Tascam DV-D01U DVD Player

What church hasn't, at one time or another, utilized consumer DVD players as part of their live production video gear? And, been frustrated with finding the miniscule play or pause buttons when the pastor says, "And let's now turn our attention to the screens" five minutes earlier than you thought he would? Or, dealing with quirks such as, when you skip ahead or behind chapters, it automatically goes off of pause and starts playing? Or not being able to turn off the on-screen display? I've certainly been annoyed by such things.

I bet some folks at Tascam have as well, as they've introduced a sweet-looking, one-rack unit (1RU) high DV-D01U DVD player ($549) that I jumped at the chance to review when CPM editor Mark Johnson pointed it out. My first impressions were very positive. It's a minimalist front-panel design, with only the commonly needed buttons on the faceplate of the unit: Open/Close, Stop, Play, Ready (i.e. Pause), Skip Back, and Skip Forward. The buttons are large, easy to find, and provide a solid tactile feedback to the operator when pressed--no more wondering if you really pressed the pause button at the end of the clip.

For analog video output connectors, component, S-Video, and composite are all available. Audio is provided through analog stereo audio outputs as well as an optical SPDIF audio output connector. An HDMI interface for connecting to digital video components is present as well. All analog connectors are through typical consumer-type jacks, and the analog audio outputs are unbalanced. Completing the connectors on the back of the unit is an RS-232 port for remote control and monitoring of the unit via AMX, Crestron, StarDraw Control or other types of system controllers. A full-function IR remote control is also provided, possessing a well thoughtout design, with the commonly used control being glow-in-the-dark--excellent for those dimly-lit production booths.

In operation, it functions exactly like I would want for a DVD player used for live events. When paused, it stays paused even when skipping chapters. In fact, it stayed running on pause for 14 hours in my test. If your pastor hasn't gotten to the part of his Sunday morning message where he wants to show a video clip within 14 hours, you probably have bigger problems to deal with than needing a new DVD player.

Also, the on-screen display can be disabled via the setup menu. Buttons are easy to access and provide good feedback. Video output is clear--picture and sound are both excellent. The LCD display is easy to read, showing both the hours, minutes, and seconds of the time into the video.

Control and monitoring via the RS232 port works well, although the unit does not send out automatic updates of its status--one must send a query command to get the status of the unit. But programming a device driver for Star Draw Control to operate the unit was very straightforward, and the documentation on the RS232 protocol is clear and the parts that I made use of were accurate.

The system plays many disc types in addition to standard pre-recorded DVD and CD media, including DVD-R, DVDRW, DVD+R (if finalized), DVD+RW (if finalized), CD-R, CD-RW... Refer to the downloadable manual for a full description of all the media formats that are supported.

In summary, this DVD player has just about everything I would want for a church production environment. It would be nice if balanced audio outputs were present, but I've not found that the typically short runs of unbalanced audio cable to connect a DVD player to the audio console presents a problem. It's definitely a unit I would consider for our church.

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