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Product: RCA HDV5000 Amazon Price: Too low to display Availability: In Stock |
I bought this HD-DVD player about 2 nights ago and am just amazed at the value this player provides both in terms of build quality as well as performance. Some people have complained about the boot up time but you cant speed it up by downloading the latest firmware through the internet, i never felt it was a problem so i haven’t applied any software patches to it.
After the demise of my Panasonic dvd player i was thinking of getting an upconverting dvd player like the Oppo or a Panasonic but i am SO GLAD that i waited until the HD-DVD players came out. The standard DVDs play beautifully on this player as well.
All im going to say in the end is, take a look at your local BestBuy store for a demo of the HD-DVD player and you will know why im so amazed with what this player is capable of. Make sure you get Chronicles of Riddick HD-DVD with your player, in one word “WOW”.
I’m excited about the long awaited next generation Hi-Def DVD players, but being an early adopter comes with it some growing pains. First of all, I’m all for HD DVD, I think it’s the right price and the right technology for the next step. This RCA player is part of the HD revolution and is identical in stats to the Toshiba HD-A1. The player itself is clean and attractive, although large and bulky, it literally houses a home computer inside the case. Such as a computer, the boot up time is extraordinarily long, with the biggest fault being that it will not allow you to pop discs in and out while booting up. So basically, you will have to wait a good 3-4 min from initially powering up before you can pop out the disc in exchange for a another one. We have been spoiled by the instant-on DVD players of today and I have to keep telling myself…this is not a DVD player, but a new HDDVD player. Secondly, and as expected, the machine is very finicky about the movies it plays. In fact, switching layers is downright quirky. While watching a pristine copy of Mission Impossible 3, the RCA player locked up toward the latter half of the movie, I imagine during the time the laser has to refocus layers. Bascially, the picture freezes while the laser is trying to refocus; with your only option being to unplug the unit and start all over from the beginning, including the 3-4 min bootup. In order to finish the movie, I had to skip to the next chapter and reverse back, ensuring I didn’t go past the layer change. If you recall, back when DVDs first came out, the first DVD players had the same issue regarding refocusing on layers. This problem is even worse with used discs. It will flash a blue screen and say Disc Error, with your only option to eject the disc or power down. When all is well, you get a fantastic picture and sound. The DTS is crisper and much more balanced than before. The pictures are vibrant and crisp. All in all, if you can wait, I’d definitely wait until the next generation players come out. If you can’t, don’t expect your experience to be without quirks.
Have had the RCA HDV5000 for about a month now. Found one in the back room of a local Wal Mart here in Columbus, OH for $450.00. All I can say is, it really works well! I am really impressed for this much quality for the money. These heavy duty units are built by Toshiba in Japan and are built much better than the $30 DVD players coming out of China these days. The unit has a computer quality drive mechanism and a cooling fan on the back . It reminds me of a piece of quality computer hardware. The remote is not fancy but well organized and is able to operate different brands of TV sets by changing the code to your TV brand. I did connect the unit to the internet via a ethernet port on the back of the unit and downloaded the latest firmware. The unit came shipped with version 1.0 firmware and now shows version 2.0. This allows the manufacturer to iron out glitches in this first generation HD-DVD player. My unit loads a lot slower than my old DVD player, but that is about my only complaint with this unit so far.
The back panel well laid out and is filled with jacks for analog, digital and optical outputs. Component output plug is there along with HDMI output. The best thing about hooking this to my Sony 46″ LCD was that this DVD player included the expensive HDMI cable! The picture quality is stunning and this player does a great job of upconverting regular DVD’s too.
Buy this unit and be enjoying 1080 output HD-DVD today. The technology is here and is affordable.
Edit - CONCERNING SOME BAD REVIEWS: This player plays King Kong and every other HD-DVD disc you can throw at it. The trick is you must connenct this unit to the internet (or contact RCA for a CD) and update firmware to 2.0 to play King Kong and some other newer discs. All of my HD-DVDs are 1080p and they play just fine. Don’t listen to the people who don’t own this player. The picture is great.
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