Same as a Panasonic or Yamaha but costs less

TERRIBLE customer support

I bought this player because it is exactly the same as the Panasonic A-310 and the Yamaha S-700 but is much less expensive (esp when compared to Yamaha). I had problems with it from day one, especially with rented discs, so I always assumed the problem was with the discs. After several months the unit finally refused to recognize any discs at all, even brand new ones that had never been viewed. When I contacted RCA they said it was past the 90 day warranty and they would fix it for a flat rate of $99.95. $99.95!?!?! They didn't offer to look at it first, they just wanted to charge me $100 flat fee! After months of phone calls and many letters back and forth to RCA I finally gave up. I refused to pay them $100 to fix something that was broken to begin with. How was I supposed to know it was a bad DVD player, not bad DVD discs? When a CD skips I don't go out and get a new CD player... Anyway, for the couple months it worked everything was fine and the picture quality was good (I would credit that to my TV and to DVD technology, NOT to the RCA unit). To sum it all up, no savings in cost is worth what I had to go through. So, the RCA ends up in the trashcan after 1 year of use (it hasn't worked for the last 7 months anyway) and I never buy an RCA product again. Buyer beware!

At the time of purchase, the RCA was a great value considering all of its features. I have had a few problems playing some DVDs that I have rented. I initially thought it was a problem with the disc but I was able to play the disc on the DVD drive in my computer.

Built-in digital decoding. Front panel jog/shuttle. Matches cabinet of RCA DSS reciever DRD515RB perfectly.

Will not play some DVD titles.

This is my first DVD purchase, and I found it on the internet for $249. That seemed a very good price for the features that this model includes. So far we've been very pleased with this DVD player and would recomend it if you are able to find it at a good competitive price.

We have had problems running some rented DVD titles on it though. THE OTHER SISTER and THE SPY WHO SHAGGED ME would not run proper. Sometimes they wouldn't even load up, and a message would display that read "THIS DISC IS INCOMPATIBLE".

THE MATRIX works fine on our unit. We've played it 100 times without a single glitch. I have no idea how these DVD players decide what movies they will and will not play.

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I also own the RCA DSS reciever DRD515RB.

EASY SETUP

NON

WAS VERY HAPPY WITH THIS UNIT. I WOULD PURCHASE ANOTHER PRODUCT BY THE SAM MANUFATURER.

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VCR

I was in the market for a single disc DVD player with 5.1 dolby digital capabilities to further build my home entertainment system. I chose the RCA 5510P because of many factors including (1)price, (2)recommendations, and (3)unit size.
(3) SIZE. The unit dimensions of the RCA are smaller than most. This allowed me to place the unit in the TV cabinet below my 45" Mitsubishi tabletop projection TV. Most other DVD players are at least several inches longer and would be a tight fit for my cabinet. This may not be a factor for most people but if you're trying to keep your components in a samller cabinet this can be key.

(2) RECOMMENDATIONS. I've seen several consumer articles stating that the RCA is a best buy such as ZDNET, etc. They stated the TV picture, etc was good and this helped reassure me.

(1) PRICE. The RCA unit gives bang for the buck for the $449 I paid from the Goodguys. Plus it included 5 free DVDs and 13 free Hollywood Video rentals to boot. For this price you get a full home theatre DVD with all the connections as well as built in Dolby Digital (my receiver has this anyway) and DTS option (for future use). This is low price point for these features. Even though I don't need Dolby Digital since my receiver already has it, I've found that most higher end units have this feature regardless.

The DVD player has a very crisp picture and allows for phenomal sound. It is very easy to use and pretty much just has basic features with no zoom (which I would rarely use anyway). My complaints are that the universal remote is pretty cheap and doesn't work that well (my fairly new TV won't interface with it). The other fairly weird complaint I have about it is that the disc player spins discs with a faint humming sound. This obviously is not evident with volume and my cabinet doors closed but I noticed some units such as Sony are completely quite. I noticed all RCAs in the stores make the same disc "whir" sound so it's not just my unit. I may be anal but ideally I like quiet equipment but it's a minor issue.

Overall I'm happy with this unit and rate it 4 stars. Disc noise, cheap remote, and no more advanced features such as zoom prevent the five stars but I would recommend this unit.

Bought this one in a Yahoo auction for $350 + shipping. At this price,it'll probably beat anything below $450 from the competition. Heard it's
a Panasonic A310 lookalike, read some reviews about it. I would agree that
the remote is not an intelligent design. Has 5.1 channel AC-3 outputs, which
interface nicely with DD enabled reveivers. This helps make soundtracks from
DVDs like "Highlander" bearable. The corresponding Dolby Surround Track can't
be understood, honestly! What a difference in AC-3! Even my 2 year old daughter
can use it.

Bought this at circuit city in evansville ind and am so impressed.This is my first DVD player and I cant believe what I was missing until now.The player is straight foward-easy to use and with the price I would reccomend it to anyone entering into the world of DVD.

It is a rebadged Panasonic A-310. A lot of folks are pleased with the Panasonic player. Ease of use, excellent playback quality, and I have not heard any real comlaints on the net about this player, other than it is an RCA. no lip syn problems, no layer change troubles. It has played every DVD disc I have thrown at it.

The RCA DVD player setup menus are becoming a little dated, compared to players that are being released now. However, I would say that setting up the player is rather easy and does not need to be done that often. Remote is tough to use to control other NON RCA products (i.e. TV's and VCR')

I have had this player for over a year. i paid $400US for his player in August 1998. It has seen steady use since that time. I would strongly recommned someone looking for a good valued player to look at the RCA line. Granted, it is not a reference level player such as the Sony 7700, but for the price, the RCA is hard to beat. It just does a good job at playing back DVD's.

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This was my first, and so far only DVD player purchase.

Built-in Dolby Digital, front-panel jog.

Doesn't play gold, dual-layer DVDs reliably

I lucked out and got this one delivered to my door for about $320 back in the middle of 1998. I've had a total of only three problems. 1) Armegeddon (Criterion Collection) has hung on the dual layer switch twice out of the 100 times I've played it. 2) The Matrix will glitch more often than not during a given playback. 3) So does Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. This is due to the gold, dual-layering format. Pause-Then-Play doesn't fix it, either. I must open and close the loading tray. That seems to "move" the glitch to another place in the movie. But I've played The Matrix once or twice with no glitches, at all. But the other 99 times I've played it there was one or two goofs.

Oh well. For the most part, this has been one terrific DVD player. I'm looking to retire it soon in favor of built-in DTS and DD5.1.

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None, yet.

I've had this player for about 2 weeks now. On the face of it it looked to be a great bargain. The player is made by Matsushita for RCA and for all intents and purposes is a A-310. I got it for a very low price and when I hooked it up the picture quality was extremely satisfying, as was the audio. Also, this is one of the few DVD players with built in Dolby Digital decoding that have a decent decoder with extensive bass management built in. So why have I not given it a 5? It has a huge flaw. On certain dual layer discs, like Blues Brothers, Mask of Zorro and others, when it switches to the second layer, it jumps or skips ahead a chapter. Say you are in the middle of Chapter 13 and the player switches layers, it will skip over the remaining part of Chapter 13 and start playing Chapter 14.
I read somewhere on the Internet that this is a known issue at Panasonic but they don't want to fix it, instead implementing the fix in the upcoming generation of it's DVD players. But this is hearsay, since I haven't had a chance to talk to anybody at RCA yet.
Apart from this 'minor' flaw, it is one of the better players out there.
If anybody else has experienced this problem or knows if there is a fix for it please email me at Rajdawar@yahoo.com
Happy Viewing,
Raj