Building my own surround sound amplifier (hobbyist) made it necessary to buy a DVD player with a built in decoder which is hard to find. Liked the variety of digital analog and optical audio outputs as well as having composite, s video and component video outputs. Also the us of an IDE(PC compatible) DVD rom drive might make it possible for me to retrofit a computer style drive that may work much more reliably than the original drive if I can't afford to buy a new player with similar features.

The reoccuring problems with video playback seem obviously associated with the DVD drive and not the rest of the player.

bought unit in spring of 2001. Problems with video playback skipping, freezing, player shutoff. Had laser upgrade courtesy of Hitachi and player worked fine until 2003. Display went blank, changed a picofuse in the power supply section to restore display. Last month, the above problems with video playback are reoccuring. Opened the drive and cleaned/lubed the transport slide rails that seemed to cure the problem for a couple weeks now the player will not even recognize the discs. Will play cd's though. Makes me wonder if DVD players are inherently more unreliable than CD players or if the problem is specific to this model or other models with defects.

Owned this product for over 2 years and now the display doesn't work. It seems that others had the same problem.

Sleek design, black on black. Plays homemade VCDs and photoCDs (using vcd) very well.

Here we go. Many skips and pauses that have gone worse the last few weeks. After less than a year, the front display stopped working. Took 2 weeks to get it fixed. Unit becomes very hot. Could fry an egg on the DVD when I take them out. Now, at about 1 hr 29-32 min. the DVD freaks out - pauses, skips and ultimately stops playing while locking the entire unit (e.g. Gosford Park, K-Pax, Dune, etc). I have to turn it on and off several times to eject disc. Very frustrated. Wife very upset... Now very dissatified with Hitachi.

Having a Hitachi television and other components I wanted a Hitachi DVD player. This seemed a good choice at the time. However almost from the beginning, I've had problems.

Very good picture quality. CD-Audio sound great. CDR&RW compatible.

BIG. Freeze in layer change in Matrix, Contact and many others. Subtitle pop and go while watching movie. Sometimes stop and shutdown....

The Hitachi DV-P250 does it all. But something is realy wrong with the DVD playback... While i'm writing this, the player is being fixed by Hitachi Canada. I hope it will work fine when i get it back. Very nice picture quality, on a JVC D Serie 32" TV with Component connection. Optical output give a nice clean sound to the movies and even the CD that sound much better than with a dedicated CD player. I can burn my own VCD and play them with no problem. Now the bad. The player gets real hot during use. It's nice to know that DVD do not melt easily. It's realy slow to discover the disk in the drive and to start playing it. Animated menu on DVD seem to put stress on the player and making selection is sometime difficult. Most of the movie that use the second layer pause before going on with the playback. Subtitle pop up here and there while watching a movie, sometime i need to turn them off with the remote, sometime they go off by themself. It has happen a couple of times that the player stoped playback and shutoff for no good reason. Wierd stuff going around this player... So, i'll be looking for a Toshiba player soon... I'm suppose to have my Hitachi back in 2 or 3 weeks but i'm not holding my breath. Reading many reviews here is telling me that my problems will probably still be there when i'll have it back from the shop.... Seem to be a good player, but don't buy it, even if sold very cheap.

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This is my first dedicated DVD player. Microsoft XBOX is my backup DVD player...

Average, not as good as my Sony

Brokedown after 2 years.

The LCD display went after a couple of months and then the picture started to jump and freeze. Finally today it''s been scrapped as I had it insured for breakdown cover and it''s cost too much to repair; a new laser was required.

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Sony

It's gret features are the gold plated connectors, the zoom, reads CDRW and that it is multiregion.

That split of a second on double layer dvd.

I am completely satisfied with my hitachi dvp250 (silver version). My only dissapointment is that I can not play "The Patriot" region 1 dvd on it. If anyone has any information, please let me know.

Great little player

not muti region

This is a bit off the subject but does any one know were to get the muti region software upgrade from as i have herd you can down load it off the net but i cant seem to find it

Thanks

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pionnier 525

cd-rw

where shall i start...way too hot,definate pause's of imperfection in lots of movies not only matrix.subtitles kept coming on..

i took this hunk of crap back because exactly what the other fellow said about being digital;we dont expect and minor glitches even if they are milli-seconds worth...i too it back...the only thing i miss is the other dvd player i got does not do cd-rw's

Sound, CDR and RW playback, zoom, other features

Mine has pause problem with dual-layer disks, subtitles always come on, discs get very warm

Overall, I have been very pleased with this purchase. The audio from this player is very good. CDs sound better on this than my last CD player and the Panasonic A120 I borrowed from a friend.

The CDR and RW playback was something that I really wanted when I was shopping around, because the player is used both for movies and music. Both work great.

The remote is not very good. It is plain-jane, with nothing really to recommend it. When I had the player high on a shelf and low to the ground, I really had to point the remote at the right angle or the player wouldn't pick it up.

I also have three other problems with the player. I was hoping the upgrade Hitachi sent out would help, but it didn't. I really should have it checked out, but so far I just couldn't part with it for any possible long amount of time. Problem 1: dual layer discs almost always seem to pause. Problem 2: discs warm up - discs are very warm to the touch after taking them out of the player. Problem 3: subtitles almost always appear at the beginning of the movie. I have to turn them off every time.

I am going to have to have this serviced soon to see if these problems can be fixed. But overall, I still do like this player, and have been fairly happy with it, even more so if these problems can be resolved.

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Panasonic A120

The Hitachi DVP250U has a built in decoder and is capable of
Dolby Digital and DTS sound. Also it has an optical output for the best sound as well as component video out for superb
and flawless video quality. It read VCD's Rewritable CD's and also CD's. It is excellent in its sound and video qualities as well as its ability to read all sorts of data.

I had problems with some particular DVD's such as MATRIX(the occasional pause because of dual layer formatted DVD's) I had a problem with Fight Club and Sixth Sense.

There are no problems whatsoever with the VCD's I have played and I have played a lot of em. Also, the CD quality sounds better on the DVD that my JVC cd player because my DVD reads 24 bit sound. So that is a huge two thumbs up! However, the problem exists with a few DVD's like I mentioned in the Weakness section. I am not sure if the problem is because I have a built in Amplifier and also a built in DVD player. The store owner convinced me to get this DVD player because it has no problems with MATRIX DVD. However, there are small pauses that are slight, but still its annoying to have small imperfections where you expect perfect digital technology. Anyway, I cleaned my DVD player with a cd cleaner and it appears to be working OK with DVD's now, but I haven't tried the old DVD's to see if they still work. All in all, this is a good buy. I watch more indian movies than english; so it works out great with my cd writer. However, the english dvd viewers might find it a bit annoying for certain movies also.

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My friend's PIONEER five disk DVD works perfect. Well, so her claims. He uses it for his store and has not had a problem so far.