When you don't have kids, you pretty much can go to the movies whenever you want. But once kids are in the picture, you can rule out ever getting there -- unless it's the latest Disney flick. You join the ranks of other parents who have children under the age of 13 at the local Blockbuster store.
We heard about head mounted displays that can give you the in-the-theater feeling from the comforts of your own couch and thought, "What a great idea!" You don't need to build a home theater -- just pop on your headset and grab some popcorn. Plus it looks really cool. The CY-Visor, we thought, would be perfect. This sci-fi device connects to your TV, VCR, DVD player, games console and PC or laptop for theater-like viewing.
But what we imagined would be an easy, cool way to watch movies quickly turned into a hassle. To begin with, the set up was not as easy as the instructions depicted. After weeks of finagling with it and two calls to the company's tech support, we finally figured out how to get it to work with a laptop and a video player. There are three gotchas you need to watch out for:
1. To use the Cy-Visor with a laptop, you must power down the machine, connect everything, then power up. You can't just plug in and go.
2. For the headset to work with a PC or laptop, the monitor must have a resolution of at least 800x600 and a refresh rate of 60Hz. (We were able to get it to work with a Sony Vaio laptop, but not with an Apple Powerbook.)
3. When connecting to a TV, the RCA cables connect to the TV's outputs. During our second call to tech support, we learned that not many TVs have outputs -- just inputs. That makes watching TV through the headset out of the question. To watch a video or DVD, you need to connect to that component's outputs directly, and that usually means disconnecting it from your TV.
We were disappointed by those setup problems, but after finally getting the connections to work, we were psyched to try it out. Unfortunately, our enthusiasm was again quickly deflated.
To begin with the headset hurts. You need to fasten it tightly to be able to see the images well, but when you do the device pokes into your head. Plus, the ear pieces don't fit well and hurt your ears.
And even when you make it that tight, the image isn't that great. The color and contrast didn't adjust to our liking, and no matter what we did the image was never sharp and clear. The company also warns against using the headset for more than two hours, as it could affect your vision.
Also, don't be fooled by the picture of the woman using the headset that's used on all the packaging. This is in no way a wireless device. There's a tangle of wires -- even if you use a battery pack. The length of those wires limits how far you can sit from the TV, VCR, etc.
