Viewing with the Vuzix AV920 (Vuzix iWear AV920)

Member Name: firefox111

Product:	Vuzix iWear AV920
Date:	03/11/08 (612 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Well made and comfortable to wear pretty good picture and sound

Disadvantages: A bit on the expensive side needs adjustment to get a good picture

Vuzix AV920 portable screen

Approx price £200 -£250.00


Overview

The Vuzix AV920 is a portable viewing screen for watching video from your portable or static movie players.

The AV920 is worn like a pair of sunglasses weighing according to the website 2.9 ounces. They look a bit futuristic in the design when worn on the face. To give some impression of the size of display that can be seen when looking through them it's like watching a 62" screen from about 9 feet away. The signal input to the glasses can be in either PAL or NTSC format.

The display resolution is twin 640 x 480 pixels in the LCD displays capable of displaying 16 million colours. Vuzix say that the AV920 is capable of playing pictures or video from most portable devices, televisions, gaming systems (check with the Vuzix website before you purchase though!). The AV920 can also play movies and pictures in 3D although I believe this requires you to convert the video you want with some dedicated software.

The glasses are powered by a lithium ion battery pack about 1½ x 2 inches that's attached to the glasses via a cable. I have found this provides around 5 hours of use enough for a couple of films but it does vary with the settings for brightness and contrast. The battery pack is equipped with mini USB socket for charging and also has a cable running from the battery pack to connect to device you want to play video from. There is also a standard 3.5mm headphone jack to connect you own earphones to. This product is described as suitable for people who wear glasses as there are quite a few combinations of the nose bridge adapter that would accommodate most people frames and lenses.


Whets in the box

You get the AV920 Glasses, a cloth bag to clean and carry them in, various connectors to convert the input socket located on the battery pack to the device you want to watch the video from. The standard adapters that are supplied are an iPod cable and composite audio video cable and a USB charger lead for powering the battery pack.

Included is a set of instructions to explain how to use the AV920 glasses and precautions whilst using them, a warranty card, and a head strap so you can secure the AV920 round your neck, there are also nose bridge adapters that allows you to make the glasses comfy on the bridge of your nose.

The box itself is robust and secures the AV920 glasses and accessories securely during transit and the various parts are labelled inside polythene bags.


The AV920 Glasses

The AV920 glasses themselves are fairly light in weight and are comfortable to wear I have watched entire movies of about 1 hour 30 minutes and find they do not weigh down on my nose. The glasses have two arms that extend to sit over your ears quite comfortably.

The front viewing section that covers your eyes is adjustable to around +-15 degrees vertically to suit your viewing preference. I prefer tilting them down as I think this provides the best viewing experience like being on the back row in a cinema. The nose bridge is adjustable in height by about 1/3 of an inch.

The arms that sit over your ears have the speakers mounted on a bendy plastic arm. (One thing to note here is that the speakers look a bit like earphones but in the manual it states that they are not designed to fit in your ear some other reviews on the internet just assume they are earphones.).

The cord that runs from the battery pack to the glasses is about 2 feet long which is useful if you want to carry the battery pack in your rucksack instead of your pocket.

The AV920 glasses are switched on via a button located on the right underside of the glasses. This button has three ways it can be used the left and right scroll moves you between the available menus displayed in the glasses pressing the button then chooses the option you wish to adjust and then it's a case of move the button left and right to the desired setting them press the button again to set and exit back to the main menu. Pressing the button in hides the settings menu so it doesn't distract you whilst watching your video.

The glasses for me are comfortable to wear although it is worth taking the time to use the supplied nose bridge adapters to get a fit that you are comfortable with and set the tilt angle of the glasses so it's comfortable on your eyes when viewing the image displayed. I removed the speakers from the side as I would rather use my favourite headphone so it doesn't distract or disturb people around you.


Connecting the AV920

Connecting the battery pack to my 5th generation iPod was very easy the connector is well made and fits securely into the iPod output socket. To turn the glasses on you press the control button in for a couple of seconds you can tell they have switched on as the display in the glasses turns a bright blue colour.

I was disappointed that I could not control the iPod from the button on the glasses so to watch video I had to get the iPod in a position where you could see the screen and the iPod at the bottom of my field of view. To watch video you then have to use the iPod jog wheel to navigate to the video you want to watch. After pressing play on the iPod the video appears in front of your eyes in under a second.


Picture Quality

I was quite impressed with the picture the image appears in focus and sharp to describe what image size you see it's like when you go to the cinema and sit about half way back from the screen. I did however find that the video displayed had lines running through the image in a horizontal direction.

Looking on the internet for advice I did find that other people were experiencing this problem. To fix the banding lines you do have to spend some time adjusting the brightness and contrast which fixes this problem although it did take some time to fiddle around with the setting to eliminate this problem. After fixing the banding problem the colours displayed are pretty good with a fairly sharp contrast I watched some video of fish in the ocean, sunsets etc to test them and I have to say I was quite impressed by the picture quality overall.

I did have reservations about buying this product thinking that the AV920 would strain my eyes when watching for a considerable amount of time as in a whole movie but I found the optics are comfortable when watching say a movie in fact it's the total opposite after a few minutes you forget that you are viewing through a pair of glasses.


Sound Quality

The sound through my headphones is nice and clear with the option to adjust the volume through the control button located on the actual glasses or on my iPod. Playing around with these settings enabled me to turn the volume up until it was way too loud (I don't recommend doing this as this would cause damage to your hearing). The sound when turned up does distort through the headphones but then again I think most headphones would.


Cleaning

The glasses as most things these days are fingerprint magnets they really do attract them with the black gloss finish they have. The cleaning cloth/soft case holder is very good at removing the fingerprints and doesn't mark the lenses or glasses but I find that before they even go back into the soft case more fingerprints have appeared on them.


Overall

I really like these glasses so much now they have grown on me since I bought them. I nearly always have them at hand when i'm outside as it really beats looking at the iPod display. Some people on the bus do give funny looks with you wearing the AV920 headset as they must wonder what I am doing with a strange pair of glasses on.

However the AV920 price is still a bit steep for what you get if they were £100 less then I could honestly say that the AV920 are worth the money but at £250 it's quite a bit to shell out. Before buying you should consider if you would rather spend the money on a dedicated portable video player such as an Archos with a larger display than the 5th generation iPod I have.

Summary: Overall not a bad gadget you should consider buying a video player with a larger display though

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