I've been part of the DVD revolution for a while now, due to my computer being bundled with a DVD-ROM. My family was able to watch our collection of DVDs, however it meant being huddled up in my room, watching from a 17 inch monitor. Not the most thrilling prospect in the world.
We grinned and bared it until eventually we decided to take the plunge and purchase a DVD player for our living room. Looking in the trusty Argos catalogue we looked through the lists and decided on the Akai DV-P3410, a player that seemed to fit all of our needs, and then some.
=PRICE=
The Akai DV-P3410 was for sale in Argos for £99.99, and came with batteries for the remote control, and all the cables that we may have needed to set up the player.
=FEATURES=
The DVD player is capable of playing PAL and NTSC DVDs, but that is not all. It is also able to play MP3 CDs, Audio CDs, Recordable CDs (CD-Rs), Rewritable CDs (CD-RWs) and the older Video CDs (VCD).
There is also a Dolby Digital AC-3 5.1 Decoder so that you can hook up a surround sound system to your DVD player (although we don't own one at the moment), a high quality 24-bit audio converter, and a 10 bit video converter, which from testing I can say gives a clear picture.
You also get the standard DVD player functions such as zoom, viewing from other angles (only available on DVDs that catered for that option by shooting different angles) and the ability to change the language of the audio soundtrack (again, depending on the DVD).
=INSTALLATION=
When it came to connecting up the DVD player, it took us some time, this is mainly because we have an older television set, and there are many things plugged into it (digital TV decoder, VCR etc), which all had to be reconnected to fit the DVD player into the loop.
There wasn't any real tuning of the television to be done in our example as it went onto one of our AV channels on the set, but on other televisions some minor tuning may be required. For newer televisions and Video recorders they also bundle component video output cables which will connect from the DVD to the TV using a 3 pronged Audio/Video cable.
All in all the setup took about 30-45 mins including repositioning of the digibox and VCR, on a proper Home Entertainment System cupboard or similar thing I dare say it would take a lot less time.
=PERFORMANCE=
As soon as it was set-up, we instantly put in one of our DVD collection to try it out (the DVD in question being The Mummy Returns). The picture was splendid, and although the volume did need to be turned up a little bit, this seemed to be an issue with the DVD rather than the player (the Wrestlemania X8 DVD for example needed no volume adjustment).
=FINAL VERDICT=
The Akai DV-P3410, despite the lack of a major brand name (such as Sony or Ferguson) is an excellent player that is able to perform all the functions most people will require from their DVD players. I personally have barely left the thing alone since we bought it, as I am constantly using it to play my DVDs instead of using my computer's drive whenever I have a quiet moment to myself, due to the significant performance increase in comparison to the playback I get from my PC.
So, if you're looking for a decent quality DVD player at a reasonable price, I can safely recommend this one, as I've yet to find fault with it.
=NOTE=
This is the first review I've done of a DVD player, so I hope that it contained everything that you may want to know about the player. If not, feel free to comment and I shall edit the post accordingly. :)
Review by Karl, 25th October 2002
More details
Ease of Use
Simple
Ease of Installation
Difficult
Remote Control
Excellent Quality
Instructions
Quite Helpful / Understandable
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