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Full Version: Thoroughly Irritated
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My Panasonic DVD player of 8 odd years has bit the dust. Sure new electronics are nice, but having to go buy one right now is going to be a huge hassle. Do I buy the cheapest POS with a 50/50 chance of break down. Or do I actually take a risk on something mid range.
I think I'll send the wife to go buy it.
The Samsung and RCA, both had USB (2GB/4GB) connectivity, DivX, upconverting. Both also got slammed for buggy firmware. and the case of the RCA is all plastic.
Does anyone have one of the DVD players that you can connect USB flash drives to? How well does it work?

Thankfully, black components have made a comeback.
I don't have any of those, but I suggest you get one thats not expensive.
BluRay and HD player will be coming down in price eventually, so you might want to get one of these later on.
Do you have a dvd player on your pc? tv out on your pc? if u do, just plug it to the tv ;)
by a xbox 360
then you can upgrade to an HD dvd drive when you can
What sort of a time frame are you looking at to replace the DVD player that you're buying now?

I mean if you're looking at 6 months or so, I'd say just go to Wal-Mart and pick up a $30 DVD player, if the things dies outside the 90 day warranty, just buy another one and you've spent $60 for six months of use.

If you're looking at longer than that though, I would suggest spending a bit more cash for something that has at least a year parts *&* labour warrantee.

NefCanuck
Go to the Price Club and get anything. They are the best for returning anything , even if it is out of warranty.
We got a Christmas present 3 years ago, never used it, and saw it for sale at the PC recently, with no bill in hand, and returned it for a cash refund.
Thank You very much PC.

Standard stuff.............

http://www.costco.ca/Browse/Product.aspx?P...CA&Sp=C&topnav=
yea i agr with the buying a xbox360 idea (or a ps3) or you could get a portable player with an LCD that also has the outputs you need, so you can connect it at home and bring it on trips
meford4u,Sep 25 2007, 11:42 PM Wrote:Go to the Price Club and get anything.  They are the best for returning anything , even if it is out of warranty.
We got a Christmas present 3 years ago, never used it, and saw it for sale at the PC recently, with no bill in hand, and returned it for a cash refund.
Thank You very much PC.

Standard stuff.............

http://www.costco.ca/Browse/Product.aspx?P...CA&Sp=C&topnav=
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What is price club? I bug my friend with this all the time. Price club has changed its name to costco about 10 years ago. :D And yes they are the best for return policies.

I tired returning an 6 year old TV, they said ok bring it back, but i never did. I just couldnt do it. But i was just shocked they actually said yes.
Sorry that was way off topic. As for the DVD player. we have two. One is the nice panasonic that is old (iguess about 5yrs old) i've also got a Canadian tire usually they go on sale for 20$. Its got more options then my panasonic one.

http://www.canadiantire.ca/browse/product_...fromSearch=true
Price Club hadn't considered that. I'll bug a friend with a membership this weekend. Otherwise it's off to wal-mart or CT.
Why not just go buy another Panasonic and have it last another 8 years?....OR buy a blueray system that plays DVDs and Blueray discs??

I don't understand why you guys would recommend him to wait for a price drop on Blueray systems and at the same time tell him to buy a $60 DVD player to hold him over a few months??

The price MAY drop $60 in a time period of a year, but instead of wasting that $60 he could just put it towards the Blueray system and have the best of both worlds.

I don't know why anyone would be irritated at having an 8 year old dvd player die. Nothing these days is built to last or is replaced by a better technology the next day.
I'm mostly irritated at having to do all the research to try and find a reliable unit, when in the end, buying electronics is like gambling.
I figure I have just as much chance of getting buggy unit wether I pay $30 or $230.

I'd love blu-ray or HD, but I'll hold out until the Betamax war Ver. 2 is over. Plus I just don't have the coin right now for that sort of expense.

Most of the Panasonic units I've seen so far are cheap in build compared to the unit that just died, otherwise I'd snap one up in a second.

you could also look for an older PS2 and use that as a dvd player they can be had cheap now. my old ps2 seems invincible
I saw Toshiba HD DVD players at Bestbuy near St Laurent this past weekend, and they were like $289 (or they might have been even less than that too)....which is almost 50% cheaper than they were before...

I'm still happy with my 2 regular JVC DVD players and 30" 16:9 HD JVC I'Art CRT TV I have, as well as having a HT worth several thousand dollars (Marantz, Klipsch Refference, Monster Cables throughout), that does NOT have HDMI...I preffer having my sound signals travelling a different cable then the picture (using digital coax for audio, and component video for picture)...but that's just me.

I think it wouldn't be a bad investment to buy an HD DVD player or Blu Ray now, as they Discs will only drop in price, and will likely come with more than one feature loaded on each as well. I mean, the first DVD player I bought cost me almost $600 the year they came out in mass, and my first DVD, the Matrix, cost me over $50...

Best of luck to ya!
^-- bingo.. HD DVD players can be found for a couple hundred bucks, give you another viewing option... and will probably last you 8 years.

BTW.. is your TV colour?
I'm not following the whole Bluray/HD battle but the salesmen yesterday was saying that HDDVD is starting to pull ahead in the race. I guess a couple of studios have dropped Bluray and ship only HDDVD.
Either way I picked up another Panasonic, upconverting unit, I gotta say though, I'm not thrilled with the picture quality out of the box. I'll mess around with it this weekend. I might end up taking it back and getting the 480 I/P 5-disk instead.
Just FYI, anything said by a salesperson regarding the whole Blu-Ray / HD-DVD thing is nothing more than FUD designed to sell whatever will net them the biggest commission that day.

Studios may drop / add support for one format over another but until one format is the clear winner (Which won't happen until recordable versions of either technology hit the consumer electronics market IMO) plain DVD is the way to go.

Multiple DVD slot machines are great for the terminally lazy (Like yours truly :P)

NefCanuck
j3rt,Sep 28 2007, 10:06 AM Wrote:I'm not following the whole Bluray/HD battle but the salesmen yesterday was saying that HDDVD is starting to pull ahead in the race.  I guess a couple of studios have dropped Bluray and ship only HDDVD.
Either way I picked up another Panasonic, upconverting unit, I gotta say though, I'm not thrilled with the picture quality out of the box.  I'll mess around with it this weekend.  I might end up taking it back and getting the 480 I/P 5-disk instead.
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boo to the salesman..

numerically speaking, hddvd lags behind bluray, tho for one month, it did surpass bluray.

However, it hasn't been gaining traction per say, but rather bluray that seems to be slowing... the battle is still wide-open.