CyberHome CH-DVD 300S Progressive-Scan DVD Player , Silver
by CyberHome
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List Price: Our Price: $30.00 You Save: $19.99 (40%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Home Theater See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of CyberHome CH-DVD 300S Progressive-Scan DVD Player , Silver
Customer Review: Great player for the money
Summary: 5 Stars
This player is extremely good for the money. I have used a lot of players and can tell you, you won't get this combination of features for so cheap otherwise. It sounds as though Cyberhome may have some quality-control problems, but I've gotten three CH products and have had no trouble so far. Some notes:(1) This player can be made region-free very easily - if you follow the simple instructions at www.regionfreedvd.net you'll have a good region-free player in about ten seconds. My wife has a lot of Region 2 (PAL British) discs and they play beautifully in this unit.
(2) I hear a lot of people complaining about this black & white issue, only to hear that they're connecting their A/V cables (composite video- yellow/left audio - white/right audio-red) to the component connections (Luminence - green/chrominance[b] - blue/chrominance[r] - red)!!! Now obviuosly it's not the fault of the manufacturer if people don't understand that the cable colors need to *match* the colors of the connectors or else it won't work correctly!!!! Cyberhome is not responsible for people who don't understand how to wire things but don't read the documentation.
(3) There are occasionally discs that this player has trouble with - I've found it has a low tolerance for dust and scratches on the discs, and that some very old discs give it some trouble. However, I've found nothing that it simply won't play; generally ejecting the disc, cleaning it and reinserting fixes the problem.
Anyway, it's a great player for the money. It certainly won't stand up against a player with a more advanced video D/A converter; if you want a Denon DVD2200 but don't want to spend the $600 you're likely not to like this player. But if you're looking for a good, cheap player with some nice features, this is it. READ THE MANUAL and/or MATCH CABLE COLORS and you'll not be disappointed with this little player.
Customer Review: Cheap player that does almost everything
Summary: 4 Stars
It does playback PAL DVD on NTSC TVs. I tried quite a lot region 1 or all region PAL DVDs and no problems although I don't understand why using PAL on region 1 (US and Canada) DVDs. Playback (non progressive) is smooth and trouble free so far.It has almost all the features you can find from an expensive DVD player except Digital Optical Audio output and decoded Dolby Digital output. It does have Digital Coaxial Audio output to send digital audio signal to a receiver.
The unit is featherweight and very portable. A little bigger (wider) than an external CD-ROM driver. The fixed power cord (cannot detach at the player side) can be a problem if you will move the player often. The disc tray feels filmsy but probably no worse than trays on your PC DVD drive.
The player consumes very little power in use but surprisingly has 6.5W power consumption (from spec) when standby.
Cannot say too much about the reliability but it's cheap enough so I probably won't get mad if it breaks when it's out of warranty. Will try some MP3 and JPEG playback later. I bought Cyberhome CH-DVD500 about a year ago but the MP3 feature was faulty, JPEG playback quality was terrible and I retunred it.
The remote control is plain stupid! It uses button battery which is very expensive to replace and naturally I have concerns on battery life. All the tiny buttons are in the same size and you really have to look at it every time you use it. I may get spoiled by my Toshiba DVD player remote controller that has an excellent button layout and shape. I just grab it and know where is the button I want to push. Is a better remote controller really so hard to make? What is the manufacturer thinking? We all have pointy fingertips with pinpoint accuracy?
Well, at least the remote controller works well in reasonable range.
A capable DVD player desperately needs a better remote controller.
Customer Review: Perfect if you don't intend to use a surround sound system
Summary: 4 Stars
This is a very inexpensive DVD player that is intended primarily for folks who want to hook it up to a TV without also bothering to connect it to a digital 5.1/6.1 surround sound system. It is inexpensive, in part, because it has no Dolby Digital/DTS/THX decoders built in, and thus no 5.1/6.1 and no digital optical output circuitry and jacks. This helps keeps the costs down. It does, however, have an (inexpensive) co-axial digital audio output so if you have a surround sound receiver that has built-in decoders, you ought to be able to get true Dolby Digital 5.1/6.1 (although I have not verified this myself so caveat emptor).
