Which DVD Player is more reliable?

[hr(bob) hofmann@att.net]

I need to get a cheap DVD player for a rental property. I have a
choice of a Philips or a Memorex DVD player for $24.99 USD. Anyone
have any thoughts/printable comments about which might be more
reliable?

Bob Hofmann

 

[Meat Plow]

On Sun, 18 Nov 2007 07:23:35 -0800, hr(bob) hofmann@att.net wrote:

I need to get a cheap DVD player for a rental property. I have a
choice of a Philips or a Memorex DVD player for $24.99 USD. Anyone
have any thoughts/printable comments about which might be 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.

 

[Arfa Daily]

"hr(bob) hofmann@att.net" <hrhofmann@att.net> wrote in message
news:19f92502-06a0-40d4-8ba2-87a51942e65d@b15g2000hsa.googlegroups.com...

I need to get a cheap DVD player for a rental property. I have a
choice of a Philips or a Memorex DVD player for $24.99 USD. Anyone
have any thoughts/printable comments about which might be more
reliable?

Bob Hofmann

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

 

[Mark D. Zacharias]

"Arfa Daily" <arfa.daily@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:ei_%i.8302$1x.1215@newsfe4-win.ntli.net...

"hr(bob) hofmann@att.net" <hrhofmann@att.net> wrote in message
news:19f92502-06a0-40d4-8ba2-87a51942e65d@b15g2000hsa.googlegroups.com...
I need to get a cheap DVD player for a rental property. I have a
choice of a Philips or a Memorex DVD player for $24.99 USD. Anyone
have any thoughts/printable comments about which might be more
reliable?

Bob Hofmann

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.

 

[Arfa Daily]

"Mark D. Zacharias" <mzacharias@nonsense.net> wrote in message
news:n100j.92$4q5.19@nlpi069.nbdc.sbc.com...

"Arfa Daily" <arfa.daily@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:ei_%i.8302$1x.1215@newsfe4-win.ntli.net...

"hr(bob) hofmann@att.net" <hrhofmann@att.net> wrote in message
news:19f92502-06a0-40d4-8ba2-87a51942e65d@b15g2000hsa.googlegroups.com...
I need to get a cheap DVD player for a rental property. I have a
choice of a Philips or a Memorex DVD player for $24.99 USD. Anyone
have any thoughts/printable comments about which might be more
reliable?

Bob Hofmann

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

 

[hr(bob) hofmann@att.net]

On Nov 18, 7:03 pm, "Arfa Daily" <arfa.da...@ntlworld.com> wrote:

"Mark D. Zacharias" <mzachar...@nonsense.net> wrote in messagenews:n100j.92$4q5.19@nlpi069.nbdc.sbc.com...







"Arfa Daily" <arfa.da...@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:ei_%i.8302$1x.1215@newsfe4-win.ntli.net...

"hr(bob) hofm...@att.net" <hrhofm...@att.net> wrote in message
news:19f92502-06a0-40d4-8ba2-87a51942e65d@b15g2000hsa.googlegroups.com...
I need to get a cheap DVD player for a rental property. I have a
choice of a Philips or a Memorex DVD player for $24.99 USD. Anyone
have any thoughts/printable comments about which might be more
reliable?

Bob Hofmann

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- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

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

 

[Smitty Two]

In article
<19f92502-06a0-40d4-8ba2-87a51942e65d@b15g2000hsa.googlegroups.com>,
"hr(bob) hofmann@att.net" <hrhofmann@att.net> wrote:

I need to get a cheap DVD player for a rental property. I have a
choice of a Philips or a Memorex DVD player for $24.99 USD. Anyone
have any thoughts/printable comments about which might be more
reliable?

Bob Hofmann

How much is your time worth? Why not get something that will last longer
than three months, and save yourself the trouble of constantly replacing
it?

 

[James Sweet]

I need to get a cheap DVD player for a rental property. I have a
choice of a Philips or a Memorex DVD player for $24.99 USD. Anyone
have any thoughts/printable comments about which might be more
reliable?

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.

 

[Eeyore]

"hr(bob) hofmann@att.net" wrote:

I need to get a cheap DVD player for a rental property. I have a
choice of a Philips or a Memorex DVD player for $24.99 USD.

For that price expect junk only.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

Meat Plow wrote:

On Sun, 18 Nov 2007 07:23:35 -0800, hr(bob) hofmann@att.net wrote:

I need to get a cheap DVD player for a rental property. I have a
choice of a Philips or a Memorex DVD player for $24.99 USD. Anyone
have any thoughts/printable comments about which might be more
reliable?

