Rating: 
Summary: Nice player!
Review: I bought this player in late December to replace a three year old RCA. Bought it for component audio output, and I have not been disappointed! The picture is crystal clear on a standard 36" tv. Audio shakes the floorboards once hooked up to surround sound speakers.My only gripe is the menus that have a bit of a learing curve to navigate. It has great extra features like zoom and bookmarks that my old player didn't. In my opinion, this is the best player available under $150. Really fast shipping too, thanks Amazon and J&R!
Rating:
Summary: Our first DVD player...
Review: I knew nothing about DVD's or players but I liked the features of this DVD player and I've had good luck with the Panasonic brand over the years. I haven't had any problems with it skipping - and I've only played children's DVD's from our library (I think that would be a good test of DVD's). This player also played CD's that I burned of music and also JPEG pictures just fine. I did need to buy a S-video cable to hook this up to the TV (not necessarily needed) and I get a better picture now (vs. when my tv was only linked thru the VCR). I have the DVD player hooked up to my television and also an old VCR connected too - no diagrams to guide you in the instructions, but I just hooked up the DVD player first, then figured where the VCR would plug into. Everything works great, haven't had any problems with it.
EDIT: to add that I mistakenly rented a "Wide-Screen" DVD from the video store. When I played the DVD on my regular tv I only got half a screen of the movie (argh!) - I then tested the "Zoom" button on the remote and voila! I got a full-screen of the movie! My mistake turned into no big deal with this player!
Rating: 
Summary: No Stars! Beware!
Review: I purchased a similar unit, DVD RV27, at Target for $130.00. After one year, the dreaded "H07" service code appeared. The unit is no longer under warrenty for labor and probably not for parts. By the way, Panasonic will not tell you what H07 means, but basically the main motor is burning out or has burnt out. The part itself is probably only about $0.50 or so. I am very disappointed in the quality of the product. I bought it because it was offered at Target. Beware, buyer!
Rating:
Summary: One Great Player
Review: I purchased a similar unit, DVD RV27, at Target for $130.00. After one year, the dreaded "H07" service code appeared. The unit is no longer under warrenty for labor and probably not for parts. By the way, Panasonic will not tell you what H07 means, but basically the main motor is burning out or has burnt out. The part itself is probably only about $0.50 or so. I am very disappointed in the quality of the product. I bought it because it was offered at Target. Beware, buyer!
Rating: 
Summary: great DVD player while it lasted
Review: I purchased this DVD player to replace my top of the line (at that time Novb 2001) Sonyu DVD-0S570D which refused to play DVD+r disc and about %50 of my dvd collection. The Panasonic worked great for 14 months . 2 months past its warrenty. At 15 months it gave up the ghost and refused to play any dics at all. While it worked great , I have to give it low props for lasting 2 months past warrenty. My fisher VCR from 1990 still works ! !4yrs old ! This item was replaced by a Sony DVP-665ncp which is now a month old and working great with a 2 yr warrenty from best buy, I'd swore I'd never buy a Sony again as they let me down 3 times in the past decade .
Rating: 
Summary: it works ok
Review: I've had the player for 3 months now. There are a few really annoying things about it. First, in order to stop a movie and come back another time to view it where it was stopped, you have to push a button to have it remember where the movie left off. (The player should do that automatically) Second, the MP3 playback song navigation is really clunky. There are much better players out for less money. Don't waste your $$$ on this one.
Rating:
Summary: it works ok
Review: I've had the player for 3 months now. There are a few really annoying things about it. First, in order to stop a movie and come back another time to view it where it was stopped, you have to push a button to have it remember where the movie left off. (The player should do that automatically) Second, the MP3 playback song navigation is really clunky. There are much better players out for less money. Don't waste your $$$ on this one.
Rating:
Summary: One Great Player
Review: It seems the ony bad reviews seem to have been written by two different people who wrote several reviews with the same complaints a) no s video; which is totally wrong and suggests the reviewer is reviewing a different unit; and b) severla reviews written in the same diction complaining that the unit does not start a movie at teh exact same place if you just turn off the power. Newsflash 90% of brands don't have this feature. The panasonic will bookmark (which my JVC wont do at all) if you press a button. wow...that is hard! All in all this is a great vaule for the money. i have had mine for about 16 months, it has taken all kindsof abuse and works perfectly. it also works perfectly with every burned dvd (dvd-r, +r, -r/w,+r/w, every make of disk etc) I have thrown at it.
Rating:
Summary: Great Features for the Price
Review: My family has been buying Panasonic products for years, but this is the first time I've ever bought one of their DVD players. I've previously had a Sony and a cheapo KLH Home Theater in-a-box. When I was looking for a new player I knew that I wanted something that looked nice, had progessive scan (for the future), could play DVD audio, photo CDs, and MP3s. Oh yeah, and should be affordable for a college student. Enter the Panasonic DVD-S55S. 1. DVDs boot up quickly and it plays them perfectly. I've tested a few movies out and I don't even notice layer changes (a BIG problem with the KLH). There does seem to be a fair amount of flicker with contrasting colors on some menus. 2. Photo/MP3 CDs play well and are easy to navigate. However, vertical photos don't seem to play and MP3 filenames can be cut off if they're too long. The flicker shows it's ugly mug again on photos, but is easier to ignore. 3. Features galore! Progressive Scan, DVD-A (don't assume that all players can play these!), Dynamic Range Compression (kind of evens out the louds/softs of the movie), Optical audio output, Component video, and several ways to tweak audio/video for better quality. Overall, I'd give this player 4.5 stars but had to round up. The flicker problem could just be my TV or the way I'm hooking it up, I don't know. My only other real criticism is the remote. It's just kind of there. A little ugly but very usable. So, if you're looking to get into DVD or looking for a cheap player that will be able to keep up with you for several years, look no further than this one!
Rating:
Summary: Nice upgrade from my old Sony
Review: My old, trusty Sony died just before Christmas with the dreaded C:13:00 error, so I went shopping for a replacement, and I found it in the Panasonic S55. Great picture, great sound and a nice set of features. It does have S-Video, contrary to what someone else said, as well as component, and output for regular 2 speaker system and 5.1 plus optical digital audio. It plays pretty much everything I've thrown at it so far, except a CDRW, which probably was simply created with the wrong format. It had no problems with a CDR with 100+ MP3s, a CDR with 400+ picture from my digital camera, nor any problems with home-made VCDs (my old Sony claimed it could, but didn't live up to that). The picture slide-show works as advertised. One reviewer did have an issue with that, and the explanation is simple: His 5 MegaPixel camera takes pictures with a resolution of 2592x1944 pixels. Your TV only have 720x486 pixels. The DVD player then have to resize those big pictures to fit on your little screen. That's not something that a DVD player is optimized to do. Since you won't get the benefits of such high quality pictures on your TV, I would recommend you re-size them down to 800x600 before burning them on a disk, and your slideshow will be a lot smoother, and you won't be able to tell the difference in quality. So, if you're looking for an affordable DVD player which will play all your stuff, look no furher.
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