Rating: 
Summary: Good, reliable DVD player
Review: I went through two DVD players (Panasonic and RCA) that were very bad about playing a disc with even the hint of a scratch. I am very pleased to report that this player is fine even with some pretty bad scratches (hey, I have kids, what can I say). This is a good, solid player with few bells and whistles that most people never use anyway. Just ignore the nerdy folks giving low ratings because it doesn't do everything imaginable.
Rating: 
Summary: Maybe a bad apple
Review: I'm about to head back to the store with my unit, and I thought I'd see if anyone else had the trouble I had. Well, I'm glad that you all had such good luck with your units. Ours was awful! Perhaps it was a bad apple.There was essentially only one problem with our unit, which is that it freezes while playing DVD's. I can't tell if it is due to scratches, because after ejecting the DVD and playing the same portion again, it sometimes works fine. At any rate, it won't play any movies without freezing, choking, skipping and generally making us miserable. I bought this as a gift for my girlfriend and was HIGHLY EMBARASSED when it refused to play properly with DVD after DVD after DVD! When I saw all the good reviews, I felt like I should add my two cents. Make sure you keep the receipt.
Rating:
Summary: Warning: seriously flawed DVD player.
Review: I've owned this DVD player for a while and the more I use it, the more I'm disappointed with it. First, the front panel is poorly designed. It's impossible at first glance to distinguish the chapter number from he elapsed time. One has to count out the 6 digits of the time to figure out how far into the movie you are. Also, there is no way to display the time remaining in the movie. I feel the remote is poorly designed as well. Many commonly used buttons like fast forward and chapter skip are very small. If there is an order to the layout of the buttons, I haven't discovered it. The remote has a number pad, but you can't use it to go directly to a chapter you want to jump to. All these personal gripes are excusable and I'm sure that others like the remote and the display. What really bugs me about this DVD player is that it reads DVD's poorly. I've gotten used to the fact that the smallest scratch or smudge causes this machine fits, but what inspired me to write this review is that I bought two new DVD's and this so-called DVD player is showing all kinds of digital artifacts on the very first play. These discs have no problem playing on a friend's Sony DVD player. The machine also frequently freezes on the disc menus requiring me to eject and reload the disc. I am quickly approaching the point where I chuck this machine out the window in frustration. Save yourself the aggravation and get another brand.
Rating: 
Summary: Not a good choice for dedicated MP3 player
Review: If you are thinking about using this DVD player in a conventional way, this review doesn't provide any useful info. I bought this unit as a dedicate CD-R/MP3 player to use without a TV, and the result is workable but not very good. If you are thinking about the same application, read on. I do many hours of wet lab work, and it is a big improvement to be able to play hours of MP3 without changing the disc. I've tried portable CD-R/MP3 player with an amplifier and a pair of speakers for this purpose, but I wanted a bit more permanent setup. So I bought this DVD player with advertised ability to play CD-R/MP3, since there was nothing that was seriously negative in any review I could find on the web. If you read the instruction manual, it describes how you can select a directory and play the directory. I have never connected this unit to a TV so I don't know the exact detail, but based on blind clicking on the remote, it seems that I can select a directory and play it perfectly. The problem is that, I HAVE to select a directory before playing any file. That is, you CANNOT just drop in a disc and hit play! Maybe you can do it if the CD-R does not contain any folder but that's very rare. With a few folders of depth one, blind operation with remote isn't too difficult, but not ideal. Another problem is that I cannot forward within a file. That is, ff key does not work with MP3, and one can only select file and play from the beginning of the file. (Some DVD players can forward within a file.) As long as you don't find these limitations objectionable for you, the MP3 functionality seems to work well with good sound quality. There is no ID3 tag display on the unit. (I don't know if it is displayed on the TV if one is connected. I don't even have a TV and I watch DVD's on my computer.)
Rating:
Summary: Okay player for the price.
Review: Just purchased Samsung DVD-P213 to replace my old Samsun DVD which I gave away. It worked mostly on all DVD I have except non US-Canada DVD. So this DVD is not REGION-FREE! Also IT didn't play any VCD I have which is really a bummer. The feature of able to play JPEG and MP3 is pretty nice. Althought the auido output is only coax no Optical!
Rating:
Summary: Bummer
Review: Plugged it in and simply would not work with component setup. Grainy
picture, sometimes just wavy lines. OK on S-Video. Took it back for a Toshiba, which works just fine. This is too bad since the player came with a very good manual, a nice remote and a great set of features.
Rating: 
Summary: Use component video setup
Review: Previously, I wrote a review of this DVD player when I was using the simple 3 cable (audio Left, audio Right, video) and gave it 2 stars which I sincerely think it deserves; however, since then I have bought additional cables in order to separate the video into it's components and this works a lot better. When you get the DVD player it comes with 3 cables for the 3 cable hookup, but in order to get the best picture go buy 2 additional cables so you can have 3 for the video and 2 for the audio and use the component hook up. Doing this raised my review from 2 to 4 stars. Good luck! By the way, the instructions in the DVD's instruction book are not clear on this point and I had to look up the instructions in my TV's instruction book.
Rating:
Summary: good player
Review: so far so good. No problems. Remember, this player does not play VCD's. Light wight - overall good.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Product
Review: Some of the people before this review claim to have been having issues with reading DVDs. I myself encountered a problem with it because i lost my video output from fiddling around with the settings. I was searching for a way of resetting the Samsung p-231 and there is a way. To reset the dvd player, simply hold the 4 buttons (play, stop, fast forward, rewind) for a few seconds and everything will reset, just like new. It has nice crisp images, sound, and numerous features... I love it!
Rating:
Summary: Very good player
Review: The picture is fine, the sound at least as good as many others. The remote buttons are easily visible and accessible. The buttons are identified by black letters against a gray remote which makes the letters impossible to see in the dark. A black remote with white lettering is easier to see in the dark. That is the only con I have for this player, but if you use the remote a lot, you get to know the buttons by heart. The "EZ View" feature allows eliminating letter box size, but the resulting screen size elongates the material vertically which makes it look too odd for good viewing. The player does not play VCD's. Overall I am satisfied with this machine.
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