Home :: Video :: DVD Players :: Single-Disc DVD Players  

DVD Recorders
DVD-VCR & Other DVD Combos
Multidisc DVD Players
Portable DVD Players
Progressive-Scan DVD Players
Single-Disc DVD Players

Panasonic DVD-S35S Ultra-Slim Progressive-Scan DVD (Silver)

Panasonic DVD-S35S Ultra-Slim Progressive-Scan DVD (Silver)

List Price: $99.99
Your Price:
Product Info Reviews

<< 1 .. 4 5 6 7 8 9 >>

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent player for the price
Review: I recently purchased this player based upon its almost amazing combination of features and low price. About the only thing it won't play is DVD-Audio discs, which aren't all that common, but if you're looking for that, look elsewhere. I haven't used it much yet, but the quality seems excellent so far and it plays MP3s and SVCDs on both the recordable and re-writable discs I tried. Also, I don't have a progressive scan TV yet, so I can't vouch for how well that works.

If I had to find a complaint, it would be that it does not support reading of the ID3 tags on MP3s. Apparently, even though Panasonic is known for having one of the best MP3 player interfaces in the DVD market, they chose not to implement reading of ID3 tags. It, of course, doesn't say this anywhere that I can find on their web site, but it does explicitly state it in the manual. Other than that, the MP3 interface is as good as I had hoped and it played everything I tried.

As far as the other person who complained about not having a digital coaxial output, this is stated very clearly on Panasonic's web site. It's no problem for me as I use the optical connection anyhow, but there are converters available if you really need the digital coax. Overall an excellent player with a very good price.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Where is the coaxial digital output?
Review: This unit supports a wide variety of audio and video formats, has a good selection of video outputs, but where is the coaxial digital audio output? That is considered by most experts as the best form of audio connection and is supported by almost every other major manufacturer. Why has Panasonic decided to save a couple of bucks and leave it off their DVD players?

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Fantastic DVD player - incomprehensible user manual.
Review: This is certainly the best buy on the market for a single disc, progressive scan DVD player. It comes with a good cable for direct TV hookup, providing you have a audio/video receiver and know how to use it, or the video/L/R audio RCA jacks on the front or rear of your TV.
The manual will tell an average user how to turn it on, open and close the drawer, and then punt. The explanation of the features must have been written by the Chinese engineer that designed it and then translated to English by a Mexican secretary. The level of information is well above the average user, and almost useless unless you have substantial experience with audio/video hardware.
A meaningful rating for this product would be ten for the player itself and -2 for the manual. Run out and buy one quick while the price is this low but be sure all you need to do is plug it to those three jacks on the TV and just play a DVD. Fancy capabilities are there but you are on your own to learn how to use them.

I just ordered my second one.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: A Must-buy Bargain
Review: SEE UPDATE BELOW. I've used my trusty ol' Panasonic A-110 DVD Player (circa 1998) for years and have been happy enough. I had paid $... for that model. Now comes the Panasonic DVD-S35. What a player! I guess a lot of improvements have happened over the years. From my perspective, this is a bargain. It plays everything but DVD-Audio, including JPEGs and MP3/WMA files, flawlessly. I don't have a DTV, so cannot comment on the progressive scan capabilities. But I have the S35 connected via component video cables to a Sony Wega TV and it looks great. All operations are smooth, quiet and intuitive. A must-buy bargain.

UPDATE: One serious "glitch" I've just found is that this player cannot accurately play back the movie A Bronx Tale. Starting around Chapter 14 to nearly the end, this player introduces badly pixelated scenes, where muptiple squares appear on the image. To eliminate the possibility of a dirty lens, I checked the same model in Circuit City, which showed the same flaw! In comparison, with the IDENTICAL DVD disk, I tried last year's Panasonic RV-32 and the even older Panasonic A-110. They both played the same disk flawlessly. You be the judge.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: So Far, So Good!
Review: I just received my Panasonic DVD-S35K player today... I am totally new to the DVD scene, and wasn't quite sure how I was going to hook it up. The instructions were fairly simple, although I did need to call someone a couple of times to walk me through the set-up. Really easy though, and the unit itself is so light weight. The DVD quality is great, I've been playing some movies. I also played some CD's and am really loving it. I'm using a Sony 20" vvega TV. It's not digital, but hey, the DVD picture still looks great. For [the price] you cant go wrong. And the unit, as it says, is ultra-slim, which I like. It sits nicely and lightly on top of my Panasonic VCR, and is just slightly smaller than the VCR. I'm definitely giving it 5 stars, for price and because it works well.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent inexpensive DVD player
Review: The look and feel of the Panny DVD-S35K is very sleek and modern. We've placed it on a bookshelf in our bedroom, and the slim lines of the unit means that it does not "take over" and visually dominate the other items on the bookshelf.

