Good audio and video quality

Optical unit breaks down

After 18 months, the A300 which was a trusty unit decided to stop playing discs. The NO DISC error came up during a routine DVD viewing. I'm going to chuck this thing out the door and get something more reliable. Boo Panasonic. I've read this problem (the optical pickup flaw) is very common.

cheap. $100 as open box product at circuit city. it was a display

didn't come with a remote(lost a long time ago)

my first dvd player. i have to disagree with others, mine plays cd-r disks fine. haven't tried rw's, tho. my reciever is just pro-logic, so can't speak for ac-3 ability. plays matrix fine. on my next dvd player, i'll consider panasonic, thet haven't done me wrong yet. wife hates it because now i want a dolby digital reciever :-) mike

very few freezeups, good picture and sound quality, very reliable

no bass management, ocassional shimmering on anamorphic DVDs which the player down-converts to 4:3 letterbox

I have been very happy with this machine. I have had very consistant performance and it has only frozen up or glitched on a disc a few times (and I have watched plenty of DVDs on it over the past year). Wish it had bass management, though, but hey, it is a first generation player, so you can't expect everything. The searching is a little clunky too, but a minor problem. Overall, an excellent player. I'm going to stick with Panasonic for my next one.

I purchased my Panasonic A-300 in October of 97, and I was verypleased with it's performance. Several weeks ago, though, it would
not recognize any disk inserted, and it is factory service for
the laser pickup/sensor.

The Manager at the factory service center let slip that they have had
a lot of them come in for that particular part, and in fact, the laser
pickup was out of stock in the US and on backorder to Japan. I think
we're looking at a major design/component flaw here that Panasonic had
better look at. Although I love DVD and like the Panasonic, one
"awe s**t" can negate an awful lot of "attaboys". How about it Panasonic!

AWESOME Player. Multi-Region and NEVER had a problem. Clean picture and AWESOME sound!!

No bass control. Price I paid compared to the prices of players now.

I bought this player the first week DVD's came out and never needed to buy another one since. I haven't had any problems with the laser pick-up like everyone talks about and the DD Decoder is great. I plan on buying a progressive player in the future, but until then this player will stay where it is.

Similar Products Used:

Pioneer and Hitachi

Nice picture, good sound

can not play CDR, no DTS/component video out, Remote need push hard

this is my 1st player & I bouhgt it in 1999. basically it's ideal for DVD but unluckily it won't play with CDR. Now i'mlooking for new one with DTS/AC3 together on board and must play CDR
a/way Panasonic is good for picture, much better than Pinoeer I've seen

Similar Products Used:

none

Before I bought a Sony dvd-s7000, I "demoed" all the models available in the area. The a300's video quality was only average average. As a audio cd player it was poor. The only reason to buy this player is to get dolby digital "on the cheap".

My Panasonic DVD-A300 is in factory service now...The video is OK, much better if you use S-video connection. Does not reproduce excellence CD playback. Only buying feature is the built in AC-3 decoder and Karaoke function. I had it for 500.00.

I've owned this dvd unit for at least 9 months now. Its performance is well above average on both AC3 and picture quality. My only complaint is that it has been in the repair shop for one week last January due to the laser component that stopped working. Overall rating is:

Purchased unit in August 1998. Chose Panasonic over other brands for its' ability to play VCD's and DVD's. I also wanted the built in AC-3 decoder.Picture quality is very good with VCD's and DVD's. Sound quality is average when using line outputs for audio cd's, but improves when using the optical output. I have not had any of the problems that the other reviewers have noted with this unit. The karaoke feature is a waste and was dropped from the replacement unit. Overall, a pretty good unit.