5 comments about Samsung DVD-C631P 5-Disc Progressive-Scan DVD Player.

1. No, you can't play CDs randomly. But, if you have a home theather system and need more than 1 set of outputs for audio, both analog and digital, as well as 3 different video output types, this machine is great. The picture is clear, sound is too. For the money, you can't find a better set of features. Everything is easy to use and I haven't even had to look inside the manual yet. And its progressive scan, so it will work with high def TV down the road.



2. I have to marvel at Samsung's engineering on this product. As is mentioned by dozens of other reviewers, it won't play across discs, random or otherwise. Unbelievable. If a team designing this came to me and told me this was what they were planning on sending out the door, I'd fire all of them on the spot, give them glowing job recommendations to my competitors, and bring in some high school kids that had some vision.

   I also tried burning some MP3 and Windows media audio files onto 2 different types of CD media, even at 1x, only to be rewarded with a continuous "loading" message, followed by a message that this disc can't be played. I've also had problems with it locking up completely while playing 2 different DVD's, and needing to be unplugged.

   I rate this player not "one star", but "5 poopies". I can't believe that this is a product released since 2000. My old Sony, which I was never that fond of, despite not being billed as being able to play alternate media types, performed the basic functions an order of magnitude better. Samsung should make toasters for a living, home electronics is clearly too challenging for them.




3. I actually do have an HDTV capable set (one of the Sony 1080i models), and can comment on the video quality of this player. My old Pioneer progressive scan player broke, this player was cheap, and I figure that it would probably be a good choice. My TV accepts 480p signals, and automatically letterboxes 480p signals with anamorphic compression. My biggest beef with this player is that it doesn't properly output an anamorphically compressed 480p signal.

   What is anamorphic compression anyway? As you've probably noticed, HDTV sets are wider; they have a 16:9 aspect ratio instead of a 4:3 aspect ratio. When you display a 16:9 picture on a 4:3 set, it is "letterboxed," meaning that there are black bars on the top and bottom of the screen. DVDs are encoded with 480 lines of vertical information. Ideally, you'd want to use all 480 lines for picture, and not for black boxes. That's the problem that anamorphic compression solves: it stretches a letterboxed image out to a 4:3 screen, to make the signal about 33% sharper. Specifically, it means that your DVD player will output a video signal with all 480 lines of resolution, and your TV set will squeeze it onto the right size screen.

   The problem with this player is that it does not correctly output an anamorphically compressed widescreen signal. On several discs (like the Matrix), I couldn't get the player to properly output an anamorphically compressed widescreen signal to my TV. So, I had to resort to letterboxing the image, losing 33% of resolution in the process. This causes a greater difference to the picture quality than the difference between a progressive and interlaced signal.

   So, in my mind, this is a useless player for the serious videophile. Along with the useless changer mechanism (see the other reviews), I can't recommend this player.




4. I agree with most of the above reviews.I was also disappointed that this changer does not change to the next disc automatically.You would think that a 5 disc changer would play a disc all the way through and go to the next disc number and play that one too.Not so.You cannot randomly play 5 music cds.There are mistakes in the owner's manual.I found this out by calling the 800 number and explaining that the screen does not show what the manual says it should show.Two things that I love about this player:The picture and sound.I hate the fact that on some movies if you stop the player to grab a sandwich and come back and push play again the movie starts all over again.What a pain.Also I wished that when you power up the unit it would not go into autoplay before you get a chance to go to your easy chair and sit down.Subtitles are hard to get rid of.The default position is on.It doesn't matter if you don't speak German or Italian.It will still put the first language listed on the disc subtitles into action.You have to hit Subtitle on remote to turn it off.I like the picture format changer located on the remote.You can changer from letterbox to screen fit with the remote while the movie is playing.I bought mine brand new in box for 69 dollars.



5. The picture quality this player produces is quite up to par. The sound quality is also good. I have but one qualm with this product...a major qualm, actually:

   It is not good at actually playing DVDs. The tiniest scuff or scratch results in audio/video skippage. I have attempted to clean the player numerous times, but to no avail. Perhaps my room is far too dusty? I don't know. I routinely find myself trying to use it, hoping it won't skip, but to no avail. I almost always end up having to watch the DVD on my computer.

