I am willing to bet that their quality can not be beat!

This was purchased as a Christmas present for an 8 year old girl who wanted a portable T.V. more than anything. I felt this might be more versatile since she would be able to watch what she wanted rather than whatever was on at the moment. She has since gotten a lot of use from the unit. It seems to be durable enough to take the abuse a child can dish out as well as easy enough for a child to operate.

I feel my money was well spent on this DVD player. It may not be the top of the line model, but it has certainly earned its keep in our household.

The screen is a little hard to see at certain angles, but this can be recitfied by adjusting it back and forth. I have even taken the unit to work with me on slow days to watch with about 5 of us gathered around the screen. The speakers on the unit are reasonable and small portable speakers can be attached with ease too.

This DVD player can be hooked up to a full sized T.V. set if desired and in this application has great video and audio output. Cables for most newer sets are conveniantly included. The tiny remote control makes it just as convenient as a conventional player.

The battery life seems to be about 3 hours most of the time (just enough to watch your favorite movie and see a few of its special features.) It is perfect for toting along with your favorite movies anywhere you might end up.

I was initially going to buy a more expensive DVD player at CC but was so impressed by this model (which was rebated for a good price) I bought it instead (two of them actually).

The picture quality is good (hint make sure you go into setup and set the 'TV' display to wide screen, at least when watching wide format shows - makes a difference in quality on LCD).

IMO the 5.8" screen is ideal in the fact that this player is no bigger than a normal CD player. As long as the player is close to you that size is pretty good. It works well if no more than a couple of people are watching it.

The sound is also good (given the size) and is loud compared to other DVD players. (Another hint - change the equalizer setting to live, etc. to get louder sound).

I can also play SVCD and DVD+R disks in the player although this appears to be undocumented. This is good news if you have computer with a CD/DVD burner.

My only real complaint is with the battery pack design. Instead of attaching neatly onto the bottom of the player like some models, it is 'hung' on along the back and plugged into to the players power connector. This is kind of minor but I would have prefered a more integrated design. A larger complaint related to this is the battery cannot be charged at the same time the DVD is in use. I would have rated the player 5 stars except for this.

Also, it has a red light that illuminates when the power switch is turned off. I've noticed this in other low end players like Mintek. What is the purpose of this function? It seems pointless and irritating to me.

One other minor complaint is most functions can only be accessed with the included remote control. This is also common to a lot of players. It seems like they could at least use the joystick to navigate the setup menus and such.

For the right price this is a very good player and is highly recommended.

We took a chance and bought this product late 2001. We never heard of the company but decided to take a chance. For over a year this DVD player was used EVERY day for at least 12 hours. It has been used on several trips running for over 10 hours non-stop each way as well as visits to clinics, hospital stays, and family visits.

The only problem that I had with the player was that the pole for the power jack (AC/DC) gets loose after a while. Just a minor design flaw (lack of better support for the pole) that really is a matter of the USER taking care when moving the unit when the AC adapter is plugged in. I managed to fix this short myself by taking the unit apart and heating up the solder area under the pole with a soldering iron.

So, I am surprised to see so many negatives for the Initial products overall. When we bought the unit AudioVox, SONY, Panasonic, RCA, and others were at least 50% higher in cost. The DVD player is STILL going strong. The hinge for the LCD screen is still working very well. I highly recommend this product for overall quality, reliability, and durability. Only reason it did not get 5 stars is because of the minor design flaw mentioned above. I found the same type of power jack on other brands so I would not be surprised if they also have this problem. My two year old and his little sister was the main audience for this unit the first two years. We managed the use of it for them most of the time but kids are curious and we often found our son trying to learn how to use it. He learned how to use it and you know that kids his age are not gentle so I have to emphasize the unit's durability.

Picture quality and sound are VERY good. After all, this is a portable DVD player - not a full size progressive scan player that is connected to a $500+ AV receiver and an HDTV capable monitor. By the way, I have connected it to a TV and home theatre system several times, great picture and sound - amazed family and friends.