At that price it's basically a disposable unit. Sitting here on my desk is
an Oritron player.

A decent company.

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)

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.
http://www.oritron.com/

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

Arfa Daily wrote:

they have tiny 85 deg caps fitted that are rated about 2 volts above what they

have to work at

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

Graham

 

[Arfa Daily]

"Eeyore" <rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:47414E6B.491CD462@hotmail.com...

Arfa Daily wrote:

they have tiny 85 deg caps fitted that are rated about 2 volts above what
they

have to work at

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

 

[Terry]

"Arfa Daily" <arfa.daily@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:wgd0j.41031$T8.32619@newsfe5-win.ntli.net...

"Eeyore" <rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:47414E6B.491CD462@hotmail.com...


Arfa Daily wrote:

they have tiny 85 deg caps fitted that are rated about 2 volts above
what they

have to work at

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

 

[Mark D. Zacharias]

"Arfa Daily" <arfa.daily@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:Nh50j.9113$pg.1357@newsfe6-win.ntli.net...

"Mark D. Zacharias" <mzacharias@nonsense.net> wrote in message
news:n100j.92$4q5.19@nlpi069.nbdc.sbc.com...

"Arfa Daily" <arfa.daily@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:ei_%i.8302$1x.1215@newsfe4-win.ntli.net...

"hr(bob) hofmann@att.net" <hrhofmann@att.net> wrote in message
news:19f92502-06a0-40d4-8ba2-87a51942e65d@b15g2000hsa.googlegroups.com...
I need to get a cheap DVD player for a rental property. I have a
choice of a Philips or a Memorex DVD player for $24.99 USD. Anyone
have any thoughts/printable comments about which might be more
reliable?

Bob Hofmann

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

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.

 

[Eeyore]

Terry wrote:

"Arfa Daily" <arfa.daily@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
"Eeyore" <rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote in message
Arfa Daily wrote:

they have tiny 85 deg caps fitted that are rated about 2 volts above
what they

have to work at

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


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 ...


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

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

 

[Arfa Daily]

"Mark D. Zacharias" <mzacharias@nonsense.net> wrote in message
news:afe0j.68934$YL5.55924@newssvr29.news.prodigy.net...

"Arfa Daily" <arfa.daily@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:Nh50j.9113$pg.1357@newsfe6-win.ntli.net...

"Mark D. Zacharias" <mzacharias@nonsense.net> wrote in message
news:n100j.92$4q5.19@nlpi069.nbdc.sbc.com...

"Arfa Daily" <arfa.daily@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:ei_%i.8302$1x.1215@newsfe4-win.ntli.net...

"hr(bob) hofmann@att.net" <hrhofmann@att.net> wrote in message
news:19f92502-06a0-40d4-8ba2-87a51942e65d@b15g2000hsa.googlegroups.com...
I need to get a cheap DVD player for a rental property. I have a
choice of a Philips or a Memorex DVD player for $24.99 USD. Anyone
have any thoughts/printable comments about which might be more
reliable?

Bob Hofmann

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


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.

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

Arfa

 

[Thomas Tornblom]

Personally I avoid anything Philips, if I can.

 

[Meat Plow]

On Mon, 19 Nov 2007 08:47:25 +0000, Eeyore wrote:

Meat Plow wrote:

On Sun, 18 Nov 2007 07:23:35 -0800, hr(bob) hofmann@att.net wrote:

I need to get a cheap DVD player for a rental property. I have a
choice of a Philips or a Memorex DVD player for $24.99 USD. Anyone
have any thoughts/printable comments about which might be more
reliable?

At that price it's basically a disposable unit. Sitting here on my desk is
an Oritron player.

A decent company.


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)

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.
http://www.oritron.com/

Graham

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.

 

[Terry]

"Eeyore" <rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:47417C4E.51F2CD11@hotmail.com...

Terry wrote:

"Arfa Daily" <arfa.daily@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
"Eeyore" <rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote in message
Arfa Daily wrote:

they have tiny 85 deg caps fitted that are rated about 2 volts above
what they

have to work at

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


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 ...


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

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

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

 

[Terry]

"Thomas Tornblom" <thomas@Hax.SE> wrote in message
news:x08x4uuwdx.fsf@Hax.SE...

Personally I avoid anything Philips, if I can.

Agreed.