Ovideon Aviah 5GB Portable

Posted 07/07/2005 at 2:56pm | by

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"Portable video player seeks bright, high-contrast display with super-wide viewing angle, lush color, and fast refresh rate for dating and possible LTR.”

It was a pathetically optimistic request, but lo and behold, along came organic light-emitting diode (OLED) screens with all those features, and flowers and candy too. Ovideon’s Aviah portable video player/recorder sports the first full-color OLED display we’ve seen in a shipping product. Though OLED isn’t exactly a disappointment, we remain skeptical about this particular relationship.

Before we obsess over the novelty of OLED technology for viewing movies and photographs, let’s inventory all the features packed into this 5-ounce PDA-size doohickey. You won’t be surprised to find the integrated FM tuner—you probably won’t even care—but we love the Aviah’s built-in TV tuner. It accepts signals via a telescoping antenna or RF cable adaptor (both included). Reception was well above average for a portable TV, and the Aviah even lets you record analog broadcast signals to the player (or signals from analog sources, via the included composite cable) to the Aviah’s internal 5GB hard drive in one of three quality settings, without the hassle of “digital rights” restrictions.

The Aviah plays MP3 and WMA tracks, but not AAC, protected WMA, or even WAV files. Compared with dedicated MP3 players, it’s downright inconvenient; you can’t, for example, fast-forward to the next track with a button press—you have to stop the current track first, then select the next track in your music folder. Some editors thought the sound was a hair flatter than A-list players, but there was no consensus, and surely not enough agreement to merit a spanking. The peak volume will blow your cap off.

On our first date, the Aviah’s 521x218, 2.2-inch display was a Technicolor dream. Its colors were brighter and more saturated than anything we’ve seen on a handheld—even a high-end PDA like Dell’s X50v—and unlike traditional LCD screens, still images and video look fantastic even when viewed at an angle. Despite the great color reproduction, the screen’s appeal is significantly marred by a coarse dot pitch and obvious horizontal striations on the screen. You lose a great deal of detail in photographs, and moving images look like they’re obscured by a thin layer of cheesecloth. But the effect isn’t awful, and it’s a compromise we’re willing to live with for an ultra-portable video player this feature-packed.

OLED technology was supposed to require less power than LCD tech because the pixels are self-illuminating and therefore don’t require a backlight. Nonetheless, battery life is the Aviah’s worst failing. We got less than two hours of playback from a single battery charge—maybe that’s why Aviah includes a spare battery in the package. Also, the Aviah does not recharge via the USB port, so you’ll need to keep the AC adapter with you—what a drag.

Although the Aviah will play video up to the standard DVD resolution of 720x480, our tests showed that it can’t really handle anything above 640x480 without dropping the frame rate to a webcam-ish 15 frames per second. This isn’t a problem if you intend to use the bundled PMP TransC software to transcode your video. Using TransC at its default settings, you’ll get good-quality video that plays back smoothly on the player.

The display isn’t all it could be, transcoding remains a drag despite the capable software bundle, and the battery life is atrocious. But if the features stitched into this do-it-all player and recorder appeal to you, remember that a key ingredient to any successful relationship is being able to live with a few flaws.
—Logan Decker

WUNDERKIND: Vivid color on the display, and chock-a-block with features and accessories.

WONDER BREAD: Battery life is horrible, display shows striations, and video frames get dropped.

Month Reviewed: August 2005
Verdict: 6
URL: www.ovideon.com