I have had this player almost a month. It was a choice between this an the Toshiba 2109. The Toshiba has a zoom feature, a bit rate meter, and 5 free movies. However, all of the benefits of the Panasonic outweighed these extras that come with the Toshiba.
The Toshiba only has coax digital out. This was fine since I am utilizing coax for DVD, but I wanted the TOSLINK capability just in case I ever have to juggle my digital inputs into my receiver (2 TOSLINK, 2 COAX). The Panasonic offered both. The zoom and bit rate meter features of the Toshiba are gimmicks at best and would seldom be utilized. Once I realized that the 5 free movies were titles that I would never purchase seperately things my decision became clear.

The Panasonic reportedly has a better anamorphic downconversion circuit than the Toshiba. This was important because I have a 56" rear projection on which artifacts are very noticeable. Although I was not able to directly compare this circuit to the Toshiba, downconversion is noticeably better than my friends Zenith D!V# player. The color on the Toshiba (3108) I demoed seemed punched up compared to the Panasonic. Although at first it seemed that the color was better, I found that yellow was too yellow. The Panasonic seemed closer to the original. This is probably negligible if you calibrate your TV with video essentials.

What really took the cake was the performance. The Panasonic loads discs and skips chapters lightning fast. The menu operations are even faster. I thought the slow menues were a limitation of the DVD format but the Panasonic navigates them almost instantaneously. IMO no player can match the smooth scan capabilities of this player! Goes up to 100x in either direction. Stills are pristine and slow (5 speeds in either direction) is smooth as ever. Unbelieveable for such an inexpensive player. You can place markers in 5 places in any part of the movie and return to any one instantly. This best feature is that the player remembers your place in the movie even if it is powered of (as long as you don't eject it). I even unplugged the player from the socket all night and it still remembered!

This is still an inexpensive player, I would even say cheap. The player is very light, 7.5 lbs. My player's feet were not balanced properly and I have to put paper under one foot to keep the player level and prevent wobbling. Also the RCA plugs on the back are very flimsy, I thought they were going to fall out when placing some very tight RCA connectors on the component outputs. Despite these shortcomings, IMHO this player cannot be beat by anything in this pricerange. Do not hesitate.

Latest update on pixelation problems... Reproduced the picture breakup problems about 1 hour into my brand new copy of Casablanca last night. Boxed the whole unit and will be calling Panasonic for an RMA number today. Unfortunately, DVDCity won't honor the Panasonic warranty. Recommend to avoid DVDCity. Downgrading to two stars. FYI for JTD... Most all DVD players downsample the 96/24 digital output signal to 48/16 because of copy protection issues. The analog output, however, provides the D/A conversion of the true 94/24 signal. Whether it is "better sound" is a matter of opinion. Most DVD players make average CD players, IMHO. Regardless, for DD or DTS, you will use the digital output of the player to your external decoder and set the Digital Audio ouput for Bitstream mode via the audio options on the setup menu to get your 5.1 channel decoding.

I just bought the Panasonic DVD A115U off of e-bay. The player works flawlessly. I have not seen any reviews or any info on the A115U. Anybody know if this is last years A120? Where can I find out more info?

I purchased the Panasonic A-120 about a month ago and have played about 10 DVD's without any problems. I am writing this because of the recent negative reviews I have been reading. As with any product, I believe you will have some failures and will make a product look like a failure. You are hearing from the people who are having problems (I think people will bitch a little more when things go wrong), and not enough people are willing to write in about how pleased they are with it. If you read the reviews about any DVD player, you would thing that they all have problems and are not worth having. I purchased mine from Sears with a 3 year "Maintenance Agreement" so I would not have to worry about any problems for 3 years. Remember, price isn't everything and with Sears its "Satisfaction or Your Money Back"! I do not work for Sears, I know they will take things back and will make you happpy longer than some stores 30 day policy.

I did a lot of research on the audio and video performance of DVDs before I decided to purchase a Panasonic A120 DVD. The price of DVDs is very high in Canada compared to the US, around $599 for a basic unit. So decided to purchase my DVD by mail order in the US through a relative. I picked up the unit on May 20/99 and returned home. I rented a couple of movies and laid back to enjoy the unit. About fifty minutes into the first movie there a crackling sound, the picture started jittering and then the player would not respond to any controller commands. I powered down the unit and restarted it. It started to work again, for about fifteen minutes and the problem started again. I repeated the previous steps and the same thing occurred. The problem seems to occur after about a hour of use. I would like to sent the A120 back to Panasonic, but Panasonic Canada will not honor the Warranty because the unit was purchased the unit in the US. It is very disappointing that I now have to consider returning the unit back to the US for service. Otherwise the unit is great!

One other thing I forgot to mention in my write-up yesterday - this unit boots up a DVD FAST as ANYTHING out there!! Just check one out in a showroom and compare to something else there - you'll see what I mean. Also, the remote is somewhat "lame" BUT, your A/V receiver can probably overcome that if you have a "learning" remote. Enjoy - good bang for the buck with the A120!!

