Price Paid:  $200.00 from Wal Mart

Summary:
For a Sony product, this DVD player has really been problematic (Ok, I'm trying to be nice here). I have had to clean every DVD before I watched it. Period. No Exceptions. About 9 months ago the sound problem started. I'd put in a movie and after about 10 minutes of really great video and sound, the sound would vanish. Voila! No slowly degrading quality or anything, just silence and I'd be left with just really great video. I cleaned the laser with one of those discs with the little brushes on it. After a few cleanings (eight or nine) it started working again, but only for a while. Ok, I thought, it's fixed. Nope. I've cleaned it until the little brushes on my disc are bent to one side. I've struggled with this machine for a while now. I'm going to go buy one of those $39.95 units. If the cheap model bites the dust, I won't care. I'm done paying big bucks for a formerly reliable name.

Strengths:
Looks impressive sitting on the shelf. Auto power off feature is nice. On screen display is wonderful to tell you why your disc won't play.

Weaknesses:
It won't work. How much weaker then that can you get?

Similar Products Used:
Orion (cheap Wal-Mart Brand - works great by the way), Sony DVD burner installed in the Computer (I use this to watch my movies when the freestanding unit won't work)

Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:
ok, maybe i'm the only one but... i think this dvd-player is one of the best around - i'm a sony fan... i like the design... i like the products, because they WORK...i'm using this dvd-player now since december 2001 and it still works very good - no problems at all...
i will buy sony again...
cya folks

Strengths:
sharp picture, very good sound, nice design

Weaknesses:
doesnt play cd-r. but i didnt try the Memorex: Music CD-R, 32X, 700MB, which are said to work fine with this dvd-player

Price Paid:  $179.00 from Target

Summary:
I'm sorry SONY, just because this is a cheap player doesn't mean we should expect it not to work.

This player worked great for about 6months then started its gradual decline. Constant C13 dirty disc, and no disc errors along with terrible skipping and freezing made movie watching miserable.

Beware of Sony's 'affordable' stuff.

I hope someone class-actions them.

Strengths:
Works good for 6 months. Nice Menus

Weaknesses:
The nice Menus will eventually be all you can watch.

Price Paid:  $220.00 from Future Shop

Summary:
Well I have had this unit for a little over a year . Now I have got the dreaded C:13:00 errors . At first I thought it was a problem with the rental disk and put it off to that. Now I am getting them on my own disk which might have been played once or twice. I am very disappointed in the unit. I will be trying to contact Sony. I tried turning off the display . But that did not work for me.

Strengths:
None now.

Weaknesses:
According to some of the reviews. Very poor track record. That after a year and down it goes.

Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:
We’ve been having the same problem other users have complained about. After just over a year, our player started giving us C:13:00 errors which became more frequent until finally it seemed to even tire of this and would simply shut down for no apparent reason and at the most inconvenient time in a movie (on new and just-cleaned DVDs).

Someone else mentioned that dimming the display seemed to work for him. It didn’t for us, but then the display never actually noticeably dimmed. So, I turned off the display outright and we are now again enjoying DVDs and the features we originally bought this player for; great picture and sound. Even previously problematic DVDs now play right through to completion. Except for this one issue (albeit a major one), I found this player to be exceptional.

I don't know how long this “fix” will last but for now our trip to the local electronics shop for a new (non-Sony) DVD player has been postponed.

Strengths:
Great picture and sound

Weaknesses:
Quality issues