Great sound and picture...

...when it worked.

Well....just to add my success story to the list, I bought my A310 in december of '98 and it had the same pixelation problems that others listed. I blamed it on the technology rather than on a faulty player. It got really bad about 1 week after the 1 year warranty was up and that really annoyed me. I let it sit for about 6 months and then finally decided to get it fixed, paid 95 dollars for repair, and was happy with it working again. BUT then i started doing the same things, and right after i found this site 2 weeks ago, it stop recognizing discs all together! Thank god for this site or i never would have known this was a common problem! Anyway, seeing the someone else got theirs replaced after more than 2 years, I figured i'd try too. After many phone calls, and sending faxed copies of receipts, Panasonic agreed to replace my DVD player with the RV65. So...it's in the mail right now and I'm feeling much better about panasonic now.

I hope the RV65 works as well as the A310 did when it was working. As for why the price is much lower than the A310 was when it first came out, I attribute that more to the fact that the technology is no long brand new rather than cheaper shoddy construction. I guess we'll see....

unknown...first and only dvd player owned...

cumbersome remote; poor tray design..if disk not placed correctly, tray can jam disk while closing.

I normally refer to Stereo Review, for product reviews before purchasing any new products.
This particular issue of Stereo Review(1999, month not in hand), had an indepth review on this product. Reading this review, was what made me decide to buy this product.
Wait a minute!!!!...did Panasonic PAY these guys a "CUT", to ensure that the review is flawless??? NO mention of picture freezes, pixel deterioration etc!! As there are so many of you with the above problems,(including me), on this product, how can the Stereo Reviewer have MISSED this, during testing of this dvd player.
Bottom line...this dvd player should have never been released to the public, and I have NO confidence in PANASONIC...no more of this brand in my home.. These guys just shot themselves in the foot, and will be losing a LOT of customers in the future. I just wasted $350.00 on a defective product, that, in my opinion was INAPTLY reviewed by Stereo Review.

Similar Products Used:

none

None. Product failed.

Product failed after 9 months of use.

I have had the same problems other users here have had. Pixelization, lock ups. It never gets past the layer change. I will not be purchasing any more Panasonic products.

Similar Products Used:

Purchased Sony DVP-550D which works flawlessly.

Excellent sound and picture quality. Superb and easy to use remote.

Slightly unhomogenous, listening to audio cd.

It has been said before but, disregard from all reviews concerning defective players - they're mostly about players being badly handled during shipping.
The only problem I've had was when the company that did the code modification forgot to put back a component. Needless to say the picture quality wasn't optimal then. I sent it back and it has been going like a clock since then.

I've had one or two slightly defective DVDs who froze the picture for about a millisecond. That's all - I've watched 80-100 films on this player since i bought it.

Worth noting is that when this player was released almost every manufacturer copied parts of the hardware configuration or bought parts from Panasonic. I'd say that it's on par with most players on the market even today. The DD decoder is brilliant, actually better than most decoders that are built into most amps even today.

The well designed remote is just an other bonus to this excellent buy.

The only downside is that I couldn't replace my Marantz CD player as I didn't feel it met up to my demands when it comes to just listening to audio cds.

Similar Products Used:

Toshiba SD-3109, Pioneer DV-525, Panasonic DVD A110, Denon DVD-3000

good features when it works

defective, so above is a moot point

It is truly a relief to find this page. I have had all of the problems listed below. It is revealing to see how all of the early reviews of this product have been so positive and how negetive they have gotten recently. I think that I have had a similar experience.

I received this player as a gift last Xmas. It worked wonderfully for the first six months ( what a great gift!). And then... read any review below: pixelated picture, distorted sound, freezing, the whole nine yards. This happens seemingly at random with any type of disk (RSDL, single layer etc) or title. I don't watch too many movies, so all of the disks were brand new. Scratched disks are not the problem.

