No comments about Qcutex LMD-2548CX - DVD player - portable - display: 5.4 in.

1 comments about Polaroid 7" Mobile Video System with DVD Player - Pdm-2737.

1. to start off this reveiw, the product is great, it has good digital quality and audio as well. I wanted to use it to play X-Box 360 in the car. it does NOT have the AV inputs that it says it has. it does however come with 2 layed-back style head phones, and a total of three head phone jacks. IMPORTANT although it did come with a rechargable battery you also need to plug the second screen into the wall or car plug to get it to play on both screens. there was a small humming noise when I used the player but not loud enought to matter. it seems to be of pretty good make and is a good buy if you are looking to watch movies in the car without distracting the driver.

5 comments about RCA HDV5000 HD DVD Player.

1. I'VE HAD NO PROBLEMS .. ONCE THE MACHINE IS READY TO DISPLAY PICTURE , IT'S EXCELLENT .. I'VE A SAMSUNG BD-P 1200 .. THE PICTURE IS EQUAL IN DETAIL TO ONE ANOTHER .. @ 8' TO 10' MY SAMSUNG LN-T 4053H (720) LOOKS EQUALLY DETAITED AS MY FRIENDS LN-T4061F .. he says he would do the same again .. BUT HE SAYS I'M LUCKY @ PRICE & PICTURE QUALITY .. I DON'T THINK THE PUBLIC SHOULD BE SO NEGATIVE ABT. THE RCA TOSHIBA VENTURE .. REMEMBER YOUR FIRMWARE UPDATE .. LASTLY , USE HDMI OR NO LESS THAN COMPONENT CABLES .. BEST OF VIEWING . I THINK TOSHIBA IS DOING A BETTER JOB OF STAYING ON TOP OF THEIR GAME .. THE HD DVD ALWAYS PLAY .. SONY & SAMSUNG NEED TO STAY AS DEPENDABLE AS TOSHIBA .. I ENJOY BOTH FORMATS ..



2. First of all, completely ignore the "cannot play 1080p discs" and the "obsolete" nonsense spewed in the guise of "reviews".
   
   First: The HD DVD discs were recorded as 1080p from the very first handful released back in April 2006, and the HDV5000 can play EVERY one of them. In fact, you will be hard pressed to identify any titles at all that are NOT recorded as 1080p (though the HDV5000 will indeed play those as well.)
   
   (Note: The player will not output 1080p, though absolutely all of the original 1080p video information is, in fact, delivered to the HDTV. This means that it will fully meet the needs of the VAST majority of HDTV owners, though probably not all.)
   
   Second: Every feature provided on any HD DVD released to-date is fully supported on every HD DVD player manufactured to-date. All that's required is the firmware be up-to-date (can be performed either by internet update or CD-ROM update from RCA.)
   
   Finally: I own an HDV5000 which I purchased in July 2006. It is going strong at the center of my home theater setup and is currently running firmware version 2.4. I use it for both SD DVD and HD DVD playback and it provides excellent picture and sound with both (I use both Toslink and HDMI for audio, and component and HDMI for video.)
   
   As far as delays are concerned -- true, it certainly isn't the quickest player imaginable, but it was NEVER anywhere NEAR as slow as those particular "reviews" state -- obviously written by people who never spent time with the player, let alone owned it! To give an accurate current picture, I just took measurements and here is what you can expect with firmware version 2.4:
   
   Time from standby to drawer open: 45 seconds
   Time from drawer open to picture start with SD DVD: 35 seconds
   Time from drawer open to picture start with HD DVD: 65 seconds
   
   As I said, I have owned this player since July 2006 and it continues to perform well in my setup. Excellent picture, excellent sound (requires DTS decoder in the receiver for either RCA or Toslink 5.1 audio with HD DVD) and I find the remote control responsiveness to be satisfactory (rapid button press sequences are not advisable.) Build quality is excellent and appearance, as always, is a matter of personal taste -- I consider it a good looking player!



