A Portable DVD Player with Digital TV - The Envizon Duo Pro (A Second Look)

Introduction
  
After writing about this item several months ago, and after having some more experience with it, I wanted to give this product a second look.  That second look comes in two forms - the short story, and the long story. 

The short story is this:  If you have this item and are under the impression you can't get reliable reception on it, you may want to give it a little more time and effort.  Bringing it, and its antenna, throughout your home and/or yard may not be enough.  I thought I'd covered "every square foot of the house" when I carried the unit and its antenna around, holding both in the air and turning the unit, the antenna, and myself around in one direction or another.  As it is, and apparently, it's not always enough to "cover every square foot" of the house.  At least in my case, it was necessary to cover some different inches/directions within those square feet (and cubic feet of air).

With necessity's being that mother-of-invention we so often hear about, and with some limited success often being what it takes to spur us on to accomplish even greater success; I've now been able to get consistent, high-quality, reception on the digitial TV feature of this unit.  While I once "liked it OK enough, I guess" but pretty much saw the TV feature as a very iffy one; I can now say that I absolutely love this little cutie.


The long story about how this product won me over more than it originally had

Several months ago I wrote about my experience with the Envizon Duo Pro, which is a portable DVD player that has, not only a digital TV feature, but a card reader and ability to work with your video game unit (if you have one, which I don't, because the last video game I spent more than 3 minutes on was Pong). 

In any case, after having the Envizon player for awhile I wrote about my own impression of it.  At the time (and as so many reviews of his DVD player had pointed out), I found getting reception on the TV fairly tricky.  As others had said about the product, I did find the TV to work great when it got reception.  The picture on it is beautiful.  The sound, of course, is nothing like a "real" television, but it's clear when the built-in speakers are what I'm using; and, of course, listening with a headset means getting dramatically better sound quallity.  That's not exclusive to this particular player by any means.

Since I wasn't all that interested in worrying about using the TV anyway, after trying to get reception in one or another place in the house; I accepted that getting consistent reception would be tricky and figured it I'd work on finding "just the right" location for the unit and its antenna at some time when I had the time.   At least where I live (which shows strong on the map that indicates digital TV reception), it's was clear (then, as well as now) that this item isn't something I'll be moving from place to place just because bringing a television with me from room to room might be handy.

When I first had the unit I devoted plenty of time to trying to find "just that right spot" and/or to get some kind of signal somewhere in the house besides the one place I'd managed to get a signal (if only a fairly unreliable one).  Just as the instruction manual had said to do, I'd tried attaching the magnetic antenna to a number of metal objects, including lawn chairs and cake pans.  I tried the obvious items, such as the refrigerator and a couple of other appliances in the kitchen.  There is absolutely no reception in my kitchen, and even the refrigerator couldn't help.  So, I settled on assuming that I'd get iffy reception at best, and that that reception would have to include the unit's being placed on a certain spot on my dining-room table.  Glimpses of temporary, weak, reception have occurred in the living room and kitchen; but they're rare.  Usually, the screen remains black in those rooms and others.

While nothing has changed as far as the reception challenges go, something has changed as far as my own willingness to be persistent in finding "just that right spot" goes.  Not did my willingness to be persistent increase, but I'd eventually figure out that 1) "just that right spot" could be different within a fairly small section of that dining room table, and 2) "just the right spot" wasn't good enough by itself; there needs to be a "just the right spot" (and aim) for the antenna too.  One might wonder if I was an imbecile when it came to TV reception, and I like to think not.  Most of us know that there are some places in the house where televisions and antennas do better.  What I didn't realize with this little portable TV was exactly HOW specifically "right" the spot for BOTH the TV and its antenna (as well as very specific aim of that antenna) had to be.  In other words, it took me more time and effort to eventually figure out those "exact right spots and directions" for both the TV and its antenna; and the only thing that got me to put in that extra time (months after I'd first received the unit) was having a hurricane on the way.  Basically, it took first finding that location where the unit got at least some reception for more than a flash; but then shifting the position of the player around in one, very specific, spot while also trying a seemingly infinited number of locates and angles with each shifted position of the TV.

One might conclude that having this much trouble getting a signal isn't worth it.  Here's where I feel as if I have something more to say about the Envizon player.