   Again, perhaps the skippage is due to the environment that the player is in. In any case, I find it practically unusable.

5 comments about Panasonic DVD-F87K 5 Disc Progressive Scan DVD Player Black.

1. The unit is easy to learn how to use, it works well. It is nice to put in 5 DVD's and let it play. We do not watch TV, since we do not like 50% of our time being spent with someone trying to sell us something. So we can load a full days worth of movies and play them at the rate we chose.



2. I have owned this unit for nearly three years, and have no complaints. The price is very low for such a well equipped player (you can even adjust brightness, contrast, etc, just as you would on your TV), the motor is fairly quiet, the zoom is INFINITELY adjustable (just select MANUAL zoom rather than automatic and you can move back and forth in tiny increments), setup is easy (once you become accustomed to the fact that the primary menu buttons are called DISPLAY and GROUP), DVD-Rs are supported, and all the outputs are in place for DVD-Audio discs and optional subwoofer. You can also enhance dialogue and the video signal on low quality recordings.
   
   I don't know what more one could expect at this price.



3. Great 5-deck DVD player! Needs additional equipment for surround sound, but otherwise a good solid machine! If it holds up anything like my last Panasonic, I know I'll love it!
   
   I'm not sure if I'll need a splitter when all the new digital stuff comes out, but thus far, I love my machine! :)



4. Great Product and the 6-channel audio is still the best for reproducing theater-like surround sound while still hearing dialogue at a normal level.



5. I bought this to replace a cranky old Sony which refused to play DVD+R and had a hard time with mass copied DVDs. The Panasonic does okay with home burned DVDs, but chokes on marginal quality commercial DVDs. The showstopper: A lot of the time, I watch part of a DVD, then turn the unit off and return to finish later. This unit will not automatically remember where you were in the disc - you have to press a cleverly hidden button on the remote - and it's a button which no universal remote I have can duplicate. So the drill is to put down the universal remote, find the Panasonic remote, find the magic key, press it, then use the universal remote to power off the DVD/TV/audio system. If you don't hit the magic button, the DVD will play from the beginning. Pain in the butt.

5 comments about Panasonic DMR-EZ17S DVD Recorder with ATSC Tuner Silver.

1. I received this unit from Panasonic after another Panasonic DVD recorder broke down after six months. I have had it for three weeks and now the eject button does not work. Panasonic wants me to send it in for repairs. My advice, after many years as a loyal Panasonic customer, is to at least avoid their DVD recorders. Their customer service department is as unreliable as their products. Perhaps Panasonic is slipping in quality overall.



2. Got off to a good start with this unit, mainly got it to replace my old Panasonic DVD player that had stopped working after 5+ years, figured I might as well get a recorder. I hooked it up, and it easily tuned in all my cable TV channels, was able to get the remote to also control my TV. But then I was watching a regular, commercial DVD this morning, and midway through the show, it inexplicably froze.
   
   I ejected the disc, power-cycled, and even unplugged it, and I even tried the "freeze" reset suggested in the manual. After all these resets, it would still not play ANY disc I put in it. I get a "No Read" error. I never even got a chance to try out all the recording features. And this happened on the first day. Seems to me like it has a lot of nice features, but is way too delicate and easy to break. I guess you get what you pay for, cheaply-made electronics that are neither durable nor reliable. I'm returning this and replacing with something else.



3. I bought this unit as a replacement for my previous Panasonic recorder that had stopped recording. I was very happy to see that the learning curve was almost non-existant as many of the controls were similiar or exactly the same. I was also happy to have something that worked so easily without problems. I like the slimness of this model too. It has to fit on top of my old VCR and TV and it does perfectly.



4. Was hoping someone could help me out... I live in the Philippines and would like to purchase this to record some educational shows from the Discovery Channel and National Geo that my children miss while they are at school. I'm not knowledgeable with regards this matter. Would this electronic work just the same in the Philippines?



