Problematic - may (not) affect all players

Author's Rating:

Pros: Slim and nice-looking machine. Excellent operation (at first). Full-service remote.

Cons: Disk tray seems very fragile. Firm-ware problem (causes) (may cause) malfunction

The Bottom Line: 
I would be very wary of this product as there may be a firmware defect that causes it to malfunction when searching for disk "chapters."

Author's Review
I bought this up-converting DVD player in December. At first, I was very impressed. Load time was very fast compared to other units I've owned. I don't have HD TV so I can't tell you anything about the HD quality.

The case is thin, and the disk tray seems very fragile. Luckily, the remote has an eject button on it, and I really suggest using it. I wouldn't want to push on that tray more than necessary. The remote is impressive with all the bells and whistles you could want. The display is great - not too bright like some others.

I watch a lot of TV series and each disk contains several episodes. Therefore, the player has to do a lot of searching for "chapters." After a couple weeks use, I noticed that seek times had gotten longer. Then, instead of finding the next episode, the disk would grind away and then display the splash screen you get when you first turn the machine on.

I had been using the unit pretty hard over a long weekend, so I turned it off for awhile and sure enough it was acting better when I turned it back on, but I began getting the same problem soon after. From not being able to locate chapters, I began getting disk errors and finally, the player just got too aggravating to bother with so I returned it as defective and asked for a replacement.

Unfortunately, I then read a review at Amazon that mentioned "the chapter problem" that seems to have plagued an earlier model (250 or 350?) and now seems to be present in this model.

If you just use your player to run movies and you don't skip around a lot with chapters, you may never experience a problem with this player. However, if you like to skip around or you play episodic dvds, like TV series, you might run into this problem sooner rather than later.

I will let you know how the replacement holds up. I definitely intend to put it through its paces.


UPDATE: The replacement unit continues to function as of today (7/10/08), although at times it makes little clicking noises when loading a disc that are reminiscent of the failure of the first unit.