3. Reading the cons on this unit, I find it to be the lack of updating the unit as RCA suggests in doing. The loading and boot up is slower than your typical DVD player, but it is well worth the 45 second wait. The picture is clear and the surround digital dolby is unbeatable especially in conjunction with a surround sound system. So now you can not only see the movie, but feel it too! Yes, the unit is a bit bulky and heavy (reminds me of the first VCRs that came out back in the days) but for the price here on Amazon, well, it is well worth it considering that they retailed at almost $499. What I suggest is contacting the seller to see if they have updated the units or simply buy one from me because I update each unit so that the buyer can start using it out of the box. All this with free shipping :)



4. Call RCA, the phone # is in the box right on the sheet about updating the firmware on the net under the part about "If you do not have internet we will send you a disc". they will send you a disc ( mine was V.2 and took about 3 days after I called ). Pop CD in the player. 5 minutes later your done. Your watching TRANSFORMERS or KONG yes the 1080p disc will play back in 1080i player and your HD TV will input the 1080i back out as 1080p if it is a 1080p HDTV and this will happen so fast on a good set-up that you would never know that a 1080p image was cut into a 1080i and back into a 1080p. Will RCA stop making updates for this? If they do just use the TOSHIBA A1 updaters. You will lose the RCA menu screen and get the TOSHIBA screen if you do this but the player controls are the same.When I first got this player last year I did have some disc that would not load before I did the firmware update but they work fine now. STARDUST and BLADE RUNNER are the most recent HD disc I watched on this RCA player. This is a HEAVY DUTY UNIT , nothing cheap about it.



5. I got this about a year ago because I am a die-hard RCA customer. IMO RCA always makes the best products that are always easy to use and easy to install. This HD player is no exception. I have the player hooked up to my RCA projection TV and the picture and sound quality is very sharp and precise. The player can play regular DVDs as well. Another reason why I like RCA so much is because their products last for years and years. Would you believe I have an old RCA DVD player that I picked up nearly 8 years ago that still works great and an RCA VCR which is nearly 13 years old! It is unfortunate that HD players are going out. But as soon as RCA makes a blu-ray I'll get that. I just saw a no-name blu-ray on QVC but I would never consider anyhing that wasn't RCA.

5 comments about Panasonic DMR-ES10S DIGA Series DVD Recorder , Silver.

1. My GOD! I had faith in Panasonic and have never had a problem until now. I bought this less than 2 years ago and suddenly it stopped working for no reason at all. It will not power on at all now. Check out this bug, it is all over the internet, just punch in the model number DMR-ES10 and something like won't power on, etc... it gets worse. I called Panasonic "customer service". If you consider being rushed through the call, repeatedly having questions unanswered then LITERALLY being hung up on customer service, then I guess that's Panasonic's benchmark for service. I was told to mail it in, wait 2 or 3 weeks, then I will receive a call letting me know IF it can be fixed. If so, I will then get the cost. Are you kidding me. If this is a widely known issue, shouldn't they be taking the hit, fixing and shipping it for free and laying out the red carpet? Oh, to add insult, I've been recording one of my favorite shows for about 7 episodes, but I never got a chance to finalize the disc, so I basically wasted weeks recording something that won't play in anyone else's DVD player (no power, no chance to finalize the disc) and finally I have a rented DVD in the player now from Blockbuster that I can't get out. In 3 weeks, it will be extremely late, who's going to pay the late fees? Me of course. As I write this, I STILL don't know what I'm going to do. I don't know what else to say except - Never again Panasonic!!



2. Like almost everyone else, my unit froze dead when it was a few months out of warranty. Unlike most, however, I invested another $75 to bring it back to life after being told that the power problems were a ubiquitous design flaw. What I didn't know was that this sweet piece of garbage apparently has not one, but two, such flaws -- after another year it has begun (as others have reported) to make horrible grinding noises when trying to access discs is has just recorded successfully on, which it then claims are bad. To say that this is the worst piece of consumer electronics I've ever purchased is a massive understatement. We'll see if Panasonic refunds either the $75, the original purchase price, or both . . .



3. I owned the model in black but their internals are the same. The unit was good for about 1 year when it started to freeze during recording and playback. It became progressely worse over the next month. I attribute it to excess heat. This model is NOT an Energy Star equipment. I replaced it with another Panasonic model DVD-S53 which does not have the recording feature but is Energy Star compliant and it works great. I think Panasonic tried to get this product to market too fast. I would not recommend buy this product at all. Go for an Energy Star compliant Panasonic product.



