Plays ok, good black levels, lots of outputs.

The most terrible after sales service I have received EVER (coupled with doubts about long term reliability). High price

I bought this machine (DVP515) due to a reputation for quality (soon to be shaken). It seems to play well, and it's specifications are excellent. The large number of outputs are good. However, nine months into my ownership, things started to go wrong. It began eating disks. I took it to the service agent, and did not hear anything for two months. When I got it back, it still didn't work. It's over three months since I reported the fault, and Hitachi still seem unable or unwilling to get parts into the country. Nor will they return phone calls from their customers. I feel this is a well spec'ed unit, but would never buy Hitachi again due to service nightmares

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Yamaha (excellent), Sony all in one system, Toshiba (very good)

good picture good sound

none

I have used this thing for about a couple of months now and it is great!

Nice picture,great features,plays a wide variety of formats which similarly priced units don''t offer.

Weird lockup when unit was brand new.

I have used this unit now for about one year and I can say I have had very little trouble with it. Doesn''t skip like others are saying and the picture quality is nice. In Dolby Digital mode this thing sounds excellent played through my Yamaha HTR-5250. One thing I did experience a few times is that upon inserting a DVD into the unit it would lock up so to speak and I would have to unplug the power cable for it to be in a functional state again. It happened a few times when i fisst got it and has not happened again in months. I make my own movies here on the computer and the Hitachi plays everything. I have taken video from my camcorder and made VCD''S and SVCD''S and burned with Nero Burning Rom to be compliant and the Hitachi gives me no trouble at all. Furthur, the MP3 functionality is nice. it plays eveything I throw at it.

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Apex,Panasonic,Pioneer

good separations of dark blues/blacks, overall
excellent picture

dolby decoder could use some bass management

Purchased for 549 canadian dollars. The Hitachi
has performed well. The picture quality is what
sold me on the player. All the colours look great,
even on my lack lustre Samsung 27" tele. It has a nice
jog-dial search on the player and the setup features
are real user-friendly. However, the built-in decoder
was a little disappointing. I am upgrading my
current dolby ready receiver with a Technics SH-AC500D.
This will hopefully turn my average system into a great one.
I reccomend the Hitachi to those of you with Dolby
receivers.

Good bang for the buck

Remote

No problems yet. Excellent DVD for the cost. Had bought top of the line Sony which had less options and wouldn't play cd-r or cd-rw.

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Sony

Can read just about any format of CdR, CDRW. MP3 playback

Remote is poorly layed out

This will read just about any type of CDr and CDrw out there. People also neglect to mention that it recognizes SVCD format at variable bit rates. MP3 seems to be builtin since it displays the the word MP3 on the screen. Other than that it has all the standard features as a regular DVD player at the same price range with a buit-in AC3 decoder. As for the A/V quality, it's what you expect from a mid-end player. So before you got out and buy any other player. Make sure you ask yourself, can the competition recognize all these formats for this price from a reputable manufacturer.
I had an Apex 600a and decided to return it since the picture quality on the sucker isn't upto par for a hardware decoder. Also it skips at random when played with the Matrix DVD.
Just one major flaw about the SVCD(only SVCD), it has problems fastforwarding or rewinding through scenes. You can skip to the next track but cannot search through the movie. This seem to be inherent in the Apex and the Hitachi. However, Hitachi's direct search feature can jump to a specific play time on the SVCD while the Apex wouldn't even budge.
Hopes this helps all those buyers who are looking for a DVD player when the feature VERSATILE really counts.

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Quality has the same picture and sound quality as the Toshibe SD3109

Good features.

Poor audio tracking capabilities.

I purchased the Hitachi because it is a known name brand and it has the capability to play CD-R. After setting up the player we watched “James Bond – The World is Not Enough”, during this video, I noticed a slight audio clipping in the sound track. When I selected the Special Features mode, the DVD Player could not track the audio selections without skipping. I then asked my neighbour to play my DVD on his machine (not a Hitachi), he indicated that there was no problem with the disk. I then borrowed his copy of the same video and experienced the same skipping problem. The next day, I exchanged the Hitachi player for an exact replacement model. After setting up the replacement player, I again noticed that the player could not track the Special Feature audio selections without skipping. (With this feature not working, the DVD Player becomes no different then a good quality VCR.) I then returned the DVD and for an additional $20.00 I purchased a Panasonic DVD-RV60 which performs flawlessly and has much better overall audio. Unfortunately, it definitely cannot play CD-R. Unless you absolutely need the ability to play CD-R and MP-3, check out other players carefully before buying the Hitachi even though it has better features.

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Panasonic DVD-RV60

Plays all CDs, including MP3.

MP3 capability is not even mentioned on the manual.

Video and audio are superb.
First DVD played was The Matrix, no problems noticed.
Plays all kind of CDs, including MP3. Just wished the MP3 menu was a little better.
Have noticed a few skips on The World is Not Enough, but not on the movie itself, just on some extras (could be finger prints or scratches on the disk).
So far i am loving every minute of it, and will recommend this player to anyone.

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Pioneer DV-525

Play's all of my DVD's, Built in NTSC->PAL60->PAL converter
Plays MP3, Built in 5.1 decoder, Solid Build, Looks Classy.

Remote is cheap, no back lit. MP3 menu is poor.
cant rewind/Forward through MP3's only skip track!

I love this player, It had no problems playing any of these DVD's

The Thing R1
True Romance R1
Last of the Mohicans R1
Sleepy Hollow R2
Ride with the Devil R2
Eyes Wide Shut R2
Mickey Blue Eyes R2
Glory R2
Leon R1 International.

I paid a lot for this player (We pay alot for everything in the UK), and even though it is twice the price of a The scan 2000 and is not twice the machine I am very happy with it.

It's a pitty Hitachi dont release an upgrade with a better MP3 menu & the ability to FF & rewind.

Plays multiple CD formats, DD decoder, MP3 playback.

It skips.

My search for an MP3 compatible DVD player came to an abrupt stop when I learned that Samsung 711 is not compatible with CD-RW format. It just won't recognize the disc. That's pretty weird, considering that it claims to have dual laser pick-up system.
Hitachi DVD505U was shown to me about a month ago. It seemed a little pricey and I did not care about the DD decoder on-board. After my Samsung experience I got frustrated and bought it.
The first look is positive. Well written manual, gold plated RCA connectors, solid drawer.
I played all music formats I could possibly think of:
MP3's from CD-R, MP3's from CD-RW, CD on CD-RW, VBR, 128KBit - 256 kBIT etc. No problems. Typical MP3 format, 8 letter directories and song names, you can get used to it.
It was time to play some DVD's. After maybe a couple of minutes into the movie I noticed some audio problems. During some longer pieces of background music I could hear audible breaks. Not very long but long enough to disrupt the experience.
I tried different disc. The major track was all right, the audio commentary from the director, skips like crazy, I play it over and over. What is going on?
Other thing. During my session ( about 3 hour long ) it also froze about 5-6 times. The picture goes green and all you can do is pull out the plug. I admit it. It was sitting on my receiver which runs warm but is that a good reason?
(Manual defines operating temperature as 5-35 C)
I took it back, spent about 2 hours going through different discs and models to find out that all 505's do that and no other player has problem playing my disc including Hitachi's own 303 model.
And my last comment. MP3 compatibility is a secret. Not a word about it in product manual.

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Samsung 511