DVDs that would not play in a non-portable player worked fine in this one. I do hope that this helps - I did four months of research before buying the product. I am going to buy the 7" unit so the adults can watch a movie while away from home as well.

The Initial DVD-5820 is my first portable DVD player. Actually, it's my first DVD player(if you can believe that), so I don't know what to measure this unit against. However, from what I can see from this product thus far, it's very good. I, like many others, had bought this unit based on the reviews. I was at first a little weary about purchasing it because I have never heard of the Initial brand. However, the reviews were good and the price was right so I went for it. I'm glad I got this unit because once I got it hooked up and started playing my first few DVDs, I was quite impressed.

First off, when I got this unit out of the box I was amazed at how small it was. I would say the measurements around are about the size of a portable CD player but it is too thick to be size of one.

When I opened it up the 5.8" screen looked quite small but when you start watch DVDs, the picture is so crisp and clear you forget how small the screen is. With the screen being the size it is, you can't really entertain your friends but can think of anything you watch on it as being your own private screening.

I was also fascinated by the sound quality. It's actually better than my labtop's. But the sound gets even more remarkable when you hook up some headphones to the player. I'm not exaggerating, you sound like you are at a movie theater. You get to hear the Dolby Digital Sound or DTS in all their glory.

This product also has the great features that a normal size DVD player would have. It plays DVDs, CDs, DVD-Rs, CD-Rs, etc. with ease. I haven't had any problems with that.

I just have a few gripes about this unit but they are minor.
My first one is that the DVD to TV output is horrible. If you plan on using this unit for your main or home based DVD player you will be disappointed. If you are lucky you will be able to find a movie that you can watch clearly on both the player and the TV but most do not. I have had many movies that played excellently on the DVD player but horribly on the TV. Where they showed beautifully on the player, they showed distorted and fuzzy on the TV screen.

The last two gripes are that the rechargeable battery life(if fully charged) is much too short, around 2 hours or so. If you plan on watching one of those long, 3-5 hour movies, you better plug the unit in instead of depending on the battery.
Also, I wish the remote had a power button(to turn the unit on and off) and a volume button.

Like I said earlier, these gripes are minor. If you decided to buy this unit you will not be disappointed. It's solidly made with great features and an even greater price. You can't go wrong here.

I bought this gadget for my nephew. The idea was to give him something to entertain him in the back seat while his parents drove. I put it together to make sure everything worked and fell in love with the idea of a personal DVD player.

First, the screen is miniscule (5.8 inches) but the picture is quite clear. You can watch the screen as it is or hook it up to a television. Perfect for a hotel room if you don't want to put up with the same tired old satellite movies. Good entertainment for long flights without the airline ads. And if I'm late at the office I can prop it up on some books and enjoy some different backgound noise (yeah, I used to do my homework with the radio on, also). Let's not mention sitting out in the yard swing catching up on Campion and fighting off mosquitoes.

I've owned it for about a month now without problems. We'll have to wait and see what is going to happen when the warranty gives out. (Remember state law sometimes gives you more warranty protection than the manufacturer promises.)

For the person who couldn't find contact information for Initial Technology, Inc, there's a web site with an 800 number and address on the net. The physical address is on the packaging.

I bought this product at Walmart over a year ago and it has worked beautifully ever since. Boy, have the portable DVDs come down in price since then! I paid almost twice as much for this unit. At these prices, I would have gotten a larger screen, but the 5.8 size has not really mattered. I got it to keep my toddler entertained on trips, but it has also come in handy when the power has gone out in my house during storms. It sure was nice keeping my 3 year old distracted watching Dora rather than watching the lightning. I have never had it run out of battery life on any flight, but I wish I would have bought the extra battery while I had the chance. It is currently unavailable, but I think there is an alternative rechargable that is compatible with many different portables that I plan to buy. I would definitely recommend this product.