Video quality, Audio Quality when it works.

Freezes, crashes, hangs, artifacts, Too much pixelixation

Like everyone else here I too saw all the problems like
freezes, crashes etc. When I first put in the DVD the
'0' is supposed to come 5 times on the display and then
start playing. It did ok for about 4 months. Now it just
puts on the '0' about 3 times before quitting. Trying to
power off the player is REALLY slow (~20 seconds).

This is a shoddy product and should have never been sold
to the general public.

I've had this thing for 8 months now, and it's fantastic.
Pros: Image quality is top notch, sound is top notch. You can reverse slow-motion (rare feature for DVD players). The subtitle button on the remote lets you quickly toggle through the options if you missed some dialog (or want to learn French), and there's an eject button on the remote. Nice, generally user-friendly interface (says "hello" and "goodbye," includes a screen saver, and has clear, well laid-out menus). Choice of component, S-video, or composite video, choice of fiber or coaxial audio. A good enough machine that many other manufacturers do little more than put their name on it and ship it out the door (Yamaha DVD players come to mind).

Cons: The joystick on the remote takes a little getting used to, and you do have to point the remote directly at the machine.

Neutral: I personally don't use the internal DD decoder or the virtual surround modes, so I can't comment on their quality.

Value: I paid $450 for mine quite a while ago, and have been very please. I've seen it for $600, and that's awfully pricey, but if you can find it for $400 (as someone below suggested), it's a steal.

Good picture and sound when works

Not work

I had the A310 since Dec. 98. It worked fine and played every DVD I can get my hands on. However, It started developing the pixelation and freeze problem last month whenever the player is on for an hour or so. I read the review in this panel and decide to contact Panasonic customer service. They denied that this is a known problem, offers me to take the unit to their repair center and pay them $45 and let the technician check it out.

It seems to me that there are a lot of troubles with no guanrrentee that they will fix the unit. So I decided to take my chance.

I opened the box and found that there are two chips, one is the doby decoder and I guess the other is the mpeg decoder, both of they are extremly hot. I am a chip designer myself, I know this is a design problem. Either the chip designer picked a package which can not handle the heat discipation or the system designer did not provide sufficient cooling. As an engineer, I understand that some time things like this happen, especilly with the 1st generation products. But the issue is the way Panasonic not acknowledge the problem and not to take steps to ensure customer satisfation. This is absoluly unacceptable for a major cusumer electronic company. I am sure that this is the last Panasonic product I bought or recommand to my friend unless Panasonic put its act together.

Anyway, To temperatly fix the problem, I put two heat sinks on the two big chips and drilled some holes on left side of the box and drill a big hole on the right side with the hot chips, put a fan I found on my scrapped 486's heat sink in that hole. I managed to find a 9V DC supply to the fan. In addition, I also put two heat sinks on the two transistors regulating 9V DC since I increased their loading by putting in a fan. Now my player can play for hours without freezing. The downside is that the nose from the fan.

Let me point out that what I did can only prolong the player's usage for a while. The damage to the chip is already done and the player will break eventurly unless I replace those chips with new one and put heat sink on them right away.

Outputs (SVHS, component video, composite video, DTS, digital, optical

a few problems with DVD titles

This is an update to a mostly positive review I posted a while back. I encountered problems watching "Out of Africa". When I paused the movie--it froze. When I pressed the menu button on the remote--it froze. When I pressed "stop" on the menu--it froze. Have played CD's and a couple of other DVD's since (5 days ago) and all is well again. Just "Out of Africa".
I also encountered a problem with "13th Warrior". About 1/2 of the way through the color movie became almost back and white. Stayed that way through the rest of the movie. Had to stop, take out the DVD, power off the unit, then power back on--it was fine afterwards.

Similar Products Used:

none

Well laid out controls, great picture and sound, and reasonable remote.

Will not play CDR's (manual says is should), but does play CDRW's (go figure).

I bought this new in box from a seller on EBAY. Got a great deal. I have been very happy with it except that it won't recognize my home burned CDR's. What a pain! It says in the manual that it is compatible! After reading some of the other reviews, I can concur that I have had some pixelization problems with smudged or scratched DVD's, but hey, I figured a car won't run right with sugar in the gas tank either. Since I don't have much to compare it to, I can't say if it is worse that others. In retrospect, I wish that I hadn't bothered to get the built in decoder, because I don't use it at all, since my reciever has one.

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First DVD, but now I have a Pioneer SCSI DVD-ROM in my PC, which flawlessly plays ALL formats, jumps extremely fast between chapters.

Works great for any random amount of time, until pixilation occurs and then it is useless. Good paper weight now though.

The obvious eventual self destruction of the unit.