Just got an A120 - very nice for the money. About $325 locally. Component outs, S-Video, etc. Flexible. Build quality appears to be good. Excellent video performance. Also, big improvement in my system when used as CD player with digital coaxial input!!!! One of the nicer players I've seen and listened to for the money. Optical technology is pretty straightforward - you don't have to spend a fortune on a player as it becomes a CD transport only when coupled to an A/V receiver through digital input. My advice, buy as good a preamp (or A/V Receiver) as possible and let the newest technology in your A/V receiver do the conversion (better sound) and the least amount of digital to analog conversions will occur as well through this method. Secondly, good power amps - seperates where possible. and course - the speakers. I have a (in my modest old golden ears opinion and twenty odd years of tinkering in audio) very enjoyable system with the addition of the Panasonic, and didn't have to spend a grand. Excellent buy - 4 stars. (only because I've never found something near perfect which is the only thing that ought to merit 5)
System Components:
Denon AVR-3200 Receiver
Energy C-6, AC300 & RVSS Home Theatre Speakers
Adcom AD5803 Power Amplifier
All Transparent Cabling and Interconnects

My Name is Ben and I am a sales associate for a high end audio/video store.Those of you who are searching for an exceptional value in a DVD player need look no further than the Panasonic DVD-A120. This player encompases rich picture quality and envolving sound. I have had the opportunity to compare this unit against similarly priced competitors such as The JVC RV-501 and Sony DVP-S530 (even though this unit is more expensive and posses a Dolby Digital decoder, it is the least expensive player that Sony of Canada imports).

If you like "toys" the JVC RV-501 is a great combination of features and performance, but lacks the black level detail and picture sharpness of the Panasonic. I would say the Panasonic has 15% better picture quality. I have demonstrated this to my customers using the Video Essentials DVD (Pluge test)in conjunction with a Hitachi 50SBX78 projo. The audio portion of the player was good, but not as crisp or precise at imaging as the DVD-A120. The audio system for this test consisted of a Yamaha DSP-A1 powering a pair of Boston Acoustics VR-970's.

The Sony DVP-S530 was the poorest performer when it came to video. The picture was highly pixelated on several discs. This could have been as a result of a bad "batch" and I have not had the opportunity to re-evalutate it.

With every up there's a down and when it comes to the DVD-A120 it's the remote. This is not the worst remote to fall into the palm of man, but by no means is it the most user friendly. As I have seen in other reviews, one may purchase the remote for a DVD-A310 (a much cooler remote with a joystick and sliding lower panel revealing a numeric keypad and menu functions) and use it for the DVD-A120.

The final vote is made with dollars. Having recently decided to purchase a "value" DVD player, I will be buying the Panasonic DVD-A120. When I confer with my colleague's the vote is unanimous, the Panasonic DVD-A120 is the best Value overall in our store.

The Panasonic A120-U may be the ideal unit for you, if you are looking for a DVD player that CAN produce a 96/24 digital audio signal for your Sony TA-E9000ES, MSB or other 96/24 capable D/A.
Despite what the misleading and poorly written "Japanese-English" Instruction Manual implies, the 120 will pass a 96/24 signal through its digital outputs, from any 96/24 disk that can also play on the Pioneer and Elite DVD players. Just make sure that you do not select "down convert", otherwise you will only get a 48/16 signal. Pioneer claims that you WILL get a 96/24 signal UNLESS the DVD is copy protected, in a cryptic footnote, Panasonic says you will NOT get a 96/24 signal unless the DVD is NOT copy protected. Both statements mean the same - all of the Chesky and Classic DVDs that can yield a 96/24 PCM signal through the Pioneers, can do the same with the 120.
Why does this matter? Because now you have an alternative. The 96/24 capability is about the only thing that the Pioneer 414/606/919 and similar Elite units have going for them. All the Pioneer units have bad lip synch problems with numerous popular DVDs, and they have primative "MS-DOS" like on screen GUI displays.
The Panasonic 120 gives you component video output, 96/24 digital output, a fair remote, much better on screen GUI displays and very good video and audio. It costs about $50 more than the Pioneer 414, but you don't have to put up with a bad lip synch problem, a lousy remote and primative "first generation" on screen graphics. The Panasonic 120 may be the best combination of performance and value, at least until a comparable product with DVD Audio capability appears.

After many days of racking my brain trying to figure out what dvd player to buy, I opted for the Panasonic 120A.. The Good Guys $315.00..Took her home and put in the Criterion edition Robo Cop...It refussed to play, saying the disk was not compatible. I left immediatley for the G.G. store and took along Robo Cop to try on other machines. At the store it played fine on the Panasonic 120a and the Sony s530...Well thought I had a bad machine...Went home packed up the machine and took it to another G.G. store where I again tried to play Robo Cop on another Panasonic 120A..It refussed to play again...Tried it on the Sony s530 played like a charm...Tried it with a Toshiba 3109 nothing it froze...Traded the Panasonic for the Sony in a heartbeat....Pretty amazing huh..The Panasonic was a big failure, even if it was just one disk, it should work..After a week of using the Sony will post a review...TheeBigguy