Aiwa XD-DV480

Author's product rating:   

Picture Playback	Satisfactory
Sound Level	Good
Range of Features	Average
Durability	Good
Value for Money	Good

Advantages:	Great Vaule for money, Great Sound, Good name
Disadvantages:	Doesn't look as sexy as some other players

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Call it a bargain, budget, low-end, entry level- sub £200. Let me tell you, DVD players are opening doors of home cinema to an ever-increasing audience. A friend of mine let me borrow this Aiwa XD-DV480 and I can say it nudges into all of the above categories and begs a mention in the all-important ‘value for money’ listings too.

I think the price tag inevitably means a few restrictions that the big boys treat with contempt, but this Aiwa’s simplicity factor is ideally suited to the market. The basic design is far from spectacular, but all the necessary features and manual controls are neatly displayed.

The technical stuff is encased in standard silver casing and there’s no over-the-top attempts to disguise the unit’s budget status with misplaced showing off.

Round the back, there are suitable connections including a SCART socket with RGB output and S-Video. Both optical and coaxial connections are not always found on the kind of player that lines supermarket shelves, but the XD-DV480 is a long way from any frozen food counter.

As an established hi-fi manufacturer, I would say Aiwa carries the same showroom quality into the DVD market, and I’m always pleased to see big companies with low prices.

From my experience a name is not usually a guarantee of quality, but you can usually rely on long-term technical support and replacement products, an assurance that shopping trolley players cannot always give. Still, it’s when you hit the play button that all this bargain jousting really matters, and I would say the XD-DV480 proves it can compete on screen as well.

With its strong audio background, it’s no real surprise to me that Aiwa can pump out quality sound from its DVD player. The 5.1 output played clearly through my speaker setup with hardly any distortion, the dialogue in particular held up impressively well. Even in stereo, the theme song guy showpiece at the start of 'The Emperor’s New Groove' still had that hip-swaying quality that I do enjoy.

Sadly, the 3D-surround effect didn’t really seem to have that much effect, though. The sound did carry a little wider, but lost some of the sharpness of the original stereo setting.

Without as much experience in the DVD world, Aiwa doesn’t quite offer the same quality of visual performance. I found nothing significantly wrong with the picture, the images remained smooth, received little pestering from the fuzziness demon and had well blended colours.

However I judge these things comparatively and the my fussy eye soon picked up when the big scenes from the over-watched Gladiator failed to hit the same degree of sharpness or distinction of colour that I have enjoyed in the past with my players.

The remote fits well with the DVD despite its contrasting black design. It’s light weight and the sunken centre with the multi-directional controls makes navigating the basic menu options an easy and comfortable experience. It’s well laid out, simply to use, the other controls are well spaced out and the shortcut buttons include slow-mo. The only awkward thumb stretch is for the Play button, but hey, you only need to press it once.

The lack of decent control features is a little disappointing and the menu system too simplistic. The picture and audio selections are limited to the bare essentials and each fine-tuning option has only a few minor adjustments.

Still let’s not forget that for people who only want to spend a couple of hundred pounds on a DVD player, the bewildering array of complex menus you’d find on a top-end model would be a little importance.

So if you want a good quality, no fuss DVD player then the XD-DV480 will do the job very well. I think it offers a better performance than the majority of Tesco’s budget buys can provide for only a few pounds extra.