Just picked one of these out of the dumpster behind our apartment, at first use it had Disc Read Error, then I used a disc cleaner on it, still had disc Read Error, I then took it apart and reset the switch on disc mechanism inside on disc tray, and now I'm happy to say, It works Great and was definitely worth the little effort it took to repair, it even had a remote with it which works also

Only weakness I encountered with this unit was the "Disc Read Error" which was caused by read switch on the disc drive tray, easy fix for those who are brave enough to attempt fixing on their own

Value, longevity, picture quality, sound quality

Long overlap delay

I bought this player after Stereophile named it one of their best budget players. Got it in 1998 and after almost 10 years now it's still going strong. Only replacing it because my wife lost the remote and a new one from remotes.com is $53. I have been nothing short of impressed with this player. Picture is tight and crisp and the audio on my all-vandersteen system is nothing short of awesome. After 9 years and three cross-country moves, and daily use (hey, I have kids) it works awesome and I will be truly sad to put it up on the shelf. No problems to report, no "no disc" error, but in the last couple months sometimes it plays in black-and-white. A smack on the side of the case fixes that. After nearly 10 years of literally, daily use I have no complaints about that - this DVD player has gone above and beyond and it can be allowed a few slips in its' old age. Paople marvel at my high-end audio equipment and the Panasonic DVD but this is definitely a budget player with high-end qualities. Only complaint is a long delay when swapping overlap, longer than most players.

Customer Service

Haven't needed any yet

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Parasound, NAD comparables

Played beautifully for the first 4 years. In my overall rating, I am giving Panasonic a 3, given their good response to my faulty DVD player.

Started breaking down, pixellating, hanging, freezing and finally dying (NO DISC error) in its 5th year.

As with so many others, my Panasonic DVD A110 started breaking down after 4 years of regular use. Prior to that, it worked beautifully. At first whenever the picture would pixellate I thought it was the DVD disc that was faulty, but when I tested it on other DVD players (Sony, Toshiba), they played back just fine. This problem only happened once in a while so my tendency was to just ignore it. However in it's 5th year, things got a lot worse and it would often pixellate, freeze and hang on almost anything I played. Finally, last week the death knell sounded when I got the dreaded NO DISC error message. I tried everything from unplugging it overnight, to re-initializing it all to no avail. Since I paid so much for it, I wasn't about to give up on it without a fight, so I did some investigating and found this AMAZING site! Long story short, I called Panasonic Canada and spoke to the Customer Service Manager and told him about the problems I was having with my player. I also told him about this site which has documented literally hundreds of complaints throughout North America about this particular DVD player. I was expecting to get a lot of resistance and denial since it was 5 years old and long past its warranty, but surprisingly and fortunately he knew about the problems with this model and the notoriously faulty optical laser pick up. In fact, he mentioned to me that there was actually a lawsuit against Panasonic in the US over the DVD A110, but that apparently not a lot of the faulty players made it into Canada. Not sure how accurate that statement is, since I am obviously not the only Canadian who's had a lemon like this. He told me to bring it in to their service centre (no receipt necessary) for a free analysis and if the problem was indeed a faulty optical laser pick up, the protocol was to replace the player with a brand new one at no cost to me. There was no option to repair the old player since the replacement parts are apparently no longer being manufactured. I brought my player in last Friday afternoon, and on Monday morning I received a call back telling me to come in and pick up my new DVD player (Panasonic DVD-S35)! There is even a one year warranty on the new machine, which I thought was really decent of them. I was astounded at the speed of their response and the professionalism and honesty of the Customer Service Manager. So, despite the problems with this player, Panasonic has redeemed themselves in my eyes by responding as well as they did. If you're having the same problems with this player -- DON'T GIVE UP! Call Panasonic and try to get them to replace your faulty player! It's definitely worth a shot and you really have nothing to lose. We all paid good $$ for this player and simply want what we paid for - no more, no less. I'm not sure if I would have gotten my DVD player replaced if it had broken down, say, 2 years ago, but since that time the complaints have been mounting so I think all the evidence definitely helped me in my situation (since I printed out a good chunk of the complaints from this site and included them in the box when I dropped off my player for analysis.) Thanks to all the people who took the time to post their experiences -- this is a great example of what strong consumer advocacy can do!

