Price, warranty

It skips on DVDs like The Matrix and Fight Club

I bought this because the Toshiba 2109 I had lacked a Dolby Digital optical output and that's the only kind of input my Sony receiver has. I also respected Hitachi's reputation. The Hitachi 305 and Samsung 612 had identical Best Buy ratings in Consumer Reports. That's because the two units are made by Samsung and are essentially identical with very minor differences (e.g. the remotes and the headphone input on the Samsung). Unfortunately, both share a tendency to skip frames or go "blocky" on challenging DVD's. CR did not mention this, amazingly enough. Too bad because Samsung usually makes a good product. I found this up on the Hitachi through experience.

Anyway, I'm returning the Hitachi to uBid. To their credit they will take it back without any trouble, even paying for the freight. A very good company. I'm replacing it with a Pioneer 333 which costs about the same, but will play virtually anything without problems or so the reviews in this site say.

Similar Products Used:

Fisher S-2000, Toshiba 2109

None

A Generally Flawed Piece of Junk

This unit is trash, where should I begin?

First, don't buy this unit unless you enjoy poor quality video when viewing a disc, or you like standing in line at a return desk.

Second, use a little intelligence and run very far away from Samsung and other Korean junk and buy real, quality, equipment like the ones listed above. I mean it's practically common knowledge that Samsung can't build a DVD player worth a s__t, I mean compare the ratings on this and other Samsung players on this site to the ones I listed above if you don't believe me. My question is, why did Hitachi select THEM to build their DVD player? If they truly are still the mega corporation they were in the 80s, I'm sure they could muster up the cash (or Yen) to develop and build their own model.

Hitachi used to be an excellent maker of this sort of thing, but if they contiune to allow slag metal like this to emerge under their banner, their name and reputation will be severely weakened.

Similar Products Used:

Panasonic R30, Pioneer 333, Sony 360 Toshiba 1600: All Excellent, All the Same Price