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Review NaN of
, from Toronto
Price Paid:
$145.00
from Downtown TV-Audio Centre, Toronto Summary:
This DVD player is terrific at playing VCDs and Super VCDs. It plays everything I've tried on it, including some VCDs with audio menus and chapters that didn't work with my friends' Panasonic RV-31 (otherwise a terrific DVD player). It also played some SVCDs that caused the Pioneer DV-444 to stutter, which leads me to believe that the 343 can handle higher bitrates than the 444, oddly enough. A look at the specs from VCDHelp.com appears to confirm this suspicion. I'd originally purchased the DV-444 but its problems with my SVCDs prompted me to take it back and get the 343 instead (a shame because otherwise I LOVED the 444.) VCD and SVCD playback were very important to me so I'm glad this player handles them so well.
I've had a couple of DVDs freeze up on me in this player, right around the 1h10m mark (the Matrix, Sixth Sense). Close inspection revealed a VERY slight smudge on the Sixth Sense DVD. The Matrix looked perfect. Nevertheless, once I cleaned the DVDs they played fine. I wonder if the error correction in this DVD player isn't as good as some? Haven't encountered problems with any other DVDs yet though, including many rental DVDs.
Audio and video quality are great, even without using the component video outputs. It has both an optical and coaxial output so I use one to plug into the DVD player input and the other to plug into the CD player input on my receiver (a Yamaha RX-V620).
The only drawbacks of this player in my eyes are that it is noisy (which is pretty annoying during quiet parts of movies) and that it can't play MP3's.
Otherwise it's a great player. For the price, it's an absolute star.
Strengths:
(S)VCD playback, DVD playback Weaknesses:
noise Similar Products Used:
Panasonic RV-31, Pioneer DV-444
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