Hitachi DVP250 DVD Players Reviews

Price Paid:  $320.00 from future shop

Summary:
bought unit in spring of 2001. Problems with video playback skipping, freezing, player shutoff. Had laser upgrade courtesy of Hitachi and player worked fine until 2003. Display went blank, changed a picofuse in the power supply section to restore display. Last month, the above problems with video playback are reoccuring. Opened the drive and cleaned/lubed the transport slide rails that seemed to cure the problem for a couple weeks now the player will not even recognize the discs. Will play cd's though. Makes me wonder if DVD players are inherently more unreliable than CD players or if the problem is specific to this model or other models with defects.

Strengths:
Building my own surround sound amplifier (hobbyist) made it necessary to buy a DVD player with a built in decoder which is hard to find. Liked the variety of digital analog and optical audio outputs as well as having composite, s video and component video outputs. Also the us of an IDE(PC compatible) DVD rom drive might make it possible for me to retrofit a computer style drive that may work much more reliably than the original drive if I can't afford to buy a new player with similar features.

Weaknesses:
The reoccuring problems with video playback seem obviously associated with the DVD drive and not the rest of the player.

Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:
Owned this product for over 2 years and now the display doesn't work. It seems that others had the same problem.

Price Paid:  $250.00 from AAFES Lakenheath UK

Summary:
About 6 months ago the DVD player started to skip, stop, and shut-off on its own. I e-mailed Hitachi for support and I was told they have never heard of such a problem and basically told to go buy a new one. But I see I'm not alone with having the same type of problem. I see a manufacture defect and a replacement for this product is order. I plan to readdress this issue to the company.

Strengths:
When it works I think its a very good player.

Weaknesses:
Unable to play a DVD without it stopping, freezing, and shutting down. I now use it to music CD's.

Similar Products Used:
Panasonic and JVC

Price Paid:  $399.00 from Centre Hi-Fi

Summary:
Having a Hitachi television and other components I wanted a Hitachi DVD player. This seemed a good choice at the time. However almost from the beginning, I've had problems.

Strengths:
Sleek design, black on black. Plays homemade VCDs and photoCDs (using vcd) very well.

Weaknesses:
Here we go. Many skips and pauses that have gone worse the last few weeks. After less than a year, the front display stopped working. Took 2 weeks to get it fixed. Unit becomes very hot. Could fry an egg on the DVD when I take them out. Now, at about 1 hr 29-32 min. the DVD freaks out - pauses, skips and ultimately stops playing while locking the entire unit (e.g. Gosford Park, K-Pax, Dune, etc). I have to turn it on and off several times to eject disc. Very frustrated. Wife very upset... Now very dissatified with Hitachi.

Price Paid:  $500.00 from Brault & Martineau

Summary:
The Hitachi DV-P250 does it all. But something is realy wrong with the DVD playback... While i'm writing this, the player is being fixed by Hitachi Canada. I hope it will work fine when i get it back. Very nice picture quality, on a JVC D Serie 32" TV with Component connection. Optical output give a nice clean sound to the movies and even the CD that sound much better than with a dedicated CD player. I can burn my own VCD and play them with no problem. Now the bad. The player gets real hot during use. It's nice to know that DVD do not melt easily. It's realy slow to discover the disk in the drive and to start playing it. Animated menu on DVD seem to put stress on the player and making selection is sometime difficult. Most of the movie that use the second layer pause before going on with the playback. Subtitle pop up here and there while watching a movie, sometime i need to turn them off with the remote, sometime they go off by themself. It has happen a couple of times that the player stoped playback and shutoff for no good reason. Wierd stuff going around this player... So, i'll be looking for a Toshiba player soon... I'm suppose to have my Hitachi back in 2 or 3 weeks but i'm not holding my breath. Reading many reviews here is telling me that my problems will probably still be there when i'll have it back from the shop.... Seem to be a good player, but don't buy it, even if sold very cheap.

Strengths:
Very good picture quality. CD-Audio sound great. CDR&RW compatible.

Weaknesses:
BIG. Freeze in layer change in Matrix, Contact and many others. Subtitle pop and go while watching movie. Sometimes stop and shutdown....

Similar Products Used:
This is my first dedicated DVD player. Microsoft XBOX is my backup DVD player...