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Panasonic DVD-RV32K DVD Player (Black)

Panasonic DVD-RV32K DVD Player (Black)

List Price: $149.99
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Very nice player so far
Review: I've had this player for a week so far, but it seems to be an ideal replacement for my 4-year old RCA player that has begun to glitch on me more often.

It's not perfect, though, as some of my glitching DVDs also glitch on this DVD player, too, but not as severely. This just tells me that my DVDs themselves may have gone bad.

I once read that RCA players were simply rebadged Panasonic players. That statement might very well be true, as the menu system on the Panasonic, although more detailed with more options, seems almost identically laid out with my old RCA player. Of course, this player has many more options with both DTS and Dolby Digital output, along with component and S-Video video output, zoom in-out, and several other cool options.

One knock is the somewhat unintuitive remote control, which doesn't seem to be laid out ideally. Normally, you might find the rewind and fast-forward buttons on either side of the play button. Here, the FF and REW are on another row of buttons, and they're tiny little circular buttons, sized almost as if they're intended not to be used very much. The skip chapter FF and REW buttons are the same, unfortunately.

One other annoyance is a slightly slow load-up time for the DVD to start up. My old player loaded DVDs up within 2-3 seconds, while this player take 6-8 seconds to load up DVDs. Minor inconvenience, but not a major complaint.

I plan to run this player through its paces for the next 3 weeks to let me decide if it's worth keeping. So far, it's held up to dual-layer DVDs, seamless branching, animated menus, closed-captions (my previous JVC player failed this test), interactive Infinifilm-type DVDs, etc. Even scratched rentals seem to play fine on this player.

So far, I'm happy with this Panasonic player, which is superior in every way to my previous player, which is ideally what any person would want when buying the latest and greatest gizmo.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: H07? Call Panasonic
Review: If you still have a unit that has experienced the H07 death message, call Panasonic Executive Customer Relations at 201-392-6870. Politely but firmly ask them what they are doing about this widespread problem, and tell them you would like them to fix your unit at no charge.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Trouble, Trouble
Review: Immediately after purchasing the player I had to return it because it hesitated badly on almost all DVDs. The player was gone for two weeks, but worked fine when it was returned. Player worked for the next 12 months of (infrequent) use, then just quit working. It is not worth paying for repairs, so it is being junked and I am buying another brand to replace it.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Bad News - again
Review: In September 2002, we purchased the Panasonic RV32S and were quite happy with it. Excellent value, picture quality, ease of setup... and all the other things people have raved about. UNTIL we got the dreaded HO2 error and couldnt play DVDs. It was still within the 1 yr parts warranty of course though over the 90 day labor warranty. So the shop we took it to wanted a deposit just to look at it and estimated it would cost more than half the price of a new player. "Oh well - we got a lemon", we thought and happily went and bought another one. Now, 92 days after purchasing that new player, it wont read ANYTHING! zip, zero, zilch... put in a disc of ANY format and it says "No Play". It cant read ANYTHING... just sits and spins the disc around! Course what does Panasonic say? "Take it in for repair" - of course, to that same ... repair shop.

Off to buy a Sony - "Fool me once, shame on you, Fool me twice, shame on me". Should have bought a Sony last time.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent DVD player for the money
Review: Just picked this DVD player up along with an Acoustic Research 6 foot S-Video Video + Audio (rca type) cable. This review is on the Panasonic RV32K (black). The black and silver versions are identical except for the color. Anywho, on to the review. This is my first real DVD player (had an X-Box before, but A. It didn't play VCDs, and B. it wouldnt play some regular DVDs... so I got this one). I must say, I am quite happy with it. I only had one single hiccup with this DVD player when playing Monsters Inc, and it was very slight. This DVD player has verrrry good picture quality, a decent remote (so-so). I don't know much about DVD players, but in a room full of DVD enthusiasts, as a starting DVD player, this was highly reccommended. I love it alot.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: H07 Error!!
Review: Like everyone else, I'm getting an H07 error which means that the drive isn't spinning anymore! I've had it less than a year and of course didn't get the warrantee like a SMART CONSUMER WOULD!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: H07 Error
Review: My 2 year old Panasonic RV32 DVD player just died recently, and displayed an "H07" error code. I checked the user manual, and the Panasonic sites, but got no help...

Then I Googled "Panasonic+DVD+H07" and came across thousands of posts about this problem. It looks like it is a fairly common problem with the Motor spindle and costs heaps to repair. Panasonic do not acknowledge that this is a general problem, and have not issued a product recall.

There are a few work arounds posted on the net, like oiling the motor or cleaning the lens, but neither worked for me.

I contacted Panasonic, and was told that I was out of warranty, so needed to get it repaired myself. I won't be wasting any money on that route, but need to know if this problem is as common as it appears to be. If so, maybe we have grounds for a case against the manufacturer.

I have set up an MSN group called "H07 Hunters" to try and see how many genuine victims there are.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Exceptional But Seriously Flawed
Review: My motivation for buying this player was to play back a large collection of audio books and classical music I recorded in MP3 and, primarily, WMA formats on CD-ROM. As far as I know, this is the first DVD player capable of WMA playback. It finds all the WMA tracks on a disc easily and has a nice on-screen menu system for navigating them. The problem is that it is not capable of reliably sequencing the tracks alphabetically by name, which makes it practically useless for listening to any audio where the sequence of tracks matters to you. The player's manual acknowledges this problem and suggests numbering the tracks in a sequence beginning with 001 (stating that even this may not solve the problem). I don't know about you, but I'm not about to redo my lot of CD-ROM's to conform to this player. The Rio VoltĀ® has no problem sequencing MP3 and WMA tracks alphabetically. It should have been a no-brainer here.

The second major flaw is more of a livable nuisance. When the player powers down after 30min, it loses its place on your disc unless you remember to mark it during playback with the "Position Memory" button on the remote. All other DVD players I have experience with automatically retain the disc position. This player can retain the positions on up to five discs in memory, but that has no substantial bearing on this inconvenience.

The video and audio output quality of the player are quite good for the price, but if your main reason for buying it is to play MP3 and WMA CD-ROM's, you are likely to be disappointed. There is no real excuse for these flaws, which, if fixed, would make the player an exceptional value.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Add me to the list....
Review: Of those who have received the infamous H07 error. One minute it was working fine, next minute nada. I have had problems with this unit opening up slowly for a while now, it has finally kicked the bucket. I've had it for slightly more than 1 year. I definitely will not be purchasing another Panasonic product. I guess I'm off to buy a new one in the morning.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: And another H07
Review: Once again, another problem with this DVD player. 12 months and 2 days after purchase, it just halted. I am happy to have found these other comments before I spent another pointless 30 minutes on hold waiting for Panasonic Customer Service to never answer...


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