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(More customer reviews)I bought the Clarion VX-401 from Amazon in February 2011. Its predecessor model (VX-400) had lots of decent reviews on Amazon, so I bought the 2011 model (VX-401) hoping it would be just as good or better. Our family car has headrest-mounted monitors for the second row passengers. The VX-401 seemed like a good device for queuing up movies for our pint-sized passengers to watch in the rear. The user interface is woeful, especially if you are trying to navigate the menus using the handheld IR remote control, and the DVD aspect ratio choices are unforgivably bad. The VX-401 is back in the box now, and headed back to Amazon for a refund.
Thankfully I did a trial setup of this unit on a workbench BEFORE bothering to install it in our vehicle. My workbench test of the VX-401 was as follows. A portable 12-volt power supply (Jump & Carry JNC660) supplied power to the head unit through the Clarion wiring harness. The black (Ground) wire was connected to negative terminal; the yellow (BATT) and red (ACC) wires were connected to the positive terminal. At that point the VX-401 was powered on, and the grass-green (BRAKE) wire was connected to negative terminal to bypass the parking brake DVD interlock. I inserted a DVD with standard test-pattern images to check aspect ratios.
The "La Ratatouille" test pattern image on the Pixar T0Y ST0RY 3 DVD could not be displayed properly on this unit. There are only 2 aspect ratio settings on the VX-401. Under the "16:9" setting, the test image was squashed unnecessarily, with too much letterbox at top and bottom. All 3 yellow rectangles in the test pattern were visible, but a circular portion of the test pattern was displayed as a flattened ellipse. Under the "4:3" setting, the circle looked OK, but the entire test image was cropped, only showing 2 of the three yellow rectangles in the test pattern. Indeed, when the DVD movie was played, the characters in the movie were "Squashed" (letterboxed) in 16:9 mode and "Cropped" in 4:3 mode. No firmware upgrade that would address this problem was available on the Clarion website. There was no indication in the manual to suggest a firmware upgrade was possible.
If the LCD monitor is truly 16x10, and the movie frames are 16:9, Clarion should have the savvy to insert tiny letterboxes (1/20 of screen height per bar) at top and bottom... at least as an option... to keep the aspect ratios correct. The VX-401 is not marketed as a "super high end" multimedia head unit (see $800+ models from Kenwood, Pioneer or JVC), but for several hundred dollars, Clarion should at least render a simple DVD test pattern correctly.
The manufacture date stamped on my VX-401 was November 2010. Anamorphic DVDs have been around for years, but this is not an anamorphic player. I am astounded that a DVD player made in 2010 would offer only 2 choices for aspect ratio, when neither choice renders the full frame of the movie in correct proportion.
For potential buyers who don't care about proper aspect ratios... (or whose kids don't mind that Buzz and Woody are being squashed and/or amputated)... you should also know that VX-401 does NOT have "dual zone" sound. With this unit, it's impossible to route DVD sound and video to the rear (through the RCA outs) while you listen to something else on the stereo.
Every time you bring up menus on the touch screen, those exact menus are displayed in their entirety via the Video Out RCA signal. So, every time you adjust a setting, or dial a phone number on the touchscreen, your passengers in the rear would get to watch every part of that sequence on their video displays. That would certainly not go over well with back-seat watchers of videos. Shop carefully, and test the unit thoroughly before you buy (or install). Caveat emptor.
UPDATE ON 23-MAY-2011: Fellow Amazon user "Datticus" posted a YouTube link that shows a workaround on how to change aspect ratios for the VX-401. I watched the video (the link is in comment) and the workaround does seem to help with wide-format movies. I can't try the it myself (returned the VX-401 for a refund already). But I upgraded my Review rating from 2 stars to 3 stars, now that I have one less gripe about the VX-401. I still knock off a star for lack of dual zone AV, and another star for showing the on-screen menus in their entirety on the composite video output signal.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Clarion VX401 6.5" In-Dash Double-Din Touchscreen DVD/CD/MP3/USB Receiver with Bluetooth
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