5. This item is great, if you don't mind losing many of your recordings because the darn thing froze up. I've had this unit for a while now and it keeps freezing up...IT FREEZES UP ALL THE TIME - 5 or more times per week...I lose recordings already made on a disc, scheduled recordings don't record and I have to reset all my programs. I can't believe this unit sucks so badly...I can't believe I haven't thrown it in the junk pile yet...step away...step away from this unit...!!!!

5 comments about Philips DVD793CH 5-Disc Progressive-Scan DVD/CD Changer.

1. I bought this player for two reasons; first, I was an employee of Philips, and second, the Philips machines seem to play the most formats for DVDs and CDs.

   I bought it in December 2002, and in November 2003, all of a sudden, it started saying "no disc" whenever I put in either a DVD or an audio CD. This was after only 10-15 hours of total use!!

   So at this point the machine is a boat anchor. They offered me a refurbished one for $60, but I don't feel that I can trust the Philips brand anymore, especially as DVD players keep getting cheaper.




2. My Philips DVD793CH 5 Disc DVD Player stopped working within a year after I had purchased it. Comes up with a "NO DISC" error and refuses to play discs. Only live customer service personnel you can talk to is a service center in Jamaica - very rude and arrogant !!! No response to letters written to a Philips PO Box address in Miami FL. Used to think Philips was a good company - don't think so anymore. I will NEVER ever buy a PHILIPS product again.



3. I bought Philips 793CH thinking that Philips has a great reputation in making great DVD & CD players, but i got really disappointed as my player most of time doesn't read discs. Sometimes it reads the disk and sometimes it rejects the same disk when entered later. Most of the time i get the display saying "disk error". IT doesn't give the folder names for the MP3 files so you have to look for a perticular song in the list of 150 songs and its doesn't even display the full title of the song as it is limited to less character space only. Although this player has all the fancy outputs including 'component video output', 's-video output', and has optical in and they work great but the bottom line for this player is "ITS NOT WORTH IT"
   I still don't have any probs with Philips as a brand cause other DVD players of Philips kicks ass! they just play anything! But this one is a loser!



4. I don't get why this mahcine has only a 3 for a rating. It rates much highter than that. Crystal clear picture. If people are complaining about what it doesn't do they are fools. It does everything it says it was do excellently!



5. There is apparently a problem with the Philips DVD-793 and the optical disk rotation motor wearing out. The motor eventually wears out and doesn't have enough torque to overcome the initial static friction and start spinning the disc. The player kicks the disk out and displays a "Disc Error" message when in fact it is the player mechanism malfunctioning. Sometimes you can overcome this by using a "Fonzie" and giving the machine a light tap as it's loading.
   
   Mine, (a DVD793CH21) lasted about 3 years, so I suppose I am lucky considering the reviews where people got less than a year of service. It's not feasible or cost effective to attempt to repair the part, so I guess I'll be buying something else. Probably not branded "Philips"

3 comments about Yamaha DVD-C950 DVD and CD Player.