The picture is as good as any of the images generated by my more expensive DVD players that have all the bells and whistles. It has progressive scan (but you have to set the component output ports to progressive scan by using the setup menu or they will not work properly - I spent a sweaty 20 minutes figuring this out !) and therefore DVDs look great on any TV that can handle this type of input (most modern analog TVs and all digital HDTVs). The image generated by the component video outputs running in progressive scan mode is pristine - as good as you can get on all but the most expensive digital HDTVs.
The remote is tiny and you have to point it directly at the unit, but it accesses all the functions and can be used to do all the set-up required. You can adjust the brightnesss of the image and some other parameters to balance the image with that from your cable/satellite box, something that I cannot do with one of my other DVD players that cost more than 5 times as much. This is a great buy for the money. I bought one for my Mom and then another one for a grandma. I think I'm going to get a third for my bedroom. If you don't care about surround sound, this is the DVD player for you.
Customer Review: Buy/Gamble (Updated twice)
Summary: 1 Stars
This player does work and the picture is pretty good. It also has the easiest region free "hack" on the market and it can play both NTSC & PAL discs. The only problem is that you are basically gambling on whether yours will be one of the units that runs problem free for more than a year. I bought mine on 10/6 and the remote stopped working yesterday. It worked fine for 10 days! Is that a new record?
The player still works fine, but without the remote I can't navigate menus or change settings. And you can't replace it with a universal remote because Cyberhome has no codes for those. They do sell replacement remotes on thier website, but the only payment options are Visa/Mastercard. I'm not all that angry because the price was pocket change and I was going to buy a nicer NAMEBRAND player later on. I've currently got my eye on the Philips 642 or 727 which also are region free "hackable" and feature NTSC/PAL support.
A note about the aspect ratio: It crops the edges of the picture in all modes. When I watch Innocence I can't see Togusa or Batou in the city fly over scene because they are at the very edge of opposite sides of the frame.
(update)
I exchanged this unit over 2 week ago and it is working fine. The picture cropping is a tv problem that has nothing to do with the player itself. Sorry. I'm still shopping around for a better brand name player that I can make region free, because I am sure something will happen to this unit within a year's time.
(2nd update)
It is almost a year later and now everthing is a "bad disc". You have been warned. 1 year's life out of this unit at the most. Luckily I have 2 PSTwo's one american(black) and one japanese(white). Still need something for region 3 and pal discs though.
Customer Review: Hissy fits galore!
Summary: 1 Stars
I was so happy with our Cyberhome that I wrote a glowing positive review of it...two weeks later it kicked its little legs in the air and died a repugnant little death. I've since deleted the review. I was stoked, because the Cyberhome is compact, versatile, and inoffensive--BUT, no matter, it's an unreliable product with some serious power source problems. Before buying it, we researched thoroughly. Our player would have to be able to accept PAL format/codes, because my husband has a craving for the British comedy he grew up on. No dvd player will make me appreciate The Young Ones, but c'est la vie... Just don't buy Cyberhome. Really. Even though it's cheap and ours lasted for almost a year, it's still a pile of dung. It's very difficult to get ahold of customer service, and if you are able to, then the cost of sending in the machine for replacement often exceeds the purchase price. The particular problem? If your home experiences power surges, then it could blow the Cyberhome's little capacitor guts. If you do decide to buy one, take care to turn it off after use (this might sound obvious, but many of us tend to leave these things on).
For those who are looking for region-free players, I would skip this particular brand. From what I understand, only the small companies make region-free, as the larger companies have to comply or are forced into making players that won't read foreign the foreign coding. And little companies can be less reliable or less stable, so just be careful in your purchase of region-free players. Also, many are retrofitted and not guaranteed. Personally, I'm keeping my eye on the JVC XV-NP 10S Multi Region Code Free player, but won't commit to buying until it gets more reviews.