5 comments about RCA DRC290 DVD Player -HD Upconversion.

1. Be aware that you are buying the very most basic of players. This DVD/CD player is called a "changer", but it will not automatically advance to the next disc. It's really just a storage device for multiple discs. It stops when it reaches the end of a disc.....for example, there is no way to have continuous play of CD music. It must be manually advanced to the next disc. Also, for music CDs the "repeat" feature only repeats one song.....no option to repeat an entire CD of music.
   From my perspective, I was embarrassed to give this as a gift.....



2. Went to the store, all the good ones gone. Two stacks of different ones. This product had a big stack. I guess no one wanted it. I found out why.
   Great picture, good sound. 5 DVD's is nice. It worked, generally out of the box.
   
   But I returned it because it would not play my home DVD-R DVD discs properly. It would stutter, sound would go out of sync. Yech.
   
   I would pass on this player.
   
   ALWAYS read reviews before you buy. I just bought it because it was the only 1080P there at the store. Big mistake.



3. It is hard to believe people don't like this player. Of course at this point there are only 4 reviewers. I own this player and it is very nice. I have not had it skip one time and the picture is crystal clear. The five trays are nice, but I don't really use them that much. I have only owned the player for 2 weeks and 20+ movies but so far I am extremely impressed!



4. This product is an ABSOLUTELY UNBEATABLE value...when purchased for the right reason. However, it only excels when its most uncommon, and clearly oft overlooked, feature is taken advantage of.
   
   Here is a rough overview of the unit, as I have used it:
   
   First off, let me state that the TV I am using this with is a pretty old 19" Sharp CRT in my bedroom, so I am not in a position to judge true picture quality produced by the unit (let alone HD-upconversion). However, the picture it produces looks equivalent to the other DVD players I've used with the same TV.
   
   As far as reading discs goes, this reads discs more reliably than any of my other 3 DVD players (which, granted, are older units). In my experience, it has no problems reading properly burned DVD+R discs as long as they are burned at slower speeds (I've used primarily Sony media burned at 6X and 8X speeds; the 16X discs I made did experience some read problems near the very end of the recordings). Not the fastest way to burn discs, but it certainly beats my oldest 2 players which will not read discs burned faster than 2.4X!
   
   As far as the interface goes, this machine does leave much to be desired. While there are numerous useful basic features (including zoom), the remote control is absolutely TINY (which means that the buttons are miniscule as well) and difficult to use for someone with large hands (such as myself). While the layout of buttons on the remote is far from perfect, I have certainly used less intuitive remotes.
   
   The unit itself does not appear to be exceptionally well-made, and does seem rather cheap. It isn't noisy, per se, but neither is it particularly quiet. It has an unusual multi-tray disc loading system (instead of the carousel found in most changers) that seems quite odd, but does allow for the exchanging of discs while one continues to play. It does not change discs particularly quickly.
   
   In summary, there is no compelling reason to buy this changer if one is interested in a well-made, ergonomic, moderately-featured DVD (or CD) changer. There are much better choices on the market for such a unit. However...
   
   HERE IS WHAT MAKES THIS UNIT STAND OUT:
   
   It is a 5-disc changer capable of playing compressed video files (particularly MPEG4 and xvid-encoded AVI files) for under a hundred bucks. This means that one can enjoy as much as 9 hours of decent-quality recorded material on each single-sided recordable DVD disc. When taken full advantage of, this feature alone more than makes up for all of the unit's other shortcomings. You are unlikely to find another player (let alone a CHANGER) with this feature anywhere near this price-range.



5. Purchased this product 6 months ago for about $75 from the local walmart... worked fine for a while, then it started making a very loud noise while playing dvd's... sort of sounded like a helicoptor in the distance. Lets face it, this product is cheap! Don't believe me, wait till you get it out of the box. The 5 dvd trays feel like they are going to break just using them. The back connector plate is made of plastic and looks cheap... because it is. Unfortunately the products price isn't cheap, at least in my opinion $75 for 6 months of use ins't cheap. Eventually the loud noise became worse and it stopped reading discs all together... get something else. Good luck.