When the hurricane was a day or so away, and with my having seen that iffy reception was possible with the unit, I decided to be a little more persistent.  I wasn't having any more luck with reception than I'd had in the first weeks when I got the unit, but the difference was that I tried it in the one or two locations on the table where it got at least some reception.  Finding the rare and perfect spots for both the TV and the antenna wasn't something I was about to spend all my time on, so throughout the day I'd what was happening and maybe try a shift in location for the TV and/or antenna.   Several channels were coming in, but changing channels could, of course, present the need for more shifting.  Remember the metal chairs I mentioned?  This time I tried a different metal chair in a slightly different location, and I seemed to hit on some real reception that stayed for quite awhile.  Once I landed on that, I left the little player right where it was throughout the storm.  I was able to get news and weather on it, even if they did get wavy and flash off throughout.  At least I "got the idea" of what was going on.  Considering a hurricane was going on (even though a downgraded one), I thought that getting any reception at all was great (especially since we had, in fact, lost power twice).  Iffy reception or not, I had gotten to like this little Envizon player more over the course of that day.

Once I'd seen at least that much reception for as long as I had, getting better reception became kind of a quest for me (but not until the day following the hurricane, because I didn't want to rock any "reception boats" that day).  I decided that I wouldn't figure out anything more about just that right spot/set-up by putting the unit back in its case and waiting for another power failure; so I left it on the table in the days to follow, tweaking the position of the unit and its antenna as the signal seemed to come in stronger.  At any number of times when I'd think of it, I'd do another channel scan (which didn't do much, of course, but which made me feel as if I was giving the little TV every possible chance of pulling in whatever signals it could).

Of the course of the couple of days that followed the hurricane, and with "time-to-time" trying, I eventually found the places on the table that lent themselves best to consistent, good, reception.  That wasn't enough, though; so I kept trying a little more with the antenna (and the location of the metal chair it seems to need for consistent reception).  Eventually, I hit on just that right location/direction; and I learned that one channel would require a shift in angle (but only a slight one).  So, since then (and after what I know is more trying than the instruction booklet would seem to suggest), the mini-TV now sits on my dining room table (not that I'd ever planned for this to be a permanent location for it, by any means).  The beautiful picture on it makes it fun to watch.  When I'm alone for meals (my kids are grown, so I often am), I've gotten in the habit of switching on the local news as I eat.  What's nice about the mini-TV is that something like the news doesn't "take over the whole atmosphere" of the room/house.  It just makes that quiet little news spot on the table until it's time to turn it off again.

Now that I've figured out where the mini-TV gets reception, I don't have to leave it on that dining room table permanently.  For now, it's been kind of fun to watch the news as I'm having one meal or another.   Oddly enough (at least in a way), my "real" television (the main television I use) developed "an issue" just days after I eventually figured out how to get reception on the DVD player/TV combo; and although I have a spare that's waiting to replace the TV that's having problems I haven't felt like dealing with moving stuff around to set up the replacement TV - so I've been relying on the little Envizon for days now.  I definitely like this little item a whole lot more now than I did when I'd only had it for a couple of months.

Of course, using DVD's with the unit involves no reception worries; so as I notice that it's just past 9:00 a.m., I'll end here, move the player to the location where I use it for fitness DVD's, and plan to head out to start "riding The Wave", which is an exercise aid that comes with The Firm's "The Wave" fitness program; and which I'll write about next.

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As you must know by now, not all Blackberry models are the same; and installing the SD card on all models isn't the same either.    Don't let the wide variety of models (and talk about how they're all different) intimidate you.  Installing an SD card on your Blackberry 8530 Curve is simple and easy.

Power off your phone.  Remove the back so you can look in and see the battery.  Off to your left-hand side, you'll see a little slot/indent where the SD card will go.  An outline of the card and its shape is there to help show you how the card should be placed in the slot.   It's almost (but not quite) a matter of just laying the card into the indent provided for it, but the bottom edge of the card won't end up exposed (the way it would if it was just a matter of placing it in an indent without also having to slide it farther down into a pocket at the bottom end of the indentation/card.  So, all you have to do is lay the card into the indentation and then slide it down so that a good part of it disappears into the pocket.  It's all pretty obvious once you open the battery compartment and confirm that's where the SD card goes.

The only mistake you may make (as far as I can tell) might be in not pushing the card far enough down into the pocket/slot.  If you don't push it far enough down the device will just act as if you didn't install the card at all (which, essentially, you didn't).    So, just push the card a little farther into the pocket if that happens.

When you turn the phone on you may (or may not) see a fleeting message that the SD card has been installed.

The first thing you need to do before doing anything else is to format the card.   If you go to "Settings" (the one with the wrench icon, just to be clear), and then select, "Memory", you'll see a menu that offers "Formatting" as one of the options.  Select that, and there you'll go.  It's a quick process, but it's an important one that will allow your phone to recognize the card you've just installed.

By the way, here's a good page that kind of tells you everything you may want to know about SD cards.  It's a link to the SD Association's consumer site (who knew there was such a thing, right?):

http://www.sdcard.org/consumers/faq/

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