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Sony and Toshiba DVD players, but can't remember the model #'s!

Great Picture and Sound Durable and Dependable

Doesnt have a zoom feature

Great DVD player . I have had it for about 3 years now and havent had any problems . It shows great and sounds excellent on my surround sound system . I enjoy movie after movie with no freezing or skipping . (even on some of my slightly scratched CD's )

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N/A

no problems at all for 5 yrs

none to me

After 5 yrs of great performance I got the no disk error. Im trying to pursue the same course as the rest of unhappy buyers.

Features

Size, Reliability

About two months ago, I started getting the NO DISC error. Like everyone here, I assumed it was either a faulty or dirty disc. I really only probably watched about 50 movies in the entire time I have had the player, which doesn't say much about the device. The quality, when it worked, was great. But seeing 50 movies on a $300 device doesn't work out too well for me, does it? It cost more for the device than the rental! DO NOT BUY ONE OF THESE.

features

won't play freezing pixilation

i got this player as a wedding gift in 1998. last year it started to pixilate, then freezing, then the dreaded "no disk error" & these are on discs that had worked before. oh well... the unit is old, the warranty is gone, i could melt it down & make door stops. THEN i came across this site a month ago. WOW i'm not so special. i called panasonic canada, told them about my problems & this site. they would neither acknowledge or deny the known faults of this model. they told me to bring it into their factory service center for a free analysis. when i took it there i accidently (nudge,nudge,wink,wink) included a printout of all 250 reviews of the A110 from this site with the bad comments highlighted in the box for their perusal. 4 days later they called me to come in and pickup a new, in the box, DVD-RV32K. no questions asked, no explaination given, no case #, no original receipt required. i gave the new one away to my father-in-law. merry christmas. my advice: if you have an A110 that has displayed any of the mentioned errors just once, take it in. it won't fix itself sitting on your shelf. panasonic is aware of the problem and these units will break down. the longer you wait the harder it will be on yourself. panasonic deems it cheaper to replace or repair units of only complaining customers than to issue a product recall, just like the Ford Pinto. shame on them. don't believe that because it was a first generation player that failure is acceptable. we are not guinea pigs. there are many companies competing for your home entertainment dollar, give it to those who provide good products and stand behind them.

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none

sound picture

too many (unfair?) critics

I love this player- Picture is great and sound is good too. Never had a problem with mine. It is a 1st gen player and obviously people have had problems but if you see a good one second hand -snap it up

Wonderful sound quality,easy to use features.

More technical problems than you can shake a toll free service call at.

I felt strangely comforted when i read all the complaints posted here about this unit.I just thought id add mine,since my problems are just a tad unique.Yes,I too got the pixilate and hang syndrome,but my big problem is unwanted subtitles during viewing.couldnt get rid of them,even after turning unit off several times.Tried to ignore it,then the subtitles started appearing in Spanish.Ok,maybe i can learn a second language this way.THEN i started getting just the spanish language soundtrack,with the Spanish subtitles!Im not as dilligent as you fair people,and attributed the problems to this being an older unit without the bugs worked out yet,and got myself a new panasonic RP82 unit.Much better.Much,much,much better.

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Panasonic DVD-RP82

Picture and Sound are superb

None

When I was originally in the market to buy a DVD player I scoured the net for advice as to what was a good mid range player. I came across this one review by a fellow who had the flag ship Sony 7000 at the time and was looking for a backup to compliment the 7000. Of course he spent considerably less for the A110 but he was hard pressed to tell the diference between the 2 players. He went on to speak of the superb audio and video playback and how absoluetely indistinguishable the 2 players were! I thought ok, sounds good and purchased one, this was over 4 years ago and to date my player has been flawless and it gets a good workout. Between all the rentals and my collection of over 250 discs, I've only had 2 discs pixellate. One was Austin Powers for a brief few seconds and the other was the final disc of the Sopranos 2nd Season which was pretty bad. But that's IT, I think this is pretty damn good ! considering all the other players and their problems. It was rather disconcerning to see all the bashing after I bought mine and just crossed my fingers ! So far , I'm damn happy I bought it !!