4. I bought this recorder at Best Buy three years ago and I am very pleased with it. I've read all the reviews and agree it must have issues, but for me I got my money's worth. I've used it almost every night and lately have recorded shows for eight hours without turning the unit off. I have had problems with it sometimes locking up, I usually just unplug it and after plugging back in hit open, this has alway unlocked it. I didn't even have this problem until about three months ago. I think some of the blank media you buy sometimes confuses it. If you use Verbatim without print paper on top, it don't mess up. I noticed something is starting to go out, it makes a lot of noise when loading and finalizing. The bottom line, I've used this for over three years, hours at a time and I've recorded on it at least three to four nights a week, until last year it worked fine. I was so impressed I bought another one off ebay for a good buy. If it freezes I won't buy another one after seeing all these bad reviews. The price I paid I'm willing to take a chance. Recorder has great picture quality and is very easy to use. For the price it's worth it. If anyone has this model and it freezes, the trick is to get the dvd out without forcing it, usually if you unplug it and plug it back in you can get the disc out, it will then work again. As I said I used it for two years almost every night and had no problem with it.



5. The DMR-ES10 has proven faithful to Panasonic's modern day tradition of decent-performing products that self-destruct right after the warranty period ends. Yes, it plays and records DVDs just fine, and despite the cryptic on-screen menus, it's pleasant to use thanks to a really nice remote control. But once your two years are up, watch out. My unit started producing unwatchable recordings (where the video plays back in intermittent freeze-frames spaced 1-2 seconds apart) or failed to record at all -- and over time, the failures have come to outnumber the successes. At this point, even the simple act of turning it on provokes a disturbing chorus of buzzing, choking, and whirring noises.
   
   I've experienced similar failures in a Panasonic TV, VCR, DVD player, cordless phone, and car stereo in the past six years alone. If this company's reputation for quality reflected reality, it would have been out of business years ago.

5 comments about Sony DVP-CX985V 400 Disc Progressive DVD / SACD Player.

1. First and most importantly, if you're not willing to have your entire DVD collection seriously scratched/gouged (for which you will never be compensated unless you take Sony to small claims and win), skip this line of Sony DVD players (985 & 995 series at a minimum) and buy something else. I don't own any electronics that aren't Sony so this isn't coming from a Sony basher, it's simply a fact. If you're willing to risk destroying $4,000 to $8,000 worth of DVDs then continue reading. Unfortunately I only recently became aware of this when I discovered a problem with one of my DVDs, looked at it, then went online to do some research. after spending countless hours loading DVDs and entering the text descriptions, I've yet to pull all my DVDs out to inspect them all, but I'm definitely going to be purchasing a different DVD changer in the immediate future. $300-$500 isn't worth sacrificing thousands of dollars worth of DVDs to a player that has a flaw which will unquestionably destroy your DVDs given enough time.
   
   I really can't believe how many incredibly stupid mistakes were made when designing this player. With a minimal amount of testing/QC, by a handful of individuals with some common sense, this player could have gone from being rather annoying but functional, to the best DVD changer on the market. Below are a list of my complaints, virtually all of which could easily be corrected or have been avoided, but apparently they didn't have anybody who actually watches DVDs QC this unit before mass producing and shipping them (also evidenced by the horrible scratching problem that went undetected through the QC process):
   
   1) Loading DVDs into the DVD Changer - The DVDs are so closely packed together that it's extremely difficult to tell which slot is which. When you scroll to a particular slot using the dial on the front of the DVD changer with the intent of loading a DVD into the slot, you really can't tell which slot is the one in the center. They have a very small black arrow on the front that points to the slot you've selected, but it's so small, dark and difficult to tell which slot it's pointing at (because they're so small and close together) that it's practically worthless. The very simple solution would have been to have that outer arrow lit by an LED, and more importantly, an LED underneath the edge of the carousel in the corresponding center slot to match up with. This would easily enable you to see which slot you were looking for to load a DVD into or remove one from. The problem is seriously compounded at night or if you're in a poor lighting situation. You're pretty well screwed if you don't have a flashlight. Even then you'll occasionally pull the wrong DVD out or put one in the wrong slot. It's also more difficult as your DVD changer gets filled up, the problem wasn't nearly as bad in the beginning when half or more of the slots were open and there were spaces between most of the DVDs. On that note, be sure to leave spaces between your DVDs when you put your collection into it if you have 300 DVDs or less and want to try to keep things alphabetical. Once you get over 300 DVDS in the changer it will become a never ending battles of shifting DVDs around and having to re-enter the text (which as you'll find out below is a nightmare).
   