I called Panasonic (unfortunately the player was purchased online) and they refered me to a repair center fairly close to where I live. I met another guy who was dropping off his DVD-A110 (the same model minus the DD decoder) at the same time and he was having exacly the same problem...hmmm. Got it "fixed" (they replaced the pick-up and updated the firmware), had the same problem again, so on and so forth. The repair center people (whom I must say are very nice) did not seem suprised to see me. Two months and about ninety bucks later, the thing still doesn't really work.

Well, what should we do? I don't think that Panasonic is going to own up to this problem. My sense of the repair center (in talking with the manager) is that they are getting a lot of these players back and that they know full well that they are problematic. I hate to be defeatist, but I don't care enough to spend too much time on it. I guess I will just have to get a new one... not a Panasonic. What is the best one out there for the money? Send me an email!

Similar Products Used:

Panasonic A300

Good picture and sound

Remote and menus difficult to use

Overall good performance. So far, I have not experienced the digital artifacts or freezing described by others.

Great sound and video when working.

Damn thing just died after 10 months!! FUDGE!!

Well its on to the phones with Panasonic for me. Hope
I have better luck than everyone else :(

Similar Products Used:

Sony, Toshiba 1st gens.

Good picture, excellent remote.

Skips chapters after layer change on occasion

At first player was excellent, good picture, superb audio and nice features. However, like most other 310s, mine has started to display the chapter skipping problems after some 18 months of use - very disappointing to see that Panasonic has short-changed its customers. I'll buy a Sony or Toshiba next.
Panasonic - you let us down!

Similar Products Used:

Toshiba 2109

none

I just got off of the phone with an extremely rude person at a Panasonic service center. Like most of the people at this site, my A310 started having problems after about 10 months. The picture gradually started to break up and then broke up completely. I have already paid $45 and will owe another $65 when the unit is returned to me. I tried to explain to this person that the player obviously has an inherent design flaw and I didn't think I should have to pay anything. Of course, I got nowhere. The response I got was "Do you want your player back?" Panasonic must be making out like bandits on repair charges for this model. After my bad experience with the service center, I called Panasonic customer service. At least the person I spoke to there was very nice. She told me she will document my concerns with the player. OK, great, but where does that leave me at this point? So here's the plan - I will be writing Panasonic and I will attach a copy of this WEB page from all the Panasonic owners who have experienced the same problem with this player. If this site is representative of the people who have purchased this player, there must be hundreds if not thousands who have experienced the same problems. Panasonic needs to know about this problem and that there are a lot of very unhappy owners of this model. Do I really think this will do any good? Hey, I'm not that naive. Eventually, thru WEB sites like this, if they get enough bad publicity, maybe it will make a difference. If I get no satisfaction, I will contact the California Dept of Consumers Affairs. I know going up against a giant faceless corporation is like swimming upstream, but at this point I'm so ticked off, I'll do anything. We consumers have been stepped on for to long. Hey folks, when GM sells a car with an inherent design flaw, they recall it and fix it and they don't charge you for it!! And as far as you people who have had no problem with this player - give it time, give it time.

As far as video and audio performance is concerned, I have not experienced any problems with artifacts or freezing. I have had the unit for 9 months. I purchased the unit based on a review in Stereo Review (Now Sound & Vision)where a respected reviewer voted it his product of the year. Suffice it to say, I am satisfied with unit. There is one minor quirk which I can't explain. I have a Pioneer CT-F900 cassette tape deck that has left & right signal meters. For some reason when using the A310, the signal meters read only a right channel signal. At first I thought this was because in Dolby Digital, the signal is downmixed into 5.1 channels so the original signal shows up as one channel. But this still occurs when I play music CD's in stereo mode? What can be the problem? I recently borrowed James Taylor Live at the Beacon dvd and it will not give me audio in stereo mode...only in 5.1----Interesting.
If not for this problem, I would rate the unit with 5, otherwise I give it a 3