1. Ever since I discovered this player in the summer of 2005, I have been highly impressed with how much it met both my normal and oddball demands. As a student of Musical Theatre, Opera, Classical vocal and choral literature, and Jazz and Classical piano, DVD-AUDIO and SACD capabilities are of great importance to me because there are a lot of titles especially in the Classical genre available in these formats. One thing that sets this player apart from the other manufacturers' players is Yamaha's CD UpSampling feature. For those titles which are currently only available on CD and possibly will never be released on DVD-AUDIO and/or SACD, this option converts standard CDs to the quality of DVD-AUDIO. On the Musical Theatre, Opera, and choral side of things, this player is capable of playing both NTSC (North American) and PAL (European) DVDs on corresponding as well as opposite TVs. For certain titles in these genres, the North American editions are either four percent slower in tempo and picture movement and flatter in pitch than the European editions due to the method of PAL-to-NTSC conversion used by the distributors of such DVDs, or do not include as many bonus features as their original European counterparts. Sometimes, it can be the other way around, except the European editions might be four percent faster and sharper and have less bonus material than their original North American counterparts. On both ends of the spectrum, if the audio pitch is corrected without changing the audio speed to keep the picture and sound in synch, a subaudible breaking-up effect may be noticed as the result of slight artifacts from slightly bending or stretching the pitch in the conversion process. However, because of this player's bicompatibility with both color systems, I have the freedom to choose and purchase whatever editions are the best. Although it is not in the manual, this player can be made multi-region compatible including RCE DVDs. Turn on the DVD player. Make sure there are no discs loaded. With the tray open, using its supplied remote control, slowly press 99990. Wait for the 'Region 0' message to disappear. Close the tray. Now you can play any kind of optical disc without thinking about it. The only little flaw with this player's firmware is that when the 'All Discs' repeat mode is selected, when playing DVDs, after playing through all the titles, instead of moving on to the next disc, it returns to the home menu. If Yamaha could do a minor revision to the firmware which engages that same menu bipass as when repeating a single DVD, the machine would change DVDs automatically. I discovered this by reauthoring DVDs without any of their menus using DVD Shrink Version 3.2. In conclusion, if you are looking for a DVD player with one hundred percent compatibility all across the board, you have come to the right place!* *Others have reported problems playing 'Dual Discs'--a type of disc which includes DVD-VIDEO on one side or layer, and CD DIGITAL AUDIO on another, also known as 'Hybrids.' However, big names, such as Panasonic, Sony, and Pioneer, do not recommend using these discs in their players. This is not to be confused with 'Hybrid' type SACDs, which many, including the Yamaha DVDC950 will support.



2. This is a really good lookin unit and so far has worked flawlessly.To start, the remote is not much of one, but it works.Kinda cheap, even cheap looking.If you want to load or begin on a specific disc you have to press the same button on the romote repeatedly, and when you go to load all 5 discs two of the slots only come out half way but, when you want to change a disc or two while one is playing that is the only slot that dose not come fully out.One thing I really like is the tray does not rotate when you open it everytime like some units.And, as far as I can figure there is no way to scroll the text after the initial scroll.Plus, it seems that the text on tv screen is limited to just a few letters.The unit upconverts the picture to 1080i to match my Hitachi and I have to say its a gorgeous picture.I went from a Kenwood DV5700 that had the DCDI chip on it, and it had a gorgeous progressive scan picture and the fact that this unit had the chip was a major selling point, little did I know hooking up via HDMI/DVI to the tv it bypasses the DCDI chip.I wont be missing it,the picture is that sweet.The unit has several picture adjustments that I havent felt the need to play with yet.But nice to know they are there.The fact this is a universal player was the biggest selling point for me, and so far it had played everything I have threw at it,dvdr's,vcd's, cd's, mp3's, dvd-audio's,dual disc's,etc.I havent tried sacd's yet, but give me time.I really dont care for the orange lettering and numbering on the display. I wish I could change the colors but no big deal.Overall I wouldn't hesitate in buying this unit again.The few minor complaints are just that, minor gripes about things this player dosent do that I have had on other players that I liked.



3. EDIT: Get the new dvd-c961 instead. There are many improvements, including putting the SACD audio on the hdmi output (need an hdmi 1.2a or 1.3 receiver to use this feature).
   
   I upgraded to this after having the DVD-C6760, because I wanted the DVD-Audio and HDMI support. As well as getting those features, I find that the picture is also better (even on component video) and the response time is much faster than the older player. This works great with both SACD and DVD-Audio. Also, it's built really solidly -- not some lightweight crap.
   
   - Usage Notes: it doesn't have iLink output, so you will ONLY get SACD/DVD-A multichannel audio if you connect up the six analog audio cables, even if you (like I) normally use the optical or RF digital output. This is the same for all SACD and DVD-A players that don't have the high-end output (e.g. see the Yamaha DVD-S2500). Also, if you want to use the resume feature, you have to hit the "play" key while it still says "loading disk xx" on the screen.
   
