Hitachi DVP305U DVD Players Reviews

Price Paid:  $170.00 from Circuit City

Summary:
OH MY where do I begin. I received this DVD player as a gift. Along with several new DVD's I put in the first one fine. I put in the second and "no disc". After a few minutes messing with it I finally get it to work. Then I started renting DVD's. GOod luck watching one of these in full with no skipping. I Hate this machine. I assumed it was the quality of DVD's I was renting but after checking with others that own Sony's, even less expensive brands like Sanyo & Apex - no one has the problems I do. I called Hitachi Customer service they said sorry warranty is up call a service center. Even the service center they provided me says Hitachi makes a piece of junk DVD player. Now that has got to be telling me something. To have it repaired will cost over $250 - I can buy 2 DVD players for that now! I have written a letter to Hitachi requesting they provide me some sort of assistance, I suggest you all do the same. You can just call hit the contact button on Hitachi.com or call them at 1800-hitachi. Let them know there consumers don't like to get screwed!

Strengths:
When it works - it works well.

Weaknesses:
Unfortunatley, very, very, seldomly does it work well

Price Paid:  $250.00 from Future shop

Summary:
We bought this product a year ago. After 1 or 2 months, it starts to have reading problem. Since it's still under warrenty, we had it repaired. They send us a new unit instead of repairing it. Then, after 3 months, same problems occured. We don't want to waste money to repair it. Don't buy this product, it's garbage.

Strengths:
None

Weaknesses:
It doesn't read the disk most of the time. Blocks in the middle.

Price Paid:  $179.00 from Circuit City

Summary:
This machine has been nothing but trouble from day one. It is noisy and I have come to find that the lack of controls on the front panel is somewhat annoying.

Other than the nice negative comments, I have some rather large issues with this machine. It hangs, skips, screws up images and (most annoying) totally locks up about 60% of the way through most movies. I'm not talking about rented, scratched, warped disks here, I am talking about brand-new out of the shrink-wrap new DVDs. The machine can't properly play a new disk, so you can imagine my frustration in trying to get new disks to play.

The machine would not even offer to read an audio CD.

At my wits end, I called Hitachi technical support. They were somewhat helpful and customer service was fairly helpful. However, the customer service center that they sent me to locally has been a joke. They have had my unit for over two months now and they can't seem to get the right part, they're too busy, they're out on a service call, yada, yada, yada.

Do yourself a favor, buy a Sony or Panasonic. Even if Hitachi has improved things in a later model, it is not worth the risk.

Strengths:
Unit makes a solid "whump" noise when sharply struck on top. Zoom.

Weaknesses:
Other than the general existance of the machine: Skips, hangs, shows pixelly images and totally locks up more times than not.

Similar Products Used:
Panasonic DVD-RV26 - Hey, here's a product that actually works!

Price Paid:  $200.00 from Comet

Summary:
I have found this to be an excellent player, I have had no problems with it (even with rental disks) at all.

I recently upgraded the firmware to ersion 4.03 and I'm not sure, but I think layer cahnging time has actually reduced! Great!

I would reccomend this to anyone, especially if they have an external surround sound processor, the picture is amazing for the price.

Strengths:
Phenomenal Picture and great sound

Weaknesses:
Can be overly noisy if you skip loads of chapters quickly :-)

Price Paid:  $190.00 from REX

Summary:
I have owned my DVP305U for almost a year. Like many others I figured it would be a quality product since it had the Hitachi name. BIG MISTAKE! Don't buy this one folks. Locks up for not reason, won't read many disks, and skips alot. This thing is Sh.....t! Smiles. I wasted my money. Next time I will read the reviews here. Wish I had found this site earlier. Oh well. Good day people....cheers.....Danny :)

Strengths:
When it works good picture and sound

Weaknesses:
Does not play many DVD's. Locks up in middle of many DVD's. Very frustrating.

Similar Products Used:
I will be trying Sony or Panasonic.