1 comments about Insignia NS-DVDVCR DVD-VCR Combo.

1. This only received light use over the 4 months I have owned it since Christmas, and it was working perfectly fine the day before it stopped functioning. I think it was only left running all night once, and other than that was mainly used on weekends for a few hours at a time. (One or two tv episodes or a movie or so.) One day, it just reads "Unknown Disc" and nothing can be done to fix it. Lovely, plus its JUST out of its 90 day manufacturer warranty. Lovely.

No comments about Coby DVD-257 DVD Player with Progressive Scan.

No comments about Insignia DVD Player Upconverter.

5 comments about RCA DRC8040N DVD Recorder.

1. The rating system here won't let us go zero stars. Too bad. This deserves negative stars, actually. The only thing worse than this unit is the customer service from RCA. I bought two of these units from a Warehouse-Type Club, one unit for the upstairs and one for down. The downstairs one skipped chapters, refused to play brand new DVD's or simply locked up tight. This went on for months. The unit is total ca-ca doo-doo. Don't even think about buying one. Then comes the RCA Customer Service Shuffle. RCA, GE and Proscan are all owned by Thomson Electronics which is no more than Thomson Pharmaceuticals, a French drug company that bought those three companies. Thomson seems to know exactly nothing about electronics and less about customer service. I hand-carried the defective unit to a local Authorized Service Center. The runaround began. A part was bad. The part was ordered. The wrong part arrived. Part ordered again. Part arrives broken. Part ordered again. No parts available anywhere in the country for a 5 month old unit. They say they'll send a new unit. More than a month later new one arrives at service center. Outside box is in perfect shape. Inside box is smashed. Unit is tested and found to be non-functional. They put a smashed-up box in a good box and shipped an already broken unit. I haven't yet mentioned that the whole time this was going on I logged literally hundreds and hundreds of long distance calls to them because they have no 800 number. After two and one half months had gone by altogether since I'd dropped it off, another new unit finally arrived. I took it, unopened, as well as the other one I'd bought back to where I'd bought them and they gave me my money back. I went to Best Buy and bought two Panasonic DVD recorders for 10 bucks less apiece. They've been working flawlessly ever since. NEVER buy ANYTHING from RCA, GE or Proscan! NEVER!! Unless you enjoy banging your head against a brick customer service wall for more than two and a half months.



2. I believe RCA customers should seriously consider filing a fraud complaint, and/or class action lawsuit.
   
   Like other consumers here, I followed the manual to the letter. This unit did not burn one CD successfully, but ruined 10 blank discs and I lost media I thought had been successfully burned, before I gave up. This unit is so bad, 4 out of the 5 designated RCA service centers in my area refused to service it, or said "exchange only", though exchange and refund are not covered by the warrantee.
   
   The one place that did agree to "fix" the machine sent it to an RCA tech. When I picked it up post-repair and tested it at home, the machine froze, requiring a hard reset, within 2 minutes of powering up. Again never successfully burned a DVD, though would indicate the materials were in the "library" and something had recorded onto the disc. The repair shop concurred it was a lemon.
   
   RCA finally agreed to replace the unit, and did so with their new DRC8060N model. The new model was just as bad as the 8040, right out of the box. (See my review under that unit).
   
   Though it is less than 1 year from my initial purchase, RCA/Thompson refuses refund and requires another round with the designated repair place. Even the repair tech said to stay far away from RCA DVD burners (as well as the Toshibas), and pay extra to go with Panasonic or Sony instead if you want a technology which is actually ready for market.
   
   The RCAs should not even be on the shelves, and the behavior of the RCA customer service people at the management/supervisor level indicates they know it-- their purpose is to wear out or wait out the consumer until the warrantee runs out. It is fraud.