   2) Loading DVDs into the DVD changer cont. - I should also mention that if your power was turned off on your DVD changer before you went to load a new DVD into it, it will automatically load and play a DVD with no way to stop it as soon as you turn the power on. This is an extremly annoying problem anytime you turn on the DVD changer, not just when you want to load a new DVD. I think I might have seen someone else post that there's a way to turn this off, but I'm not sure and it's certainly on by default.
   
   3) Detecting/Entering DVD titles - Only a small percentage (about 25-30% average for me) of the DVDs I've loaded have the text auto detected and loaded into the DVD player's disc explorer. Even fewer of those have a thumbnail image. This means you're going to have to enter the titles manually for the majority of your DVD collection. This really sucks because of the following problem.
   
   4) Detecting/Entering DVD titles cont. - The process they designed for entering the titles of your DVDs into the disc explorer using the DVD remote has to be the absolute worst imaginable. I swear it would take a think tank to create a process this bad. Heck the method that cell phones have been using for nearly a decade would work 2-3 times faster than the process they invented. They laid out the alphabet horizontally across the screen in layers, uppercase text, lowercase text, and numbers/symbols. That might not be the worst design were it not for the fact that the cursor scrolls very slowly and every time you enter a symbol, the cursor returns all the way back to the upper left corner (capital A). You then have to press the enter button or a direction on the remote twice before you can start scrolling again (IE you have to press it to the right twice just to get to capital B). This takes about 2 seconds each time, every time, you enter a letter. Compounded with the incredibly slow scroll time, and having to start all the way back at the upper left corner each time, it takes on average about 2 minutes to enter a title (and it can take longer). The only upside to this is that if you're willing to sit down in front of your DVD changer you can plug in a PS2 keyboard and type the DVD titles in rather than using the Hellishly designed DVD remote process. If you know how to type this will slash the time it takes to enter DVD text by about 80%. However most people don't have a chair plopped down right in front of their DVD changer so you either have to sit on the floor or go grab a chair and a keyboard (unless you keep a dedicated one plugged into the unit which looks lame) every time you add a new movie.
   
   5) Detecting/Entering DVD titles cont. - Unfortunately you CANNOT enter the text for a DVD until you've played it. So when you buy a few DVDs and load them into your DVD player, you have to navigate the painfully slow disc explorer (which I'll get to later) to load and play each of your new DVDs (which you typically cannot interrupt until after the FBI warning and sometimes other misc slates), before you can then go back to the disc explorer, navigate to the desired title, and enter the text. I can't imagine why Sony should require that it knows exactly what's in the slot before you're allowed to enter a text description for it, but those are the rules you must play by.
   
   6) Detecting/Entering DVD titles cont. - The steps you take to edit/enter DVD text require that you A) Load the Disc(s) into the carousel B) Flip the switch on the DVD remote to "Disc Explorer" C) Press the Folder button on the DVD remote which is nearly invisible because the text is in dark blue on a black remote, and located in an obscure location in the middle of the roughly 40 buttons on the remote D) SLLLOOOOWWWWLLLYYY navigate to find the DVD(s) you loaded E) Press Enter to play the DVD F) Wait for the movie to get all to the way to the main menu which is usually the first place you can interact with the DVD due to the way store bought DVDs are typically authored to force you to watch the slates G) Stop the DVD and/or or press the invisible "Folder" button on the remote to access the Disc Explorer H) Navigate to the desired title if it's not already on it I) Prss the EDIT button on the remote which is also dark blue and located nowhere near the Folder button J) press ENTER (which of course is the button that also launches DVDs when using the Disc Explorer). K) SSSSLLLLOOOOWWWWLLLLYYYY enter the description of the DVD L) Press the invisible EDIT button on the remote M) Press the ENTER button on the remote. VOILA, you're done!!! Isn't that a snap! Now here the problem, I guarantee you will frequently accidentally forget to press the EDIT button BEFORE pressing the ENTER button when you've navigated and found the movie you want to edit, because it just seems natural to press the ENTER button to access the title and start editing it. Unfortunately when you do it will launch and play the DVD and you will once more have to wait a couple minutes while it plays the FBI warning etc. etc. before you can stop the DVD. The same thing happens when using a keyboard instead of the remote, if you scroll up/down the Disc Explorer and then press Enter on the KB without going into edit mode first, you will again launch a DVD and be forced to wait a couple minutes to get back to where you were. Unfortunately there is yet another problem that commonly occurs when you're using the keyboard. As I mentioned, you press ENTER on the keyboard (once you're in edit mode of course) to take you to the screen where you can enter or edit the text of a movie. You also press ENTER on a keyboard throughout your entire life whenever you've finished typing something (including IMs etc.), so it seems perfectly logical you should press the ENTER key when you're done typing the text for a DVD/CD right? WRONG!!!! If you press ENTER on the keyboard when you've typed in the desired text, it CANCELS what you've done and returns you to the previous screen! You have to hit the EDIT button on the remote when you've typed in the text you want (I don't even know how to stop editing with the keyboard but there's probably a key). Like I said before, it would literally take a think tank dedicated to figuring out how to make something as UNintuitive as possible, to design something this backwards. If you don't own this changer it may be hard to visualize what I'm talking about, but fellow owners will surely empathize.
   
