... As such finding the Alba DVD45 for a mere £27.99 in my local Asda was a Godsend.
Measuring 36 cm across and 5 cm high this is a surprisingly slimline DVD player. It is quite stylish for the price with a silver shell and black panel front. Setting it up is refreshingly simple and requires ... Read review
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A review by Shortsharpshock on Alba DVD45 July 10th, 2005
Author's product rating:
Picture Playback
Good
Sound Level
Good
Range of Features
Limited
Durability
Good
Value for Money
Excellent
Advantages:
Dirt cheap, slimline, plays MP3's and CD's .
Disadvantages:
Not multi - region, remote will not last .
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
I am no technical wizard; I clung on to my VHS recorder for dear life until videos became virtually non-existent for the most popular films. It was then and only then that I decided to invest in a DVD and even then I looked for the cheapest I could find. Functionality was my only purpose when searching for a player. I cared not whether it could play mp3's, CD's or STD's I just wanted a slimline, unobtrusive player that played a DVD from start to finish. As such finding the Alba DVD45 for a mere £27.99 in my local Asda was a Godsend.
Measuring 36 cm across and 5 cm high this is a surprisingly slimline DVD player. It is quite stylish for the price with a silver shell and black panel front. Setting it up is refreshingly simple and requires plugging the scart lead (supplied) into the back of the DVD player and then into the scart socket on the television. Plug it in and away you go. Operation is by one of two methods. The remote control (supplied with batteries!) or the buttons along the front display.
One of the few irritating features to the player is the power on button. You cannot turn the player with the remote. You have to press in the button (which sticks out like a sore thumb) to power it up. A minor gripe for the lazy but an irritating one nonetheless. However, once operational the main features of open/close, play, stop and skip back or forward are available on the front panel. The player is a slide out affair were the DVD nestles neatly into its hollowed out cartridge. DVD's play automatically although they can take a good while to load. Let us not kid ourselves though. Both you and I are too lazy to hunch over the player when we can chill out and use the remote control.
The control is sturdy enough and has survived the odd drop although the buttons are soft and rubbery. As such I cannot see them lasting the test of time. The remote is set up for ease of use with a central console style pad of arrow keys and an enter key. This allows me to navigate easily around the menus on my beloved DVD's although the aforementioned rubber keys need some definitive pressure to register actions. Other hand features to this remote include a remain button which displays the length of time the DVD playing has left and a zoom button to get closer to the action, particularly handy for sporting events.
Considering the price of the DVD player I was pleased to know that it also doubles as a fully functional CD and MP3 player. Standard features of any CD or MP3 player including shuffle (which plays tracks at random) and programme (allows you to choose the tracks you want to play) are available via remote. Sound quality of course is only as good as the TV or speakers you are using but I could hear no problems or skipping while listening.
This would all be no good if the DVD's wouldn't play or played inefficiently. However, after twelve months I have yet to experience any problems with legal DVD's with no skipping or reduction in quality (we all know copies are of poor quality and likely to skip anyway, good job I do not own any isn't it!). Of course costing £27.99 it only plays region 2 DVD's (Europe, Japan, South Africa and The Middle East) and is not at all multi-region. So no point buying a bargain in the US or Russia!
In case you have not guessed already I am more than happy with my cheap and cheerful purchase. It doesn't make the toast, it's not perfect but I wanted a functional DVD player for little cost and the Alba DVD45 is precisely that.
...you can say about the Alba DVD45- it's cheap. And it does play DVD's and music CD's, which is what it's designed to do.
However, as it gets warmer the DVD's tend to freeze for no apparent reason (what we like to call the dramatic pause). This will usually happen toward the end of the film, at some crucial moment. There seems to be no way of getting it started yet, you just have to wait. The warmer the player gets the more this happens so if you ... ...can expect them to be plagued wiht dramatic pauses.
Also, it takes a while to load the DVD in the first place, and sometimes seems not to work at all. The picture quality is good, not spectactular (although I guess this is also related to the TV that you are using with it)
Sound is fairly ordinary. It is very easy to install- just connect a few wires to your TV and it's done.
Overall, I would say spend a little bit more and get a better quality ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Advantages: Cheap Disadvantages: they work for a week
My son wanted a DVD player for christmas along with a great list of other things. So as he is only 5 and wanted everything else in the world I though yeah ok but i'll just get a cheap one from Argos. Which I did it was only £24.99 which is not bad at all.
I set it up for him on boxing night so he could watch one of his new DVD's easy enough to set up plugged it in e.t.c put in a dvd and it would not load so I tried anothe dvd then another then another ... ...saying no disc, so after a little trip to see the family for new year off i went to argos to get it replaced which they did with no hesitation!
Took the new one home set it up put in a disk HURRAY it worked so my son was really pleased, 12 days later it goes wrong again this time the disks were freezing so i done the usual cleaned the disk etc got a lens cleaner and it worked again for 2 days, then it started saying no disk again after the 10th ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful
Advantages: This product is good value for money Disadvantages: Picture quality not as good as I would have hoped
This cheap and cheerful DVD player does exactly what it says on the box. It is a no frills, simple piece of machinery that quite simply plays DVDs and CDs. Some interesting things it does is play in slow motion and you can also view DVDs from different angles (if the DVD you're watching has been recorded with this functionality). There is not much more to it than that, but if this is all you're looking for, then there is not too much wrong with this ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful
Advantages: Cheap and cheerful Disadvantages: Limited options
Well, you can't really argue at that price can you.
It plays DVDs, nothing more, nothing less. Menus are easy to use, controller makes sense even though it has a lot of buttons.
If you want a simple DVD player that you can watch DVDs on, witout worrying that you've spent hundreds of pounds on something that will be defunct in a few years, then go for one of these.
You get the basics of a DVD player, and if in the end you find taht you can't live ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful
I recenty gave up the fight to resist investing in new technology and bought a DVD player.
It worked fine and was easy to operate. It even played DVD's from other regions, once I found a code on the internet to unlock it.
However, after watching three DVD's it refused to play the fourth.
To be fair, it was a free DVD given away with the Sunday Times that may have been faulty. Anyway, the problem reported on screen was that the DVD was the 'wrong ... ...regions brought up the same error message until all the regions had been exhausted.
I tried another bona fide DVD that had previously worked and still got the same error message.
So, after three DVD's it gave up the ghost and is now languishing in the dustbin as it is cheaper and less hassle to just buy another player (they are now under £20 at Asda). ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful
I received this dvd player as a gift from work. I knew they wouldn't have spent very much on the gift and was therefore expecting the worst from the player. However, I was pleasantly surprised. For the price you are paying this dvd player is perfect. It... more
Increasingly new TV’s are entering the market as Freeview ready, the internal electronics of the set eliminating the need for a separate box of tricks. However where that is not the case either with a new TV set or indeed with existing older models which more
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