3. I have had this Recorder for over a year....I did find that it will not record to the 1x 16x disks, but only the 8X..Since I have had this, I have recorded plenty with about 2 coasters...So If you can't record, Please make sure that you disks are 8x....I just love this....I have had a few freezes on watching rentals, but dvd's do skip when other people rent and don't take care of them...All prerecorded bought new have played perfectly....So, no problems so far!!!



4. Although it seems to be pretty well panned by most of the other reviewers of this unit, we just bought two of them last week (2 TV rooms and all). They were the last two units on the shelf and $150.00 each, and so far they've been great! The TIVO'esk pause, and replay live TV buffer of the hard drive is really the best feature for us. We've recorded several TV shows via the timers and that's worked fine also. I can only think that the units bought in '05 and mid '06 had "issues". Nice looking unit, ours are all black and not like the photo in the sales add here. Easy to use on screen menu, and the varibles of the recording modes are good too. Only problem that has sometimes happened (on both our units) is sometimes after using the time delay the picture will still stay a few seconds delayed. If that happens we now know to go to "menu" and back to "watch live TV" to fix it. Just pressing the "live TV" button on remote doesn't fix it. Can't 'skip' commercials, but you can fast to really fast forward through them. As with so many things you buy now a days, the manual isn't an awful lot of help past the ultra basics of operation and setup. Comparing the different brands that are similar to this one for the price this is we feel a really good value if you're looking for this type of replacement unit. We had a DVD recorder poop out on us and so when we went shopping for a replacement and saw this unit at the store and at that price we said why not! And bought two of them!



5. Why buy a DVD recorder without a hard drive when for the same (or lower) price you can purchase an RCA DVD recorder with an 80 Gig HD (#DRC8030N)?

No comments about jWin JD-VD509 5.1-Channel Progressive-Scan DVD Player with Karaoke Function (JDVD509).

5 comments about Audiovox D1500A 5-Inch Portable DVD Player with Car Kit.

1. This DVD player was the best thing in my life until it broke. I can't read my disks. I have put all of my DVDs in there and it just couln't read them. Before that the battery wouldn't work. So it wasn't even portable any more. Then came the remote the God awful remote. I pushed a button and then smoke started to come out of it. So now what I have is a portable DVD player with not remote , no battery (no longer portable) and finally it can't read disks. Maby you think it's a great buy well maby all I know is that it's seriously the most CRAPPYEST DVD player I ever saw.



2. I don't think I'll buy any more Audiovox products at all. I've now -- at my error -- purchased 2 Audiovox portable DVD players in the last year alone. This one didn't even last 7 months. Now the one I just purchased only 2 months ago is having problems, too (model #D-1420). I'm beginning to now think that Audiovox products in general are just crap. And the warranty is only 90 days.....guess I should have known. Don't buy!



3. I bought this Audiovox Model D1500A a little over (4) months ago, and it has now taken a giant "dump !" Heck of a note that a DVD player will not even last for the full year of warranty. I have sent Amazon a letter concerning this, and am awaiting a reply from them on coverage. Sorry, but I don't have the patience for the "old run around" from the Audiovox warranty department. I will wait and see how this claim works out before slamming Audiovox as a company. However, I would not buy the Model D1500A regardless of how low the price goes. I was told the drive is made of plastic, and when trying to view a movie, the scenes just freeze, or lock up. Guess it is plastic after all ...



4. We bought this for our kids to use on road trips, but shortly after purchasing it, started using it as our main DVD player when our original home cheapo DVD player broke. We have not a single problem in over two years of daily use, and with at least monthly use in the car, where it has been knocked over and abused by two little kids. It plays not only DVDs but VCDs and the DVDs we burn on our home computer without a glitch. Great purchase and we recommend it highly! Our next DVD player will be an Audivox.



5. Its been beat up by my 2 years old and still works.
   keeps her quiet in the car.
   Loved it.

1 comments about Sony RDR-GX255 Single Tray HDMI DVD Recorder.

