TEAC Australia DV221

Teac’s DV221 is a particularly small DVD player. It doesn’t have anything special in the way of functionality, but its size and low noise output mean it is well suited to hiding away in a cupboard.

It measures only 25cm from end to end and is 21cm deep. With a gloss black finish it’s not particularly showy or striking, but the front panel has all the necessary buttons to get the job done. As well as a power button and an infrared sensor for the remote there’s a standard array of disc eject and playback buttons. At a stretch you could use only these buttons to play a disc but for full functionality you’ll need the remote.

We would have liked to see a slimline or cut-down version of a regular DVD player remote to fit in with the DV221’s diminutive stature, but the player comes bundled with a rather large but thankfully well laid-out controller.

The DV221 won’t blow you away in terms of connectivity. There’s the usual suite of analog video outputs — component, S-Video, composite — and analog stereo as well as coaxial and optical digital audio outputs.

Just like every other DVD player on the market today, the DV221 has support for a few picture, audio and video formats under its belt. It supports XviD MP4 videos and the standard array of MP3 and WAV decoders handle audio. The system is also capable of displaying JPEGs although it doesn’t do a particularly good job of scaling them.

The DV221 does everything you’d expect from a mass-market DVD player in 2008, but little more. The small size is a novelty, but if it was intended to be properly portable it’s eclipsed by Teac’s own DVP904.