Reliable so far. Has played all DVD's with no skips

Noise is apparent 25% of the time

I bought this several months ago at Best Buy. It had a mail in rebate for $50. I mailed the rebate in approximatly 10 weeks ago yet have not received anything from Sony. Rebate form states that check should arrive in 8 weeks.

I called their Customer Service number two weeks ago and was told it would take longer than 8 weeks. Tried calling again yesterday but was put on hold for 20 minutes or more.

Has anyone received their rebate from Sony for this unit? If you did, how long did it take to receive it? This is especially frustrating since now Best Buy is giving the rebate at the register.

Until I get the rebate, I'll give the unit a two for value.
Overall, I'll give it a 3. So far, it is reliable and has a good picture, though picture has been soft on several movies, the Patriot and Finding Forrester. Picture very good on American Grafitti and Almost Famous.

Easy to use and set up, dependable and affordable. For the price range, Sony was the only way to go. Plenty of outputs and offers both optical and digital coax outputs.

none yet.

I've had this player for just under a year and between my wife and I it gets used it 3 to 4 times a week and so far has been flawless. I haven't experience the noise issues that other reviews have talked about. It's slim so I can take it places or lend it to my parents and it's easy to transport

Similar Products Used:

Playstation 2, a JVC model

Slim, beautiful design; image quality (SVideo & video component outputs), superb sound (w/ optical output for DD5.1 & DTS); plays CD and VCD

Onscreen menus are ugly and sluggish; won't play anything recorded into CDR; region selection is hardwired

PROS:

Unlike as said in other reviews, mine is very silent. As I'm using this player with video component outputs and a home theater via optical link, I think it runs perfectly. No flaws during playback (just a short pause when changing layers). Image/sound quality rocks.

CONS:

Annoying menus: have you used TELNET over a BIG latency link? Well, these menus bring a similar feeling. They respond slowly, and I often pressed the remote's whatever key I wanted twice - but the keypresses were buffered, so both were recognized at the end. Go figure the results. I'm now used to the menus and things became pretty easier.

The player won't play CDs and VCDs that were recorded into CDR's, but a workaround is to use CDRW's for this purpose if you really want to play a specific material.

There's no "soft" hack to break the region limit, so you'll need to send the player to a tech shop in order to get "region-free" operation.

SUMMARY:

This player fits well to my needs. As the cons don't affect me most of the time, I'll deduct only one star. For me, it's a great player.

Similar Products Used:

none

Great price

Not

This unit SUCKS. Poor video poor audio no sync between the two.

Similar Products Used:

Samsung, Panasonic, Toshiba, Onkyo, DENON

Good features for the money.

Can't handle anything less than a perfect DVD. At least once during any movie there is a pause when the player looks for the next chapter. Ugly screen saver.

My Sony seems pretty good, but it isn't perfect. I don't understand why everyone thinks Sony is so great, to me they seem middle of the road. Hitachi, Panasonic, JVC, etc. make as good or better products.

Excellent sound and video from DVD.

Quality of playback of audio CD's as compared to my Yamaha CD player.

For the price, $0, after being reimbursed for Sony points, a great buy.

Similar Products Used:

None

Very easy to use and set up

Remote, but I have the Sony Str-De 945, that has the LCD remote that controls everything

I fell in love with this DVD Player from movie one, it took about 25 minutes to set up, the tosi link is alittle expensive but well worth the price for the quality of sound that I have now. I love the menu feature, and ease of use on this DVD player, I hear no spinning sound that everyone has complained about in different reviews. I am totally amazed at the quality difference between the DVD and the Laser Disc that I used to own(Sold on Ebay)...

Similar Products Used:

none

great picture and its cheap!

none

this is a nice player for a good price and its not loud like some of the other reviews stated. I recomend this player to anyone looking for a high-quality low price unit.

Excellent picture quality, all the right features for a unit at this price point.

A bit slow to get started/ejecting, will not play SOME CDR burns, my volume output is much lower than cable or VCR.

Folks, this thing will run you $200 or less with the current rebate Sony has out. I didn't get the $50 rebate, but got 6 DVDs instead. For that kind of money, this is an excellent unit. I have a Sony receiver and an older Sony CD player, the latter of which I thought I could retire with this DVD player. Well, not so fast. This is a great movie machine, but a bit finicky and slow with CDs compared to my venerable CD unit. I haven't noticed any really degraded sound quality on CDs, but most dedicated CD players (even my old CDP750) have more "CD" features. Plus, I have heard this generation of Sony DVD shares the same laser for CD and DVD playback, that may be a factor in audiophiles noticing less-than-stellar CD playback. At any rate, I'm adding the CD player back into the component stack, which should decrease wear and tear on the DVD player. DVD playback is awesome as expected, and if you have other Sony products, the logic is intuitive.

I'm not an audiophile, so I don't know why I have to significantly increase the volume on my TV/stereo during playback. I have to crank it down when going back to cable or VCR playback, and I'm not sure why. I've tried several of the video/ld/cd inputs on my receiver, that doesn't seem to be it. If anyone knows what's up here, please shoot me an e-mail at: dogenx@hotmail.com. Much obliged.

Bottom line is that this is Sony's bottom of the line..period. That means it plays DVDs and has basic features. Better than basic, even. Anyone that buys this unit should not expect it to be an audiophile/videophile's one-stop panacea.

Similar Products Used:

DVD in my PC.

Smooth Scan, Menus, Remote

None

The original price was 250.00, price matched for 188.88, minus the $50 rebate brought the price down to around $139.00 a great deal for a DVD player of this quality. I recently tried 3 different JVC-525s and all of them crashed, so i decided it was time to upgrade. I played MI2 without any problems. The menus are very useful once you find out what each one represents (use the manual). The remote is very responsive and the playback is glitch free, did not notice a layer change in MI2. I have this running through my JVC-rx8000 reciever. The optical connection works great. I bought this model over the Toshiba because on the Toshiba there wasn't a optical out. With 2 outputs for s-video, audio, and composite video you won't have a problem with outputs. The remote is very solid and can control a tv with the tv/video, volume, on/of buttons. A receiver's volume can also be controled, but not my JVC, oh well. Overall a great Buy!!

Similar Products Used:

JVC-525