Price Paid:  $219.00 from Costco

Summary:
Took it back after 3 days, began locking up and freezing. During playback of new DVDs, would lock on a picture, and freeze there, in some kind of loop, ejected disk, put in a different disk(one that played fine the night before), after 5 minutes, same problem, only way to correct was to unplug, and restart. If I could give it a zero, i would. Replaced it with a Toshiba 2800, same price, works great! ... so far!

Strengths:
Played various types of media, slim, never tried most of the features, broke to quick.

Weaknesses:
Build quality, it appears this problem has happened to other ppl. Maybe this was a bad one, but once I seen other reviews with simular problem, I didn''t wan''t to risk an exchange.

Similar Products Used:
Toshiba 2800

Price Paid:  $141.00 from Fred Meyer

Summary:
The build quality of this machine was even worse than that of a Samsung machine I tried out about 15 months ago. I decided to give DVD one more shot, but was very dissapointed with this machine. After two weeks, it started pausing/and/or freezing up during playback on BRAND NEW DISCS, not rentals. Also, I could see tons and tons of digital artifacts in the picture, those equal by the crappy aforementioned Samsung machine. Essentially, this is more Made In China crap with minimal or non-existent quality control. Also, there is no time remaining feature on this machine, it only counts up. PLEASE, somebody build a decent mid-priced DVD player.....maybe I should try Toshiba.....

Strengths:
Good Price

Weaknesses:
Very cheaply built, freezes up after 2 weeks of use

Similar Products Used:
Sony 7000, Sony 360, Sony NS-300, Samsung

Price Paid:  $139.00 from Video Only

Summary:
Great for cd's and DVD's; won't work with VCD's as advertised.

Strengths:
Great Picture, works perfectly with my stereo and tv, good remote. Very happy with cd sound and DVD play.

Weaknesses:
I can't get it to work with video cd's (VCD). This is driving me nuts! VCD's format in Mpeg 1, which this unit doesn't seem to recognize, though it says it will. Hmmm.

Similar Products Used:
Shinsonic DVD - played the VCD flawlessly, but DVD function was terrible. Returned.

Price Paid:  $240.00 from Costco

Summary:
Overall for the price this unit is worth the money. Not having the Optical connector (which is found on the next model up) would be nice but not essential at this price point.

I have noticed the CD-R disks I've made don't sound that good on this unit. It may be the disk themselves so I'm trying Memorex CD-R now to see if that fixes the problem.
The same CD's sound fine through my PC systems. Perhaps the system is more sensitive since it is a DVD player primarily.

I run the system through a JVC RX 6510-V A/V receiver and JBL 800 and 500 series speakers. This modest setup with the JVC DVD player perform to my liking.

Strengths:
Good Picture on DVD. Plays CD-R and CD-RW.

Weaknesses:
No Optical connection to A/V Receiver.

Similar Products Used:
None.

Price Paid:  $230.00 from costco

Summary:
as a newbie to H.T. I thought this entry level DVD would be a good introduction.Buying it at Costco assured hassle free return if I didnt like it.
So far so good. It has simple design and set up. I play the occasinal cd and cdr without problems. I am running composites into a 36'' JVC tv and the colour is great.
My a.vr. is a Teac [Costco]with DD DTS . Overall very happy with my ultra modest system.

Strengths:
price and features

Weaknesses:
none

Similar Products Used:
my first dvd