July 21, 2000 - Limited budget making it hard to enter the DVD Age? Hopelessly addicted to MP3s? Hopelessly addicted to relentless consumerism? Well sit tight... Raite is here.

You probably haven't heard of Raite. Who has? They are one of the smaller consumer electronics companies trying to break into the DVD market, which is still relatively young. Apex is a similar company.

Raite has it rough. Besides having a difficult to pronounce name, they have to fight some pretty big names. Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic ? to name a few ? have very high brand recognition. (And judging from some of my letters, Sony has some of the most viciously loyal fans around.)

In order to create a little niche for themselves, Raite had to come up with a gimmick. They decided to incorporate an MP3 player. This is a somewhat odd inclusion because MP3 files have nothing to do with video and DVD players are primarily video machines.

Like many DVD players in its price range, the AVPhile lacks a few convenient features. For a full surround sound experience, you will have to send the audio signal to a receiver with decoders. The AVPhile has the outputs, but no decoders of its own. The unit also lacks component outputs. This is not that surprising, given that component outs only really make sense with mid to high end gear, but it is worth mentioning. At least the unit plays Video CDs. They are not very popular in the US, but you anime fans can rejoice.

Obviously, this thing's strength is the MP3 playback. Burn a CD full of MP3 files, put it in, and blast away. And that's that.

-- M Wiley