DVDO Portable DVD Player

A high-end portable digital video disc player to showcase DVDO's industry-leading DVI technology and digital video processing expertise.

Scope of Design:

• mechanical layout and design
• Industrial Design liaison
• Pro/ENGINEER services

The Challenge:

DVDO's (Campbell, Calif.) founders had a vision to produce a high-end portable digital video disc (DVD) player dubbed DVD2GO. DVDO's strategy was to get a product out quickly, confirm market acceptance, and then bring a cost-reduced version on-line.

The Result:

Mechanistic worked closely with industrial design (ID) house Pentagram Design (San Francisco, Calif.) and mechanical designers at Function Engineering (Palo Alto, Calif.) to produce Pro/ENGINEER surfaces for the player.

Mechanistic helped to develop the mechanical layout, being careful to squeeze out every millimeter, making the unit as compact as possible. Designers at Pentagram then designed the unit's complex surfaces, giving the product an organic, almost sensuous feel.

In the end, DVDO's business interest evolved away from producing and attempting to market a portable DVD player, to producing an ASIC for deinterlacing video that can be used in a variety of products. Although the DVD2GO is a viable design, DVDO isn't planning to bring it to production.