Rating: Summary: BEWARE -- Stay away from this -- 0 star Review: I bought this player for $80 in 1/2003, but it stopped functioning after the big power outage in 8/2003. I had played discs only about 20 times. I had to pay $90 to have it fixed. The service center says that I'm just one of the many people who had problems with this product. If you don't want to lose money or to waste your time, don't even think about this junk. Panasonic was not like this before. They changed a lot.
Rating: Summary: I can't hear you. Review: I bought this product to replace the Toshiba, which died after a year of infrequent use. The picture quality appears inferior to the similarly priced Toshiba from the last year. The biggest problem I had with this product was that the sound level for dialogue was so faint that it was largely buried by the other sounds. This is even with the dialogue enhancer, which by the way doesn't work with some of the disks. If I turn up the volume, though, the other sound effects get way too loud. By the end of a movie, I was so tired just trying to follow the dialogue. During that movie, there was a brief moment of picture freeze, probably not a big deal, though.Maybe I should go back to Toshiba. Hopefully, it will break again, but this time, before the warranty runs out.
Rating: Summary: A good unit with a few flaws Review: I bought this unit for several reasons. Design, functions, capabilities, and cost. I spent alot of time checking several units and settled on this unit. My complaints after owning it for roughly 2 weeks come down to two main things: the unit makes alot of noise which is not a problem when the sound system is turned up. The second complaint refers to the ejection unit which is incredibly slow to open. You get a fairly good unit for the cost but don't expect perfection.
Rating: Summary: In case you need another one: H07 error Review: I can't believe that Panasonic would allow the sale of this unit to continue. Read the reviews: the H07 error is a chronic, fatal failure. The repair cost greatly exceeds the cost of the unit so I'm throwing this one-year old unit into the garbage. Is this Japan's revenge for WWII?
Rating: Summary: Pleased Review: I got his as a gift for my parents and found it easy to use and very nice. I don't know about the long haul, but I would recommend this if only because of past Panasonic purchases.
Rating: Summary: H07 - do not buy this garbage Review: I had this unit for fifteen months and it stopped working giving the H07 error message. Googling revealed that this seems to happen to them all after a few months of ownership as the result of a weak spindle motor design. This product is clearly not fit for the purpose for which it was sold and Panasonic should either recall these or provide a no quibble refund / replacement (with a different working model). That Panasonic appear to be washing their hands of this problem for those whose machine dies out of warranty is scandalous.
Rating: Summary: a great buy Review: I have been happy with this DVD player for well over a year now. I have read the other reviews and must admit that I cannot add much more than already has been said, but I'd like to contribute a little in the area of longevity for the product. I purchased this last year in April and the manufacturing date on mine is for 2002 of that year. I have been playing DVD's like mad (this is my first player--a big step up from VHS!) and I have not encountered any problems at all. As one reviewer has already mentioned: the display on the player is very nice. It gives out the chapter you are on as well as the time. The "on the fly" options you can execute are very nice. The player reads mp3s, cd-r(w)'s, wma, etc., very well and shows them in an on-screen tree type format. The only downside is the remote--with the buttons being small and having no backlight. This is a great buy for a very awesome price. It has suited my every need and has given me great service for over a year of hard play.
Rating: Summary: Better than average. Review: I have two of these dvd players. I bought them for several reasons: 1)It is a fairly slim player which will fit almost anywhere. 2)It read disk quickly and so far without any problems (I have them about 4 months). 3)It has features that are very convenient like: Zoom, Dialogue enhancer and cinema mode settings. 4) You can access the previously mentioned features on the fly and they can be memorized at the touch of a button. 5) If you stop the movie to access a menu, it will resume from the same place it left off. 6) The mechanism is very quiet. 7)Picture quality is excellent with no noticeable artifacts and the remote is good enough, it fits well in your hand and all the buttons are well positioned. Only shortcoming is a missing coax digital output, this unit has only an optical output. Overall: VERY GOOD.
Rating: Summary: 3 disks in 10 months then stopped! Review: I purchased this unit as a Christmas gift for my parents in December 2002. We set it up for them and it worked fine. They used in once after that, in mid-2003. They tried using it again just now (November 1st, 2003); they attempted playing a VCD (with JPG's on it) but the player couldn't read it (although it works fine on other DVD players) and when they tried one of my DVD-R's (which also work fine on other DVD players), they get nothing! In fact, the OPEN and CLOSE functions display those words, yet the disk tray does nothing (although the disk is spinning). So it seems my parents got a lemon; 3 uses in 11 months and then nothing... labor warranty is of course only 3 months... Price of a new DVD player is less than the labor. Too top it off, the DVD is stuck in the machine with no way to get it out (unlike PCs which have a little hole for you to help manually eject a stuck disk). I'd say stay away!
Rating: Summary: HO7 strikes again Review: I would also like to thank panasonic for nothing. Did they do no testing before putting this product out? It seems like this motor fails pretty consistantly. For sake of argument, I had this DVD player for around a year and a half before it crapped out. And it sounds like I was one of the lucky ones.
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