   EDIT: I successfully played a region 2 PAL format DVD on this (with a standard US TV). This player really does it all! (region-free hack is available by googling a bit).

5 comments about Toshiba SD2715 5-Disc DVD Player.

1. I had only played about 10 hours of DVD when it stopped playing VCD format disks. Because I rarely used this unit, the 90day warranty had expired. I would definitely AVOID Toshibas from now on. Such a waste of money considering I paid [what I paid] for this unit. The repair shop informed me the warranty only covers part, so I had to pay ... for labor. After some consideration, I decided to spend ... more and brought an APEX three disk carousel model(AD5131), ... It's working great, way more features than Toshiba or any other brands for about 1/3 the cost.



2. the toshiba sd2715 5 disc dvd player, is the best player to date for a family with a 5 year old who is very adept at electronics. ... It takes a max of 10 - 20 seconds tyo load a dvd. Personally i would rather have a 5 to 20 sec wait rather than have to clean or skip a disc. I would give this player a 10 of 10.My son continues to push this unit to the edge with not only sticky fingers but scratched discs and all do great!!!!!



3. Pros: plays dvd, dvd-r, cd, mp3, cdr, vcd; price, loaded with features; excellent dvd sound and picture quality.
   Cons: a tad slow to response and motor makes slight noise while changing discs.
   Bottom line: is in-expensive and a great buy for a 5 disc changer. Package contains fairly decent remote, a set of AAA batteries, a composite video and analog audio cable, good user-manual and a separate write-up mp3 playback and recording.

   Recommended: highly.

   Setup is easy and straight forward with the setup button on remote.

   Styling: player comes in black finish, looks plain, has lots of button on front panel such as on/off, open/close, disc ex-change during play, disc skip, stop, pause, ff /reverse. Displays the disc numbers for inserted disc and blinks when it is playing.

   Connections:
   audio:
   5.1 analog, digital coax, optical.
   video:
   composite, s-video and component video (rear panel contains switch to change between s-video and component).

   since i did not have digital audio cable nor s-video cable at hand, I used video coax cable to connect digital coax audio to my pioneer vsx-d409 dolby digital/dts receiver and used composite connection for video to my sharp 32' tv. The sound and picture quality after adjusting setting (audio set to stream/pcm)sounded and looked great.

   dvd contains 2x,4x,16x,100x speed for fast forward and reverse, slow motion can go from ½ to 1/16 speed, other features included are zoom, multi-language sub-titles, multi-camera angle view
   vcd 2x, 4x.
   mp3: displays directory with filenames of upto 12 characters only. this can be viewed only when you tv set is on. (mp3 limitation: should be recorded in iso-9660 format and recording should start from track 1 itself).

   I was evaluating 2 other players during the same time namely pioneer dv-c503 and panasonic dvd-cv51, I chose this player over panasonic for price and other it does not have digital coax socket, pioneer does not play mp3 / no zoom feature....




4. Having great experiences with a Toshiba SD2700 DVD player, I thought the SD2715 would make a great secondary unit. Within a day, it became my primary DVD player, and the 2700 was off to the basement TV.

   It has shown massive stuttering on "Black Hawk Down" - hoping it is a bad rental copy. Plays "The Matrix" with no problems - usually a litmus test for cheap decoders in cheap players. Hopefully an isolated event. I'll amend the review with an update.

   Plays VCDs recorded on the cheapest media known to man. Allows for Disc Exchange while others are playing - a nice feature when you're looking for that rental DVD while watching another movie. Gives off a nice picture. Tip: turn on the 3D Audio function for pronounced rear channel effects off a 5.1 disc - sounds great.

   Great player for the price. It does take 10 seconds to warm up, but it's a nice, reliable player.




5. When our 5-disk CD player finally conked out, we replaced it with this slick DVD/CD player. As a DVD player it works just fine, but I doubt most people are looking to shuffle between 5 DVDs. Like us, most people are looking for it to do double duty as the home's primary CD player as well. If so, you might be disappointed. Two big problems:

   (1) It is too slow in scanning CDs and responding to commands. If you just want to play a CD, you'll hate waiting around for it to be ready to accept your next instruction.