   7) Detecting/Entering DVD titles cont. - So do you own one of those cool SONY DVD recorders to go along with your 400 disc Sony DVD changer? They work really good and the quality is great (depending on the model of course). They work great right up to the point that you want to use your home recorded DVDs with your Sony DVD changer. Sony in all their wisdom decided that their should be certain pre-requisites before allowing you to enter text for one of your DVDs or CDs. We came across this earlier when I said you cannot enter the text for your DVD until you've played it and it recognizes that it's actually a DVD. I can think of no good reason why I shouldn't be able to enter text for any disc, whether the DVD changers knows what kind of disc it is or not. Getting back to the point, it just so happens that the Sony DVD changer will not allow me to enter text for any DVDs recorded with my top of the line (at the time) SONY DVD recorder. Isn't that lovely? Did I mention that the DVD changer WOULD allow me to enter text for DVDs that are recorded with OTHER manufacturers DVD recorders?!? I know, this sounds like a joke but it's anything but. DVDs I recorded with a crappy GoVideo DVD recorder prior to purchasing my Sony DVD recorder worked just fine in my Sony DVD changer. So, all of the DVDs I've recorded with my Sony DVD recorder have to sit in my DVD changer with no text description whatsoever. That means of course that I have to maintain a completely separate spreadsheet or database for my Sony DVD changer, completely negating the necessity for the pathetically designed and extremely cumbersome Disc Explorer (which I'll get to). I should mention that if you author your own DVDs using programs such as Scenarist, the DVD changer will allow you to enter text for them. So far, the only DVDs that I have not been able to enter text for are ones recorded with SONY DVD recorders. Of course I have not tested all DVD recorders and all DVD authoring programs, so it's very possible that DVDs created with certain recorders, burned with certain burners, or authored with certain programs, will not meet the criteria set by the player for allowing you to enter a text description.
   
   8) Disc Explorer - Dozens of people have already commented on how pathetic the Disc Explorer is so this is redundant, but to be complete I'll put in my 2 cents. You can only see 5 titles at a time using the Disc Explorer that Sony designed, that's problem number 1. This means a LOT of scrolling when you're talking about a 400 disc DVD changer. This could have easily been designed such that you could see 10 or more titles at once by dispensing with the pointless thumbnails, using a slightly smaller font (the current font is overly large), and some reorgnization.
   
   8) Disc Explorer cont. - Because of the font size/layout/poor design, you can only enter and see a very limited amount of text for each DVD. It's not like you can even enter the full description and it just limits how much of the description you can see when navigating, they simply limited the field that stores the text to 20 characters. That means that most DVD titles are either truncated (if auto detected by the DVD changer and the title is too long), or you have to be creative when entering your DVD titles so that they make sense when the title doesn't fit. At least half if not more of my DVD collection has truncated or abbreviated titles. This is really annoying and for some movies (especially when they have a bonus disc) it's extremely difficult coming up with an abbreviated name AND tacking on the text to let you know this is the bonus disc that may or may not also have a movie on it. I should also point out that if the DVD changer auto detects text for a movie, you CANNOT edit or change that text, you're stuck with whatever description it imports.
   