1. I thought I would be getting a Sony DVD recorder similar to the ones I have purchased in the past. First, you cannot record from a premium movie channel because these are blocked---hackers can easily bypass this feature. Ridiculous. Also, there is no record equalizer on this unit. This is a feature I liked on Sony's older models. I would not recommend this unit and will probably return it. I have four other Sony recorders that are wonderful. This one is a total lemon.

5 comments about Panasonic DMR-E75VS Progressive-Scan DVD Recorder/VCR Combo.

1. I've had this machine for over a year and have had no problems with it. Once you get used to the process for dubbing from vhs to dvd it is easier to use. I've burned many dvds and have only had trouble with a couple the machine was unable to read to be able to record on. Thanks to other reviews I've read I always finalize the dvds so they can be viewed on other machines with no problem. I would buy this unit again.



2. This unit might be able to make a Mar's trip....far more flexibility than I need but it is there for the taking....the performance is excellent and surprisingly it plays most of the newer tapes so well they are hard to tell from a CD....sometimes impossible to tell the difference....dubbing is easy enough and provides good viewing of the dubbed item..............buy this again? Yes I would......



3. I have had this over 2 years and still can not make out most of the directions which are very confusing. Nothing is strait foreword always referring to another page instead of continuing the sentence. The recorder is good and I am not knocking it only the directions. I remember reading in an earlier review that this was a problem. Customer support is good.5 stars the recorder is good.



4. After having owned this for just over a year, the unit rejects nearly 3 quarters of all my Dvd discs due to the proverbial 'cannot read disc' error. I tried recording several vhs tapes to various dvd media without any success. This may simply be an isolated problem, but nonetheless, my previous combos (other than panasonic) lasted years longer, under rigorous use. I'm currently shopping for a new brand because it would
   be cheaper than repair. Fair or not, I cannot recommend panasonic.. in fact, I'll actually enjoy tossing this one.



5. Bought is product in August 2006. It works extremely well, but it has limitation.
   
   1. All my attempts to utilize it with my cable box have not worked. I am able to accept cable signal input but not the full compliment of channels provided through my cable service.
   
   2. Since I purchased it, the DVD record firmware and RAM have had to be replaced 6 times. Fortunately, I purchased an extended warranty and have not born the cost of these repairs (approx. $300 plus each time.)
   
   3. The unit works very well for dubbing from VHS to hard drive. I have been able to move an entire collection of movies, sporting events and TV show from tape to DVD. It provides excellent editing function once written to the hard drive.
   
   4. I'd recommend the unit as long as the buyer is cautious of the above noted issues. If Panasonic could work out the DVD recorder issues in a subsequent model, I'd buy again.

5 comments about Hi-Def Conversion DivX DVD Player with HDMI and USB.

1. Being Brits in NY, we have so missed our favourite English comedies, and now can not believe that we waiting this long before getting a multi-regional player.
   It arrived very quickly, and in good condition. There was no special set-up required (or progamming), and we just popped in a disc and worked straight away.
   This piece of equipment is great, and excellent value for money.



2. Arrived very well packaged, in excellent condition, and very quickly! Does everything I wanted it to do, and it's great to finally be able to view some of my non-US DVD's!



3. This DVD plays everything it say,I like it, it have a nice look and very thin, The only problem I have found is the open and close one the remote control, Other then that is great, Thank you



4. We purchased this DVD player after returning from living in Germany for 2 years. We have many PAL DVDs. The machine plays all of our DVDs well. We are totally satisfied with the quality and service we have received.



5. I am very happy with the ALL Region Philips DVD player I ordered for my boyfriend for Christmas. I had to purchase this, so that he could watch a region 3 movie. First, the shipment came so quickly--in time for Christmas, and was well packaged. I was especially happy to know that it was easy to get in contact with customer service, to ask any questions I had about the DVD player itself. All as advertised, I would definately recommend a friend buying items from this company. The DVD player itself worked well, money well spent.