I of course am having the same trouble as everyone else. When I got the unit in June of 98 it worked great for about two months, and then the no disk errors and pixilation started. It was gradual at first. Eventually the unit becamee useless. During this time I was getting the run around from Panasonic and the internet company I purchased it from. Finally I was able to get it sent of for repairs. It was gone for about a month and a half and when it finally came back it worked perfectly again for about 20 months. It then started to cause random pixilation and errors again. Slowly but surely it has gotten worse and now it is again a useless piece of crap.
I would strongly advise anyone who is in the market for a new DVD player to avoid Panasonic. Although the player worked as well as if not better than alot of the players on the market at that time, it is just not worth the risk to have to buy another $400+ piece of equiptment after so short of a time period.

Clean design, ease of use

Pixalation, DVD tracking

Excellent performance, modified to Digital decode to PCM or second choice, and since then pixalation started.

Unit plays CDz fine, but within 2-5 minutes DVD, dual sided or regular pixalate and sytem shuts down. If I pop in a CD it then plays fine.
When a person buys a piece of higher quality gear, they expect it to last. Panasonic betrayed their customers, by not owning up to this bug. Free upgrades and CSB ( cust. Serv. Bulletin ) about issue and at least a discounted repair at any repair center.1
I knew I should have gotten Sony.

Similar Products Used:

none

Good Looking, Great picture, good sound, good price paid

Sensitive to smudges on dvd. Freezes during playback unless modified (see below)

I bought this as a refurbished model at circuit city for $250 in Feb. 2000. It started freezing during playback the first day I hooked it up. I being stupid (and being my first dvd player) thought it was kinda normal. Well it started getting worse freezing 3-4 times during a movie at completely random times. It was too late to exchange it by the time I took it in for repairs. Circuit City had it for a week and charged me $30.00 for repairs (replaced the optical pickup). I took it home happy. The first dvd I played the freezing happened again. I was pissed to say the least. I wanted to keep the player if it would work right so I did some investigating. I read 2 comments on here about the player getting too hot. I also noticed when my house was cooler (it's now fall) it played with no freeze ups. I finally installed a fan from radio shack and drilled a few holes in the side for air flow. It hasn't froze up in a month now with constant dvd playing sometimes 3 movies in a row! I placed the fan on the right side blowing on the 2 chips inside. maybe that's why the units are failing after a while because of crappy air flow and the chips are burning up. I know it sucks having to do this but it doesn't cost much and at least it saved my investment. I suggest everyone do this or at least place a fan next to the dvd player blowing on it to see if it will help before doing it. Let us know if it helped anyone.

Similar Products Used:

none

None

Everything from product to customer service

Piece of junk. I was an avid fan of the quality and reliability of Panasonic till using this unit. I had problems with the picture after a few months. The Warranty on this thing covers labor for only 90 days while Pioneer covers for a year and their elite line, for 2 years. I have had a Pioneer LD for 10 years with no problems. I have had problems with pixelation, freezing, and picture dropouts. Recently it wouldnt even turn on so being that it was out of warranty I opened the thing up and found a diode had blown and and the fuse had blown too. And Panasonic service wants 90 dollars to just take a look at it and give me an estimate. What an insult. I'd much rather throw this thing in the garbage and just buy a Pioneer. Anyone considering Panasonic DVD...I have some advice.. DON'T!!! I hope Panasonic reads these reviews and learns a thing or two about taking care of their consumers/customers. When trying to explain the problems and how the unit was defective to customer support all they did was say..it's out of warranty there is nothing we can do, extremely unhelpful. I will NEVER buy Panasonic again. The most ridiculus thing about this piece of junk is that it retails for $700.00.

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Sony, JVC, Toshiba, Pioneer Elite

Features

Reliability

I have had this player for almost a year now. I bought it from a friend last summer, and it worked great for about two months. While watching The Matrix one night, the picture skipped, pixellated and froze. Every DVD I tried after that would only work for 30 minutes at most before the player dropped everything and quit.

Miraculously, I played Legends of the Fall one night, and the player worked flawlessly. And every DVD after that worked flawlessly. I was convinced the problem had fixed itself.

It has been over six months, and the player is finally acting up again. This time, however, I'm getting more "NO DISC" messages than before, although, oddly enough, CDs still play just fine.

It's a shame the player doesn't work like it should--it has many great features, including component video outputs and DTS support, and the remote is excellent.

Panasonic's customer service pretty much stinks, though. I have vowed not to buy another Panasonic optical product (my Panasonic 24X CD-ROM drive and my Panasonic 2X DVD-ROM give me similar problems). I have an older Sony DVP-S300 that has worked flawlessly.

In my opinion, if you have an A310 and it breaks, don't bother spending the money to repair it. Even if it's $50. Chances are it's going to break again. Get a new player. My recommendation: Sony.

Sorry Panasonic. You've just lost another customer.

Similar Products Used:

Sony DVP-S300, Panasonic DVD-ROM, CD-ROM