Photo gallery: Sony MV-65ST DVD StationDesign
As portable DVD players go, the MV-65ST DVD Station is a tad on the bulky side at 285 x 72 x 453mm. That's mostly because it's been designed with in-car playback in mind; it lacks an internal battery, so unless you've got a 12v (think in-car cigarette lighter) or 240v (plain old wall socket) power supply, you're not going to be watching a whole lot of anything.
The MV-65ST loads in DVD, CD Audio, MP3 CD and JPEG CDs in via a slot-loading drive that sits on one end of the unit. We specify 'end', because with a horizontally rotatable display that can also be vertically flipped, you could conceivably watch DVDs from a wide variety of different angles -- although we'd suggest that setting up the unit with the slot set to drop discs out of the bottom could only be a recipe for disaster.
To facilitate in-car entertainment for the backseat passengers, the MV-65ST comes with a set of mounting hooks and straps that allow you to set it up behind one of the front seats, or inbetween them, depending on the layout of your vehicle and your desired viewing parameters. Now, time and the general unavailability of every car ever made restricted the number of vehicles we could test setting up the MV-65ST with; we had to settle for a rusty 1988 Holden Astra Hatchback and a much more recent Honda CR-V.
The MV-65ST boasts a 16:9 screen that measures 143 x 79mm (that's 6.5" for those of you who prefer an imperial measurement). To a certain extent we could see an argument here for a 4:3 unit; we suspect there'll be a reasonable market for parents buying the MV-65ST to keep the kids quiet in the back, and very few children's DVDs are in a widescreen aspect. Then again, if you're planning a long road trip with friends, it'd be a great way to wend your way through all of The Lord Of The Rings Movies -- presuming you're driving from, say, Brisbane to Melbourne, of course.
Features
The MV-65ST features two headset sockets -- although headphones are not supplied; presumably Sony would be happiest if you went out and bought a whole bunch of MDR-A35G headphones. There's also the obligatory remote control, although we would have been happier to see a cabled remote on this unit, rather than the chunky IR number Sony supplies; we can see it being lost down the side of a seat faster than you can engineer an argument between the kids as to what it is they'd actually like to watch. A cabled remote would also have removed the issue of having to accurately aim the remote. Basic playback control is also possible via buttons on the screen face and slot side of the MV-65ST.
Performance
Installing the MV65-ST into our test vehicles demonstrated a few basic flaws in the MV65-ST's design. First of all, it's a pretty bad idea to try to install it by yourself; you'll find the whole endeavour much easier with a second person to hold the unit roughly where you want it to go while the first person works out where to hook up the connecting straps. Having done that, in theory all you need to do is tighten the straps and get going. In our experience, however, it wasn't quite that simple. Actually lining up the hooks to the MV65-ST, and then getting them into a position in our test vehicles where we felt safe was a job in itself. Ideally, you'd want to be able to snap the MV65-ST into place; in both of our test cases we were looking at five minutes or more to get the MV65-ST set up correctly. Bear in mind, too, that you'd be reversing the procedure every time you stopped the car and got out, unless you felt like risking some expensive gear at every food stop on a road trip.
In both of our vehicles, the angle of the seats put the screen at a rather odd default angle. While the screen we tested was stiff enough in motion to place outwards at a suitable angle, we can't imagine it'll keep that stiffness over time. Much better results were found suspending the unit inbetwen the two main seats (in the Astra), or simply placing it on the lap of the backseat passenger wanting to watch (in the CRV).
The speaker on the MV-65ST can broadcast some quite loud sounds, and we feel duty-bound at this point to profer to the following warning: it would be a very, very bad idea to have the kids watching a car chase movie, or even something with plenty of sirens in it, while you're concentrating on the road. Although it's certainly physically possible, it'd also be a bad idea to install the MV-65ST into the front seat area of your car. Now, back to your regularly scheduled review...
Although it bears a region four sticker, the MV65-ST we tested with had no problems playing back discs from any region we threw at it, correctly identifying NTSC and PAL discs and reproducing screen contents as well as you could reasonably expect on a unit of this size.
CNET.com.au's Pam Carroll contributed to this review.