   9) Disc Explorer cont. - Speed and Efficiency. These two words cannot be used in the same sentence with this DVD changer. Whether it's loading a DVD into the carousel, detecting and/or entering the text for a movie you've just added, or navigating the Disc Explorer to find a movie you want, be prepared to spend a lot of unnecessary time doing it. The Disc Explorer has this nifty feature of displaying thumbnails for each movie. Sounds like a great idea, but only a small percentage of movies actually have a thumbnail, even current movies. More importantly, when you navigate the Disc Explorer it takes about 1 second to load each thumbnail, so if your movie isn't one of the mere 5 that you can see on the screen at one time and you want to scroll a little, be prepared to wait 1 second every time you press down or up on your DVD remote (again keeping in mind we're talking about 400 discs here). If you hold the up or down button for a few seconds it will stop displaying the thumbnails AND text and start to scroll faster. That would have been fine if it would have just stopped displaying the thumbnails, but it turns off the text descriptions too so you have no clue when to stop scrolling unless you already know exactly where the desired DVD is. If you do, don't waste your time navigating, just type in the numbers of the DVD you want (this is the ONLY positive thing about the Disc Explorer, but of course you have to already know the slot your DVD is in). Of course when you're scrolling rapidly and blindly through the slots using the Disc Explorer, you often have to stop to let the text display so you can see where the heck you are in relation to what you're trying to find. Unfortunately, every time you stop scrolling it has to load ALL the thumbnails for the 5 titles on that page, so you have to wait about 5 seconds just to get a glimpse of where you are. You won't grasp how slow and painful this is until you actually use this thing, words alone cannot do it justice.
   
   10) Reliability - I've had this DVD changer for around a year I guess, perhaps a little longer. So far it has been pretty reliable with fairly minimal problems reading discs. However I should point out that I have owned 3 other Sony DVD changers, all of which have lasted less than 2 years with VERY minimal usage (the last one I used less than 10 times) and all of which have had repeated problems reading discs that were perfectly fine. Own a Sony DVD player any length of time and you'll become intimately familiar with the C13 error. That's what it throws out anytime it can't read the disc, the problem is that it happens all too often with discs that are perfectly fine with no scratches, smudges, or anything else, or scratches so minimal that it would play fine on any other player. They especially had a lot of problems with DVD -/+Rs in earlier generations, but that has gotten better over time. What hasn't gotten better is the longevity. Perhaps the unique design of the DVD changer versus their typical players will have some effect on the life span, but I'm wholly confident this player will not last. It's irrelevant since I'm already looking for another DVD changer, having discovered the unacceptable problem this player has of scratching and gouging your DVDs and CDs.



2. Contrary to the info here, and also what it states in the Sony manual, this unit DOES play DVD-Audio disks. I have the unit, have had it for several years, have 7 or 8 DVD-Audio disks and the ALL play perfectly. Other than that, most of what the reviewers here say is true. It is slow, and the disk labeling and sorting is VERY cumbersome. It's too bad Sony didn't take some of the great sorting and labeling features from it's earlier 300 disk CD models and bring them here. It is also annoying that most menus and features are only accessible by using a TV screen.



3. After reading all the complaints about this unit scratching their discs, I went home and pulled out the disc I have played the most. I found very lite circular scratches near the center of the disc. This disc was brand new and in pristine condition when I installed it. I then pulled out many more discs and could not find any other damage. I will discontinue using this unit if I see any more damage. Other than that, I really like the unit. I don't know why others are having a problem with explorer. I think it's great. The two things I don't like is the fact that you can't view explorer without stopping play and that it doesn't display song titles. Even if I had to type them in myself, would be better than nothing.



4. This player is perfect for taking that stack of DVD's & CD's (neat or otherwise) and putting them in one place, away from fingerprints and dust, and makes them easy to view and/or listen to. If you read other reviews of this product you'll hear all about how hard it is to enter title and track info, or how the cover art isn't always there, or whatever.
   
   The bottom line is that most of the complaints are rooted in the fact that the discs very often don't have the info engrained into them, making manual entry a necessity. Not the player's fault.
   
