Which DVD Player is more reliable?

At that price it's basically a disposable unit. Sitting here on my desk is an Oritron player. One of those half sized units just wide enough for the tray and a button or two. I have it hooked up to my Olevia 32" LCD via component connection, what a picture for 480p. I've used this Oritron (who knows who made it) for a couple years playing a couple movies a week. I haven't had any problems with it and I think I shucked out about 30 bucks for it. Your mileage may vary but I don't think that a more expensive unit is much more reliable, certainly not to the tune of double or triple the price.

Personally Bob, I would go for the Philips, as it's at least likely to be actually made by them. As Meat says, it's basically a disposable item, but that doesn't help much when it fails 6 months in ... FWIW, most of the cheap ones that I see for repair, have very 'marginal' power supplies in that they have tiny 85 deg caps fitted that are rated about 2 volts above what they have to work at, and it's often these that fail inside warranty. A contributory factor in this, I think, is ventilation, so you might want to consider keeping it out in the open, rather than tucking it away in a cupboard underneath the TV.

Arfa

Don't encourage Philips - they are the worst. That's my advice anyway.

Mark Z.

Hi Mark Well, he's actually a bit between a rock and a hard place on this one, because over here at least, and I guess it's probably the case there as well, gear marketed under the Memorex name often is Philips inside anyway.

Although Philips stuff may not be the most pleasant to work on, and their service info sucks, I have found it in general to be quite well built, and reasonably reliable. Iam interested in what negative experiences you might have had to make you feel that it is "the worst" ?? Do you feel that the Memorex would be a better bet? We might be seeing a difference in products here between the US and UK.

Arfa

messagenews:n100j.92$ snipped-for-privacy@nlpi069.nbdc.sbc.com...

I'll go to the stores that are advertising the players tomorrow (Monday) and see if I can tell anything about who might actually make them. It would really be interesting if they both turned out to be the same unit with different labeling. Also, I want to see if either one carries more than a 90 day warranty.

Bob Hofmann

It's a crapshoot, they're both junk, but either may do the job. I'd be shocked if there's any appreciable difference in quality, there's a good chance that inside they're identical units.

For that price expect junk only.

Graham

A decent company.

Oritron actually. I've even been to one of their factories. They were making DVD players on the line at the time and they ship FOUR 40 foot containers of them from that factory DAILY ! They're a BIG company.

Graham

There's nothing wrong with that voltage rating. Why do you think they have a working voltage rating ?

Graham

We've had this conversation before Graham. As a service engineer, which you, I think, are not, I can only go by experience. The caps which regularly fail, are (most) always rated just a couple of volts above what they are actually running at. Now I know full well that you believe this to be a nonsense, but I'm sure that anyone else on here who is regularly involved in actually repairing the stuff, will tell you the same. It might be some kind of anomaly in your reckoning, or even not possible to your mind. That doesn't alter the fact that it is true. It might just be a physical size versus internal heat issue. I just don't know, but it is so, whether you believe it or not.

Other than this, I don't want to get into the discussion, as it's not what the thread is about, and the last thing we need is another one degenerating into a ridiculous flame war, as you get madder and madder, and all the usual suspects jump in to have a pop at you ...

Arfa

Does the 2v headway allow for noise spikes. Tants often fail this way.

Regards

Wow, Geoff. I'm not sure I have the mental energy to recount all of my objections to Philips. First of all I'm referring to Philips as they present here in the good 'ole USA. They may be a much different company in your parts. I have seen some evidence in past exchanges on the newsgroups that they use better quality CRT's for example in their euro product.

1. Unusual physical manufacturing, often bordering on shoddy, even unsafe.
2. Expensive repair parts, then parts discontinued just about the time you might need them. Example: I had a customer with an 8000.00 Philips data projector, 4 years old and needing an LCD panel. Sorry, no longer available.
3. They have the worst phone service EVER.
4. They will not sell manuals etc unless you are one of their authorized servicers.
5. Generally cannot buy individual mechanical parts for a DVD player for example, only complete assemblies which cost two or three times (or more) the retail price of the unit being repaired.
6. They have a well documented problem with paying consumer rebates. You can spent months chasing your rebate, getting one stall tactic after another.

There was a web site called Planetfeedback.com . I think they have since changed their name but Google ought to find it. If you query Philips you'll find they get negative feedback like no other.

I worked on a Honeywell defibrillator made by Philips. The Euro metal fuse holder contacts were so crusty with black oxidation that they would not even conduct electricity to the body of the fuse they were in contact with. Wouldn't want my life depending on that one...

End of rant (for now...)

Mark Z.

Firstly you don't get much in the way of 'noise spikes' on a bulk reservoir cap.

Secondly, tantalums have an entirely different chemistry which can even catch fire or explode.

Lastly, the applied voltage on an electrolytic affects only the leakage current. You can actually safely exceed the rated voltage of an electrolytic if you don't care especailly about this by at least 10% without causing damage. I have done this myself after taking careful advice from the manufacturer's agent when using a 63V rated cap at around 69V in an amplifier under 'idle' conditions. FYI the tech manager was keen to keep costs low. None of these ever exhibited early failure problems.

Graham

OK Mark. 'Nuff said ! I can't compete with that for positive experiences !

Arfa

Personally I avoid anything Philips, if I can.

DVD

Well that's one reason why I haven't had any problems with it. And it does play anything I toss inside, even discs that my Sony won't. And the discs don't have to be pristine clean and scratch free to play without glitches. I might just look into their HD line if they have one. Guess I'll look at your link, thanks.

Be careful exceeding the voltage rating of capacitors. It may be ok on the batch you tested but there are batch to batch variations. Experience has taught me not to trust manufacturers agents unless they put it in writing which they never do of course. Bulk resevoir caps need a 0.1uf in parallel or there will be noise due to the inductance of large caps.

I hope I am not teaching my grandmother 'how to suck eggs' :-)

Regards

Agreed.

I also have to agree, Philips have some odd ways of doing things.

Ron(UK)