This unit was so low-priced that I was not sure what to expect in terms of picture quality, but I was pleasantly surprised. The colors are accurate, the image is sharp, and I have not seen any visible video artificats in any of the numerous DVDs we've watched so far. Within the display limits of our television I have absolutely nothing bad to report about this DVD player. Overall, the picture quality from this unit is head-and-shoulders better than that from the flaky and unreliable 3-year-old Sony 530D DVD player I have in our living room.

(When reading my comments as to picture quality, please bear in mind that we are using this player with a Philips 20PF9925 20" LCD panel TV. As many of you already know, there are certain trade-offs in using LCD technology, e.g. lower contrast; and of course a 20" screen is not exactly widescreen and hence certain categories of defect are largely invisible even when they are - or might be - present in its input feed.)

This unit is also feature-rich. As advertised, it can play CD-R's with MP3's/WMA's and JPEG images. Frankly, I assumed that this would probably be poorly implemented and/or frustrating to use. But in fact I was rather startled to see how *well* it worked. I placed into the tray a CD-R made a couple of months ago which contained about 150 family pictures in three different directories. After only a few seconds load time, the player correctly identified the disc as containing photos, indexed all of them, and offered me the choice to begin a slide show. Very easy to operate and highly configurable, for instance if you want to show the whole disc or merely one directory. Easy enough that even the proverbial "grandma" could use it.

Final comments: in giving this player 5 stars, I am relating it to my expectations for a DVD player in the "budget" category. I think that if I wanted a progressive scan player for a dedicated home theater, or for a big-screen (43"+) HDTV monitor, I would probably look elsewhere and buy a more expensive unit with a more advanced decoder chip, SACD or DVD-A support, etc. But among players in its class the Panny DVD-S35K simply cannot be beaten.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Exceptional bargain!
Review: This is the best bargain yet for a DVD player, especially if you have any need to play DVD-Ram discs (like those recorded on one of Panasonic's DVD recorders). The features you get for this price are incredible, starting with progressive scan output, and including MP3 playback, extensive zoom control (if you want to offend the Original Aspect Ratio gods) and picture controls (user adjustable). But the real steal is the DVD-ram playback. Only last year a machine to do that would cost more than [$], and progressive scan for under [$] was not possible. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles, but it has enough to satisfy almost any user without special audio or video needs. My only complaint is that it isn't available in black.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: little one with lot
Review: This is a very good DVD player with all features for low budget guys... you can buy this DVD without giving second thought. it's progressive scan feature is handy. The Technical features are very good.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: excellent
Review: close to two year of very heavy use not one problem. reads better than the high end sony we got at twice the price.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: I Finally Feel Cheated By Panasonic
Review: After using Panasonic products for years, I finally feel like I've been ripped off. I experienced the exact same problem the user from Austin, TX did. I was trying to access a script on one of my Buffy DVD's when the player died on me for no apparent reason. I simply hit the "enter" button on the remote to read a script on one of the discs and nothing happened. It sounded like the laser was trying to read the disc for about 10 seconds and then player just suddenly died on me. When I tried to load the disc back up, it died(shut off) again after a few seconds. Now it refuses to play anything. I've tried CD's, CD-R's and several other DVD's. Nothing is wrong with any of these discs; they're all in perfect condition. The weird thing is the unit still powers up fine and all the menus and other functions still work. It just refuses to play any discs anymore! As soon as I stick a disc in, the power shuts off after a few seconds of trying to load the disc up. The motor still appears to work as I can hear it when I stick a disc in, but something has gone seriously wrong with the laser and/or motor. Admittedly I used the player a lot, but it wasn't even a year old yet and I cared for it very well. It was a good player up until this. It played even the most severly scratched rental discs I threw at it without any errors and had great picture and sound. But when the player breaks down completely in under a year, what does it even matter? Panasonic said they would repair the unit for me, but it would cost nearly as much as a brand new player would cost me, so it's pretty much pointless. Now I'm not so sure if I wan't to continue using Panasonic products. Keep in mind though, this problem doesn't necessarily apply to all of Panasonic's DVD players. As far as I know, this hasn't happened to anybody with the more expensive S47S model. But now I understand why this player is so cheap and is no longer in production. I'm not saying turn anti-Panasonic, but avoid this player no matter how cheap you may find it. Their DVD players really are excellent assuming they keep working more than just a year...


<< 1 .. 4 5 6 7 8 9 >>

© 2004, ReviewFocus or its affiliates