Gee, my DVD player stopped playing some of my dvds after about a year. Do I see a trend happening? Plus the no name player a friend bought is quieter than this thing.

price

fuzzy picture on dark displays
sound was not quite right

best but and sears have sold this for about 219. It is worth much more because of how it stacks up against the competition.

video was decent, except when there are dark scenes in a movie, the display looks fuzzy (video noise) and non descript. I checked with a local audio/video dealer who said that this is common among cheap players. The d/a filters are subpar, while the wiring may also be suscptible to emi/rfi due to poor shielding. showed me a well-built sony and compared the two players. There WAS no comparison. SONY exhibited much better detail in all scenes and it was only $89 more.

On the audio side, my portable sony cd player sounds better.

Similar Products Used:

sony 7700

Great picture, no "jaggies." Plays CDR & CDRW!!!

Tiny remote, LOUD internals.

Overall a very decent player (so far!). The picture is terrific and does not suffer from the jaggies that most other players have (circles become jagged, etc.). My biggest gripe about this machine that it is WAY too LOUD when loading discs. INCREDIBLY LOUD!! I mean, you can't help but think that the unit is going to just DIE right there on the spot. Once the disc is playing though, it gets much quietier (with my bionic hearing though, I still hear the little grunts as the laser moves along...like every 4 seconds). My other gripe is the VCD Pal playback. Nearly every other player on the market can play a PAL VCD in NTSC (by either cropping off the top and bottom of the picture or removing every other line to fit the screen). This player will play a PAL VCD IN PAL. No way to turn it off! This stinks for my little collection of Hong Kong VCD's. A call to Philips confirmed it. "You require a PAL TV to play PAL discs." I asked if they plan on making a disc upgrade (another nice feature, if utilized)and he said "I have not heard anything about it."

All in all, though, I'll probably be keeping this player. (And YES, I really have owned all of the listed DVD Players. Life is so boring with a little variety, no?)

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Pioneer, Sony, Konka, Samsung, RCA, GE, Fisher, Panasonic.

Works perfectly

none

I have had no probelms with this DVD Player as described by others who have used it. The earlier units were defective but newer ones har trouble free. When DVD Players were first released all brands were full of defects (Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba..) The first DVD Player that I purchased was from Sony and I wasnt happy with it. It cost more than the Philips and it had less features. This player is unique because it has dual lasers. One for DVDs and the other for CDs. This is also good because if you have one laser for both Cds and DVDs then it will wear out quicker. Overall this is a great player for the price. I've had this for more than a year and it has given me no problems whatsoever.

Needed a DVD player to round out the Home Theater setup, have DD Decoding in my Yamaha RX-V495 receiver, so I only needed an entry level DVD player. Many good choices out there (Toshiba, Panasonic, JVC, RCA), but settled on the Philips for Price, ability to play CD-R audio disks (the majority of the DVD players will not recognize a CD-R disk), reputation, and solid reviews. Remote is just OK, but not a concern for me as I plan to buy the Harmon Kardon "Take Control" universal remote. Picked this unit up for $200 at Best Buy (open box unit, perfect condition), with one free movie (Batman), one free movie from Philips (Austin Powers), 8 Free rentals from Netflix, 5 Free movies and 15 free rentals from Blockbuster. 7 free movies and 23 free rentals! No Brainer, to easy not to pass up this deal.
I have had the unit for 3 weeks, about 10 movies played, and have not experienced any problems at all. The picture is sharp, audio is fantastic, DD is very cool!

One of the best entry level units on the market. Highly satisfied and Highly Recommended.

superb audio reproduction/deep solid bass(too much?)excellent dvd reproduction.

the remote bites and needs to be redesigned, too small, not ergonomic, not enough buttons for cd audio playback.

THE FIRST THING THAT BOTHERED ME WAS HOW NOISY THE PLAYER IS WHILE READING/PLAYING A DISC(AUDIO OR DVD), IT DOESN'T SEEM TO AFFECT THE SOUND OR PICTURE, BUT NEVERTHELESS, THE NOISE DOESN'T SOUND GOOD. IT SOUNDS CHEAP AND PLASTICY WHEN LOADING A DISC. NOW IF THIS IS DUE TO THE LASER TRANSPORTS MOVING INTO POSITION OR SOMETHING SIMULAR, THAT'S FINE. HAS ANYONE ELSE NOTICED THIS? ASIDE FROM THAT, THIS PLAYER IS MORE GEARED TOWARDS PLAYING DVD'S THAN AUDIO CD'S WHICH IS A SHAME, IT SHOULD BE BOTH EQUALLY WELL. THE SCAN MODE ON AUDIO DISCS ISN'T VERY SMOOTH WHICH SURPRISED ME, I COULDN'T FIND A WAY TO PROGRAMME TRACKS OR ALL THE OTHER USUAL THINGS I DO WITH A CD PLAYER- REMAINING TIME/PEAK SEARCH SEEM TO BE ABSENT. BUT IT DOES PLAY AUDIO CD'S VERY WELL, PLENTY OF DETAIL/DEFINITION/CLARITY OF THE HIGH END. DVD PLAYBACK SO FAR IS FLAWLESS, THE REMOTE TAKES SOME GETTING USED TO AND PRESSSING THE WRONG BUTTON WILL NO DOUBT HAPPEN. DVD'S LOOK AND SOUND AWESOME. I HAVE OTHER MINOR QUIBBLES BUT FOR THE MONEY, IT IS A VERY CAPABLE ENTRY LEVEL FIRST PLAYER, SURE IT COULD BE IMPROVED AND MAYBE IT WILL BE. UNLESS THE PROBLEM WITH THE NOISE REALLY STARTS TO BUG ME AND IT MAY, I WILL PROBABLY KEEP IT. IT ALSO PLAYS CD-R'S AND CD-RW'S FLAWLESSLY.

