Price Paid:  $139.00 from Soundtrack

Summary:
This product is a piece of crap. It went south on me after 13-14 months. Won't read TOC for DVD's anymore, but will read CD's. Too expensive to have repaired with prices for new units so low now. Soundtrack first tried to pawn off an open box return that had been taped back up to look new. After I got out to my car I opened it up to see what the rattling was all about- obviously returned after being used. That should have been my first clue about the quality of this product. I will never ever ever buy another Samsung product and will never ever ever buy anything from Soundtrack again!

Strengths:
None

Weaknesses:
Poorly made piece of crap

Price Paid:  $200.00 from dublin

Summary:
I bought this dvd player as an impulse buy about a year ago..I'd been in the market for a dvd player for a while , and happened to be glancing at them in an electrical retail shop when I noticed that above the dvd on display some one had taped the region hack instructions above the unit...that sold me there and then, it was a brand I knew through experience was good (samsung stuff tends to be cheaper than sony etc over here, cos they are not what you'd calla household name), it was under 250 quid AND MAINLY as it'd play region 1 discs. Now if you're from the US or canada you may as well stop reading now..in a nutshell its a good player, sound isnt brilliant and some of the early releases had a skipping problem(never seen it myself), thats it. For the rest of the world, read on

Strengths:
multiregion multiregion multiregion..no chipping or sending the mnachine away so some soldermonkey can take it apart and ruin your warranty..a few button presses on the remote and you can use US disks...so no more waiting six months extra for a dvd missing all half the features our transatlantic cousins get. other than that its buisness as usual... well well well worth the price , snap it up if available

Weaknesses:
sound apparantly isnt brilliant for cd's so if you're planning on plugging it into an amp to double as a cd player this may be an issue..me I just have it playing through a standard phillips hifi, (yeah i know all you audiophiles are gnashing your teeth at the thought, but a misspent heavy metal youth has left me half deaf so anything else'd be wasted on me!...)and for playing movies it sounds fine to me..( also I have seen it mentioned in other reviews that this model skips...never seen it myselft hough so I have an inkling that this was fixed in later releases of the player no it doesnt play mp3's or cd-r's , but when these machines were released neither was a standard it will play vcd's or cd-rw's though

Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:
This will be brief. Samsung has had numerous problems with their DVD players since the beginning. After 3 months I began to experience major skipping and freezing with the DVD-511. Under warranty it was repaired at my local electronics shop. It has been another year and once again the player is skipping and refuses to play certain discs. Mind you, the same DVD''s play without error on other DVD units. Picture quality is very good and audio is acceptable. If you are looking for a trouble free product, I would advise against the DVD-511 and the early Samsung DVD line in general. One positive is the warranty, which is 1 year parts AND labor. The DVD-511 has S-Video but no component output.

Strengths:
Warranty

Weaknesses:
Skip & freeze

Similar Products Used:
Sony

Price Paid:  $100.00 from second hand

Summary:
I bought this machine second hand and don't regret it. I use this player for playing DvD only. The regular audio CD's are being played on a uadio CD player.
The picture of this player is really great. It beats the VCR picture in every way. I didn't know my 7-year old Samsung TV could deliver this quality!
Also, during DVD play, the sound is very noce. It doesn't matter what I play (a movie or a live performace like the Eagles), it performs nice. The only thing I don't like about the sound during concert DVD's is the too much pronounced S's.

Strengths:
Great picture, great sounds during movies.

Weaknesses:
No dolby decoder

Similar Products Used:
none

Price Paid:  $200.00

Summary:
Was initially going for the Pioneer and then saw this player going at a good price so I decided to try this. The set up was fairly simple and I got going almost immediately.

Put in a DVD and it seemed to be fine. Then tried a CD and compared to the old Sony CD player this thing sounded like someone took the life out my CDs. Needless to say I was not impressed. Certainly the rest of the system was not a problem (Nakamichi's AV10 and Missions 701 with 77C1 centre at the time)

Got a few friends together that evening to watch the Matrix DVD and at various points on the movie the player dropped frames which for me is totally unforgivable since for the the same price other players dont do this. The response I got from the dealer was that this happened on this player and was taken to be normal!

The next day I returned the player and got the Pioneer DV535 as i had intended. Immediately the picture was a lot better with better contrasts and colours and the life was returned to the CDs also not to mention better sound on DVD.

I don't really know if the player would have skipped on other DVDs but I can certainly say that for the money there are better players out there. Try the Pioneer - its a belting player for both CD and DVD and for price/performance its certainly a great buy. Since I know there are far better players for the price I cannot give this Player a good rating.

Strengths:
Price, easy to use.

Weaknesses:
Picture/Sound

Similar Products Used:
Pioneer DV535,Nad