   My solution? Create a simple spreadsheet on the computer and enter in the basic info (title, genre, format, slot location number) and put it in a plastic sleeve inside a thin binder or presentation folder and leave it next to the TV or the remotes. Scan the list, pick your title, enter the number, press play...done!
   
   Worrying about all the things that this unit supposedly "can't" do is like being upset that the remote for your car audio deck doesn't work. Burn off a half a calorie and just lean forward and press the button for pete's sake.
   
   Maybe my only complaint (and I'm not alone in this regard) is that the remote control stinks. There's no flow or sense of order with it. You basically have to memorize the buttons (and only if you live and breathe learning the remote). And my word of caution is to make sure you measure the space where this unit is to be placed BEFORE you purchase it. It's very large (depth, especially) and just barely fits into my entertainment cabinet. I paid around $225 for it last year. So I'm sure it has dropped some, or had more features and improvements added for the same price. If you can find a used one for less than $200, buy it. You won't be disappointed.



5. This player is great! I bought mine years ago and I have been extremely happy with it.
   
   The Remote: it has a lot of buttons. Most of them you don't use. has 4 sets of 'Forward/backward' buttons that have different uses (Next/previous chapter, Fast-forward/Rewind (hold-down), fast-forward/rewind (toggle), Skip forward/replay). The 'folder' button brings the list of DvDs in your player, plus the normal expected buttons (play, pause, stop, language, etc) are the only buttons I really use.
   
   The System: One nifty feature is that most (if not all) of the buttons you need on the remote, is on the front of the player!
   
   The DvD Menu: Yes it takes time to load each picture... But you don't need pictures if you don't want them... And you can page up/down in (skipping the load time) by holding down the up/down button.
   
   The nitpicks..
   The BIG problem I have (lost a star for this) is... it sometimes 'Forgets' DvDs you put in it. If I go to a DvD that is fully labeled and has a thumbnail... there is a chance it will think it's a new disc and delete the title and thumbnail! This was a much bigger problem before moved my old wireless keyboard to the DvD player (Having a Keyboard plugged in is GREAT! Typing titles in with the remote is a pain.)
   
   My other Nit-pick is: It sometimes has trouble playing recordable DvDs. I have some TV shows recorded on DvDs and the player sometimes has trouble playing the last episode I record on the disc (but it works fine on my computer and other DvD player). This is a bit of a rare problem tho.

5 comments about Panasonic DVD-S53K Up-Converting 1080p DVD Player Black.

1. The quality of the picture is excellent. I don't have an HD setup, but it seems as though the quality, even on LD is somehow enhanced. Very happy with it. The tray for the DVD seems a bit on the flimsy side and caution is needed. Also, from advertising that I read about this, I was under the impression that it could play Dual Layer, but it won't play DL that's been generated on a PC. It makes that very clear in the owner's manual. You may want to download a copy of the owner's manual to verify it will play what you want it to. But otherwise, a 1000% better than the DVD player I used to have. It is a well designed quality product.



2. When this unit came out I rushed out to buy it since I own the model S52 that came right before it.I love the S52.It has all the adjustments one would ever need to get a great picture.What a letdown the S53 was.The picture is fair but Panasonic took all the user adjustments off this model.You are stuck with the factory presets like skin,normal,etc.There is no adjustment for gamma on this machine.If you have a scene with alot of black and you can't see the details,you have to either turn up the brightness or live with it.I thought I would be getting the same player as the S52 but with the added joy of upconverting my movies to 1080P.I have just bought a Philips 47" ambilight 1080P television.This tv has to be seen to be believed.Philips 47PFL7432D 47" 1080p LCD HDTV with AmbilightThe one thing that I really do like about the S53 over the S52 is the open tray function on the remote.The S52 does not have this feature.