Similar Products Used:

none, so far.

PLAYS ALL CD,VCD,DVD,CD-R,CDRW DAUL LASERS PRICE

SKIPPING PAUSE ON DAUL LAYERS

PRETTY GOOD PRODUCT,BUT I STILL THINK BY NOW YOU SHOULD
BE ABLE TO BUY A PLAYER AND HAVE IT PLAY A DVD COMPLETELY THROUGH. THE MATRIX GETS IT EVERY TIME. CD SOUND IS GREAT,BETTER THAN MY SONY PLAYER. I THINK I'LL TAKE IT BACK BECAUSE EVEN A BUDGET PLAYER SHOULD AT LEAST PLAY THE DVD MOVIE SMOOTHLY. IT IS TO MUCH TO ASK I GUESS.

Similar Products Used:

DVD 525

Low cost, Plays CDRs and CDRWs, Optical Out

Goofy little remote

Whatever the problem was, Philips must have fixed it over the past few months. I've played Heat, Matrix, Jackal, Stop Making Sense, The Wall, Lethal Weapon, limited number of CDs, CDRs, and CDRWs, all without a single problem. True, the remote is horrible, but I have a learning remote for my Yamaha 995...well, bad example. :) I bought my 825 at Best Buy for $217, and am quite happy with it. I was new to Dolby Digital, and when I put in Talking Heads Stop Making Sense, it absolutely blew me away. That DVD is a must have! System:
Amp: Yamaha RX-V995 (get one)
Mains: Sansui SPX-6900 (oldies but goodies)
Surrounds: Bose 2.2 (not bad, but could be better)
Center: Infinity CC-3 (incredible)
Sub: None (afraid the house would cave in)
DVD: Philips 825 (see above)

Similar Products Used:

None - my first DVD experience.

firmware upgradable

firmware upgradable - get it right the 2nd time ;)

This is a follow-up to my previous review (from August). I don't see much about this in the reviews below, so I'll go on a bit... The dvd825 has upgradable firmware. You upgrade it by poping in a cd with the latest firmware and the dvd automatically updates itself. I was able to "obtain" an update disc and it fixed the 2 problems I was having. The first was the random freeze/skips (which seem to happen only after using the dvd as a cd player). The other problem I had was that if the soundtrack was 1-ch ac3 (as in "Local Hero"), and I had the 3D sound turned on (via the setup menu), I got no sound. The firmware upgrade fixed these 2 problems.

People w/ problems playing "The Matrix" usually have an older version of the firmware. You can check the version by going into the setup menu (no disc in, of course) and scrolling all the way to the bottom and then hitting the down arrow one more time. The firmware rev will be on the right hand side and read something like:

8.00 990702 P5

which is rev (8.00) and date (99-07-02). Older models will have rev's 5.xx, 6.xx, etc.

I had called philips-usa to get a disc upgrade, but they said I'd need to send the player in. I was able to obtain the files I need to burn a cdr of the upgrade disc. It's just one file that occurs multiple times in recursive directories - pretty simple to duplicate.

For more info, go visit the rec.video.dvd.players newsgroup - also, try searching the rec.video.dvd.players archives at www.deja.com

-Syd

PRICE

NOISY, REMOTE IS WAY BAD

THIS PLAYER IS ON IT,S WAY BACK. SOUND IS O.K. AND PICTURE IS GOOD,BUT THIS PLAYER JUST CAN'T COMPARE TO THE DVD 525.
REMOTE IS WAY TO SMALL AND DISC SPINNING NOISE IS TO LOUD AND PRESENT THROUGH MOVIE. THE CD PLAYER SIDE OF THIS UNIT SEEMS FANTASTIC,REALLY CLEAR AND CRISP.BUT I BOUGHT IT FOR MOVIES NOT AUDIO. ALSO LAYER PAUSES ARS REALLY LONG(2 TO 5 SEC.) THIS REALLY INTERUPTS THE MOVIE. ALSO HAD IT EJECT A DISC FOR NO REASON (BUT ONLY ONCE). THE 525 IS THE SAME PRICE AND BETTER.

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FIRST DVD