I just bought this at Best Buy last night and got the Armaggedon Directorscut DVD. I used S-video to the TV and regular RC plugs to the audio. I'm a little skeptical of ALL DVD players because of all these lip sync issues and what not. So far, I'm very pleased. Best Buy advertised this machine for $249, but it rang up at $229...lucky me! :) I'll get 5 free DVD's and 13 free rentals at Blockbuster, which for me was more attractive then the 12 free at Netflix, which you have to wait 3 days to get the movie. Anyways, the quality was excellent on the 40" Mitsubishi TV...purely amazing! The remote interacted perfectly with my 27" RCA TV, although I don't have S-video for that TV, the close ups were still crisp, and all other views were slightly above normal.
For the $, this machine is great! I just hope it stays that way. I was looking at the Sony, and even though the case looked pretty, I have heard nothing buy lip sync problems with it...so I chose the Beast over Beauty.
The ONLY problem, I've noticed is that in Armaggedon, right at the Russioan Space station chapter, there is a slight pause and then continuation of the movie, as if the machine has to pause (.25 second) to enter that chapter. could be the disc, could be the machine. I'll know more as I use it more. I would say that I personally was not going to have ANY tolerance for ANY faults, but this was SO minor, I hardly noticed it. At first I thought I might have bumped the remote's pause button with a double tap...so that's how minor it was. I will definitely live with this....unless it gets worse. Value is 5 stars, Quality is 5 stars, Happiness with product is 4.5 Stars..Overall, I would like to give 4.8 stars, but I have to give either 4 or 5...and seeing how this isn't PERFECT, I can't consiously give it 5 stars. Don't be fooled by SONY, or bigger names and bigger $$$, this is a great machine and a steal for the price...especially for starters!!!!

Performance versus cost

Clunky remote

First, to Carlos from Canajoharie, NY, this player does indeed have chapter display. Press the "info" button on the remote and the information menu bar will appear on screen. The second number from the left is your chapter number. Press the select buttons to negotiate the menu bar. This is my first DVD player, just having "graduated" from laserdisc. I wanted something inexpensive but good as a starter. I got this piece on sale at Radio Shack for $200.00. I find the picture and sound quality to be on par with that of my middle-of-the- range Pioneer LD player, which originally cost more, dollar for dollar at the time of purchase than this DVD player, which is a bottom-end piece. Overall performance is flawless and very good for such a bargain price.

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None

Price, Picture Quality

Confusing Remote

Just picked it up a few days ago, and I LOVE IT!!!! One of my roomates spent over $700 (Canadian) on a Pioneer DVD, and I can't tell the difference! Being in college, I was just able to scrape enough money for this, and it was worth it. After watching 3 or 4 movies I *finally* got used to the remote, its really cofusing to learn. For $339 (canadian) its a great deal.

Affordable entry level player. DTS out and Dolby Digital out. Easy to use remote.

Not the best picture quality. Sometimes the player locks, but I just unplug it and then plug it back in and works fine.

Overall a pretty good player. Used pretty heavily over the past year or so and has given me relatively few problems. I have over 125 DVDs and the player hasn't had any problems with any of them (Matrix, X-Men, Sixth Sense).

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Other RCA models. Samsung.

Price, picture quality

customer service, warranty, life before trouble

Very disappointed that after 6 months and playing only 15 disks it will no longer read a disk. Very disapointed with tech person who appeared to "have no clue" and said try this, do this and do that and if ya still have trouble call me back. WRONG!!! I want it taken care of when I called the first time. If something is wrong with the unit and I need to send it back then tell me! Will talk to Best Buy about it since I purchased it there and then go from there. May just pitch the piece of junk and buy another brand as opposed to have it repaired due to what I feel is lousey 90 day warranty. Cost of labor I feel will not be worth it. What ever happened to 1 year warranties?

Picture, Price, Appearance

Less than Perfect Audio

I, too, noticed the 'grainy audio' as somebody put before. My Sony receiver was built before 5.1/DVD was on the market so I have no idea what the 5.1 input sounds like. CD Audio in particular is very noticably inferior to a standalone CD Player, even my ancient Technics player. Slightly distorted high end during playback is most noticable. On the other hand, picture quality is excellent, and the player is a lot quieter than other models i've heard (Sony, Toshiba, both discontinued.)

On a side note, DVD audio level output is a little bit lower than other DVD players I've heard.

Overall, I'd recommend giving this player a listen to see if you can overlook the audio deficiencies. If you don't care, or already have a standalone CD player, its an ok buy.

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SONY SLV-595HF VCR, Technics SL-P101 CD

DTS OUTPUT, OPTICAL OUT

QUALITY CONTROL, NO COAXIAL DIGITAL OUT, WONT PLAY CD-R'S

This is a DVD player to get you into watching DVD's. It has a decent picture, decent audio and isnt too costly. i bought it about a year ago from Radioshack for a little under $300. I have been pretty pleased with this unit so far, untill it refused to play any DVD's. I kept trying to load them, and eventually it would play them again. Oh well,
I've been looking for an excuse to buy a SONY DVP-7700 anyway!
Seriously though, I believe that this DVD player has served its purpose in my life and now I'm ready for somthing better. I dont really know if I could recommend this player to anyone, since it doesnt work sometimes. For me this has only been a slight inconvenience, though. If you can find it for around $150 and you are trying to get an entry level player i would check it out.......otherwise don't bother.

(I would give it 5 stars for the picture in this price range....but sometimes it dosnt have one. It gets knocked down to 4 stars for the slight dependability problem)

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NONE

Price

Limited outputs

Purchased it for about $200 on 3/99. Had it hooked up direcly to TV at first, picture was impressive but sound was just ok. About a year later purchased all components for a high end theatre system except the DVD, because I wanted to see how the RCA would integrate into the system. Hooked up to the new receiver and the sound was 100% better. Still skeptical, I borrowed a friends new DVD player which he had just bought for about a $1000, (not sure on the brand). I didn't notice any difference in the picture or sound between the two. His player did have some nice little features, but I didn't think they were worth $800 bucks more. For the price this DVD player is great! Even better hooked up to a good digital receiver. I did have a problem with it "locking up" when starting some DVD's. I seemed to have fixed this by putting it in a more level position that allowed more air to circulate around the unit. This seems to have worked,because I haven't had a problem since.

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Sony

Nice product design... If it worked!

Broke within 6 months. Keeps saying "no disk" when there is a disk in the player.

Why did it break so soon? I have only played about 20 dvd's and the player has been sitting in the same spot since I bought it. It just stopped working!

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sony

Easy to learn how to use, Price

not too many features

I bought this on EBAY, and I've had it now for about two months. I think it is a great DVD player. I have tried it out quite a few times now & have had NO problems so far. I've even played around with all the features it DOES have & had no problem with any of them either. I love it & would recommend it to anyone that wanted a low price DVD player!

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none