3. Ok, first the cons.
   Really, just one. I like to burn a few dozen of my music CDs to a DVD in MP3 format at 320/kps. You can fit a LOT of albums on one DVD and not need to buy a CD changer. You just have them queued up on a single DVD.
   The S52 had a GREAT method of displaying the foler names on the DVD. Whereas a very long file or folder name would still be truncated, it would display out to 16 characters or so before that would happen.
   With the S52, the dual column display is gone, and even worse it seems to display even less than conventional pc 8.3 filenames. A BIG dissapointment, this was one of the major reasons I have been sticking with Panasonic rather than a different brand.
   The pros - It's cheaper than the S52 was, and the picture quality is the same. Very nice on my Samsung LCD panel. I wish they would throw in a better tray rather then the composite video/audio cable, which I doubt that anyone on the planet uses, but I have no complaints with playing DVDs on this unit. Plus, it plays Divx files just fine. The S52 would not play Divx files at all.
   Bottom line - I have few Divx files and a lot of music CDs. I like the S52 better! Th4e S53 is a nice set, and if you have a lot of Divx files it is obviously better suited to your needs, but for displaying music file names the S52 was vastly superior.
   I hope this helps you decide which to choose if you can still pick either or!



4. Just bought it several days ago, player shuts down completely after about 30 min of playing time. Won't turn on until about 20 minutes later.
   Also, when viewing JPG files on DVD-R, can only see the files in first 6 - 9 folders, in alphabetical order. Don't see any files in folders beyond those first 6 - 9 folders.



5. I've had this product for 2 months. So far I can't find anything to complain about. It plays store bought and my home recorded DVD's with no problems. The picture quality is flawless.
   
   If I needed another DVD player, I would buy this one again.

5 comments about Toshiba SD-P1750 7-Inch Portable DVD Player.

1. It's been almost two weeks since I purchased this Toshiba product. I wanted to get the Sony portable since it looks "cooler" and I read good reviews about the Sony's battery life but I ended up getting this one because it was cheaper.
   So far so good, better than expected indeed, it's a 7' screen so smaller than the Sony and hence more practical.
   The control keys are very friendly (in contrast to the Sony), the remote is slim and very light.
   The voice volume is very acceptable, the screen resolution isn't bad at all.
   The only issue I guess would be -as expected- the battery life (little bit shorter than the claimed 2 hours) but I carry the cords with me most of the time so it's not that bad.
   The device doesn't have an intrinsic mechanism to hook it to a car seat or something, but you can buy the 7-inch "case logic" case (around $15) where the device can sit and be operated while mounted almost anywhere.
   
   Overall not a bad deal at all for the amount of money you're paying.
   Hope this review was helpful ?!
   
   FOLLOW UP: April 2008, VERY PLEASED STILL!!! glad I got it !!!!



2. I bought this to play videos in the car for my 3 yr old. Worked good. At one point I had to set it at a 10 degree angle because it was making some rubbing noises and freezing the picture. Only happened once so far though.
   Not bad for the price.



3. I bought this player and at first I was very pleased with my purchase. The sound was good, it was light, and the screen was nice and big, but...after a few more uses I found that the screen pixelated every time the scene it was playing was in the shade or dark. Also, I would put in a DVD (that I had played before and had been crystal clear) and it either wouldn't play at all or it was so pixelated I couldn't watch it. The player freezes whenever you least expect it and the remote is horribly designed. If you press the pause button twice it goes into step and then you have to search for the play button. All around, I returned it and I wish I had stayed with my old Coby, even if it was falling apart.



4. I mostly got this little model so that I can watch videos while in transit, between classes, and at the gym. Since I'm a film student, there are a lot of movies I need to squeeze into my schedule and this seemed like a good way. So far it's been an excellent unit, very reliable and easy to use, with no problems. My only two complaints are that I haven't been able to buy additional batteries for it -- nobody, not even ToshibaDirect, seems to bother carrying them -- and the claim that this model could handle .avi and Divx files has turned out to be incorrect. All in all, though, it's doing what I need it to do, and doing it very well.



5. This product was very picky on DVD since the first day I bought it. I did not return it since it could play a DVD that my baby daughter especially like. But after six months and just a few times use, now it just refuses to play ANY DVD, and says "invalid disk". Believe me, It would be a mistake to buy it!

No comments about Go Video GP908B 9" Portable DVD Player.

1 comments about Toshiba 14DLV75 14-Inch Flat Panel LCD TV with DVD Player.

1. Very sharp picture and "portable" size make this set a versatile dream. Clunky inline power converter box was a surprise, but when evenings are too nice to be indoors, this is your entertainment answer.

No comments about 7" Portable Tablet Style TFT Widescreen Portable DVD Player with Wireless Headphones.