   (2) The random shuffle mode is poorly designed. If you just hit the "random" button, it will play the tracks on one CD in random order and then stop. Huh? If you are able to get it into the random2 setting, it plays the tracks on the first CD randomly and then the tracks on the next CD randomly. Huh Huh? If you're like me, you want the random function to play the tracks on all CDs in the machine randomly. This DVD player can do that, but it's very hard to get the setting correctly because it involves hitting the random button three times. Now that doesn't sound difficult, but it has to register three hits. That means that you have to do it slow enough that the slow machine registers the hits, but fast enough that it doesn't think you're done -- all this without any indication from the machine of how many hits it has registered. Hint: if you turn your TV on in DVD mode, it will actually tell you which random setting you are on. That's convenient -- NOT.

No comments about Jwin Electronics JD-VD740 7 Inch Tft Por.

No comments about Polaroid PDM-0722 - DVD player - portable - display: 7 in.

No comments about Toshiba SD-4000 Progressive Scan DVD Player.

5 comments about Panasonic DVD-S53S Up-Converting 1080p DVD Player Silver.

1. I bought this DVD player at Circuit City earlier this yr for about a $100. I hooked it up to a 47" Vizio LCD (which by the way has an awesome picture) using a HDMI cable. After fine tuning this product, I was very, very, very diasppointed. The picture was very "grainy" (lots of pixels). I have a $35 DVD player that only utilizes an s-video cable that produces a much more crisp picture. Be warned, the picture stinks.



2. I bought this DVD player to feed some HD signal to my newly purchased HDTV since I was not ready to spend close to $500 for a bluray player even though it looked pretty clear bluray would not be on the losing side of the format war (maybe universal players win in the end).
   
   The set-up of the S53S is pretty complicated and made worse by the fact that they give you many choices but do not tell you what they are supposed to do in the manual. I had two DVD players already, one standalone and the other built-in the home theater system. Both have progressive scan (convert 480i standard signal to 480P). Because my HDMI cables arrived a couple of days after the S53S, using component cables, I first compared the 480P images from my old players with the S53S. The S53S is much worse. After I received the HDMI cable and 30 minutes of "tuning", it was still a little hard to convince myself that the 1080P image from S53S was really better than the 480P from my old players. The last straw was when I discovered my home theater (also a panasonic) had an HDMI output, and once I connected it, I was amazed to realize that my home theater was capable of doing 1080i conversion already and there was definitely no difference between the 1080P from the S53S and the 1080i from the home theater. I eneded up returning the product.
   
   Bottom line is, take a hard look at what you already have and maybe enable the 480P (or higher) before purchasing. If there is no DVD player that does any up-conversion, this is a good unit to own. Otherwise, you should bear in mind that the up-converted signal is still nowhere near real HD signal. Also, get the HDMI cable. It is less than 10 bucks if you browse Amazon for market place sellers. I do not understand why some people suggest to get a "gold plated" one. HDMI cable is used to transfer digital AV signals and for digital product, the product either works (passes all the "1" and "0"s correctly) or simply does not work (messes up the "1" and "0"s), there is no such thing as noise, degradation, etc any more.



3. This is Panasonic's only DVD player that can play MP3's on DVD's. All the others (and all the units I happened to see from other manufacturers) play MP3's only on CD-R/RW's. Being Panasonic, it also plays DVD-RAM's which I want because I use DVD-RAM's on my PC a lot (most people just don't seem to understand why DVD-RAMs are so useful). The low price is nice but honestly I would pay twice that or more for the audio playing capabilities.



4. Player was delivered in a timely manner. The player is everything they said it was. I have purchased many Panasonic products in the past and have yet to be disappointed.



5. Plays everything ive thrown at it so far. Quality is nice. The remote is user friendly. Only thing is that I cant seem to change my display from 480p to 720p or 1080i.. my 32" westinghouse lcd can display up 1080i resolution too.. Other than that great player