Great Little Player

Must just comment on what a great piece of kit this is for the money. I've had a few DVD players from the likes of Toshiba, Samsung and Panasonic and this one is great for the following reasons:

* It's very quiet in operation
* The remote control is responsive, easy to use and operates my Sony Bravia TV too
* It remembers where it was in the movie when you turn it off
* It has a cool up-to-1.4x speed-up function which digitally speeds up the picture and sound, allowing you to get through slow bits quicker without missing dialogue
* It plays DivX

Full marks to Sony!

Great Player Shame About the Stanby Mode!

Just want to say that this is a great player in operation mode but on standby it makes a faint whirring sound which is just audible enough in a quiet room (ie a room without the tv on) to make it immensely irritating. The upscale is great, the remote is not as responsive as may be desired but as someone who owns the unit the standby sound can grate on you.

multi region my a**e!

experienced same problem as the guy below. followed Kalpesh instructions and no options given to change region once code has been entered - the thing just goes back to beginning.very disappointing, especially given the fact that i bought a few american dvd's in anticipation.

Whoa! Plug'n'play right from the box.

I was a little concerned about going for something so cheap, but I needn't have worried! Plugged it in and it worked straight from the box. Played a disc I couldn't play on my previous player and played a region 1 disc without having to change any settings. Well pleased and I haven't even tried all the features yet. Excellent service from PixMania too.

fantastic value

easy to use and is multi region so i can play my american disks what a bargin

Amazing Value!

Mine has just given up the ghost, refusing to eject a disc after about 3 years of nearly constant use, playing all manner of discs reliably with excellent quality. For the price, that's amazing performance: I'm replacing it with another one now...

Bargain DVD

Wont add too much to what has already been said, suffice to say it ticks all the boxes and for £30 one of the cheapest around.
I would mention that when mine arrived, the box it was in did not mention it was DVD+r/rw compatable only DVD-r/rw despite saying on the website that it was.
Thankfully it plays all types! Must just be a packaging error!

Fantastic blue-ray player for a great price

After HD-DVD finally went the way of BetaMax, I took the plunge & bought the Panasonic BDP30 player. I was wondering how much better the picture would be than my high-end Marantz DVD upscaler.
The Panasonic is very easy to set-up & the picture plus high-def sound is for the money brilliant. The player is bundled with Cars & Ratatouille blue-ray discs.....the detail in the picture on Cars has to be seen to be believed.
Highly recommended, if you can get your hands on one - I hear that there are only 1000 being imported initially!

A GEM

Excellent little player - scart,component,hdmi,doesnt matter,it has a great picture whatever the connection. Region free 'hack' works fine, just have the handset close to the player - and be quick! Hack successful on second attempt - handset functions a little slow, but not as bad as others have experienced, just be firm.

Pixmania are a rip off

I purchased this product on the Amazon Marketplace - it arrived - a French Model (I was told that this might be the case AFTER I ORDERED by an email from Pixmania). No adapter plug for the French mains plug, 3 French Blu-Ray DVD's and no Engligh instructioin manual. Steer clear of this company. They even have the cheek to say that I have to pay to get it returned to them so I can have my money back. Disgusting.

great, but...

I'm wondering why people would demand an abandoned format...
Toshiba had announced it would no longer develop or manufacture HD DVD players, it means there will be absolutely no new-released HD-DVDs any more!

Anyway, I'm gonna cancel mine.( I still gave it 5 stars, since it's really an awesome machine)

Great upscaling player

Aside from some sound technical issues discussed in other reviews, I must say that I am very pleased with the player which also doubles up as a CD player in my setup.

Firstly, the player is very very simple to use. Hardly any buttons or lights on the player (making it look sleek and sexy) with all remote fucntions easy to operate. It is in essence quite a simple, no-nonsense player, with hardly any added (usually pointles features)

Importantly, the things it is supposed to do it does well. The upscaling feature is brilliant. Image quality from standard (non-HD) DVD's is really quite stunning (i play films on a 44" rear projection TV using an Ixos HDMI cable). It really isn't far off HD quality, expecially if you don't press your face to the screen. If you're sat at a sensible distance away clarity is dazzling and there is a semi-HD quality to it. No doubt this is aided by a decent HDMI cable (cables being as important as the player..only as strong as weakest link etc). COlour, definition and general image quality are impressive. Remember to get the contrast down and brightness up to help reduce noise and improve image quality IMHO.

Thirdly, connectivity is good. There is HDMI, component, digital and coaxial audio out and scart. I run my 5.1 sound through a coaxial digital cable to my Yamaha amp. I've not encountered any real issues, although for Dolby Digital you need to change the audio out setting to Bitsream not PCM.

CD sound quality is also very decent, although the player will sometimes pause momentarilly (although this may have something to do with the Bitsream setting).

All in all a very decent player for a good price. Also extremely light and slim. As also mentioned, it can be easily hacked to play region 1 DVD's.

Recommended.

I'm impressed - amazing value...and great sound and picture too !

I got this unit to go with my new Samsung LCD TV, and I wanted to see my standard definition DVD's in all their glory.
I am not disappointed. Very easy menu system. Easy remote to use.
And the picture on my TV is superb - I did not expect standard DVD's to look so superb. The sound, too, is great via coax to a surround amp.
An inexpensive way to watch DVD's until Blu-ray gets more established and the price of the films comes to a sensible price...then I'll be upgrading and not upset at having spent a small amount on this.

Great player, easy to use and supports DivX

With so many programs available, legally, as downloadable DivX files nowadays it's great that this Sony player supports that file format and supports it well. I've had a Samsung DivX player and purchased this one for my folks. It's so much better than the Samsung model. Quick to load and also shows the full title of what you've added to the disc.Great player and great value.

Great Price, Great Player

It arrived before the arrival date (thx amazon) and It is great. The picture, audio, and playability. Comparing it to a £450 sony one it looks the same. It worked straight out of the box and sets up automatically. The remote is easy to use aswell. The only problem is it doesnt give you a hdmi cable! I don't know why but I got one from the tv upstairs so you may need to buy one fist
Overall go buy!

Tip top so far!

Just bought this player along with a tosh 37" 1080p tv and HDMI lead,bit fed up as got it from comet for £59 maybe should have tried amazon first.
Have had no probs at all so far no freezing or jumps was going to give five stars but am slightly worried after reading posted reviews feels like im waiting for it to go wrong now!In so far very happy with both pic quality and sound, i find the upscaler combined with the hdmi cable really does make a huge difference to what i was used to.Great tv Great player(so far!)

Great... for two months

I didn't expect much for the price but hoped for at least a year of use before any problems surfaced.

I've had it two months and now it fails to play the majority of discs (disc jams for 4-5 seconds at a time).

I've tried brand new discs and also used them in other players without any problems so it's definately the machine that's at fault.

You get what you pay for I suppose.