Cyberhome AD L 528

Advantages: Cheap, reliable, multi-region.
Disadvantages: Slow, clumsy-looking, noisy, naff remote, unresponsive...

...grain with this one. The CyberHome ADL528 (Cyber who?) is an award winning little DVD player. It comes highly recommended as a budget machine from a whole host of home entertainment magazines. Even here on Ciao, the five reviews that have already been posted on this product give it the full 5 stars. Based on these recommendations, I even bought one as a Christmas present for someone who herself said that it was a great player and hadn't given her ...
...my price range was the CyberHome so, disappointed that I didn't get a posh one but encouraged by the good word of mouth about the player, I parted with my £99.99 and scurried home to try it out. Things didn't look good from the moment I turned it on, however. After pushing the crude, plastic and downright tacky on/off switch an irritating and surprisingly loud buzzing noise sprang from the machine as if it was about to explode - the kind of buzzing ... Read review

Advantages: a good budget, high spec machine
Disadvantages: old fashioned looks

I brought my player for £99.99 from Richer Sounds, I spent hours surfing the internet looking and reading reviews. I was looking at spending around £200 as I wanted a decent player, I had seen loads of cheap players but all were of a low spec until I seen this one. I was almost put off due to its low price which normally means low quality and the maker Cyber Home (never heard of them) and it isn’t the best looking player on the market with its old ...
...DVD’s were invented, and the player is not the slimmest. This player will play CD’s,CDR, CDRW, VCD, DVDR, & MP3’s with a menu feature, it also has a Dolby 5.1 DTS decoder, which is a very good feature from such a low priced machine. There is many connections on the back if you are seriously into sound, has extra outputs for the Dolby speakers, coaxial/optical, s/video do not know as what you connect to these but must be good to have, I will have ... Read review

Advantages: fabulous value for money
Disadvantages: a little noisy and ugly

I bought my ADL-528 from Richer sounds last year. Overall I found it to be a fantastic performer. Not only did it produce wonderful pictures, but the sound which I only had piped through my mini system was good too. This player also has an integrated Dolby 5.1 decoder with DTS support which is fairly unheard of at this price. Of course to take full advantage of this you would need a decent home cinema amp anyway to beef up the output. In addition ...
...VCDs. I tested it with Alien:Ressurection and the opening credits (very detailed) looked pretty good. Better than VHS anyway! The audio CD performance isn't great, but the unit does play MP3s and usefully has a menu system that let's you see what you're playing unlike some other players. As far as the connectors go this player has it all. In addition to RGB scart (which gives the best picture quality) there is composite video and s-video output. ... Read review

Advantages: Multi Region macrovision free dvd
Disadvantages: Quite big and bulky gets very hot

I purchased my Cyberhome ADL528 dvd player in January 2002, so I have been using it non stop for over 6 months now. Available in silver or black it normally retails around the £90 mark, this is a serious contender for your first (or second!) dvd player. This is a multiregion player so you are able to play any region dvds. This is excellent as many films are released on Region 1 dvd (USA) before they even get to the cinema here, so you can get the ...
...about this player is that Cyberhome release 'firmware' updates to improve the player all the time. You can download these from their website, burn them to a cd, pop it into the dvd player and you get the latest operating system. The last firmware update improves the MP3 playback, now displaying the titles on screen, includes a screen saver, and the MOST IMPORTANT feature is that you can now DISABLE the MACROVISION copy protection. What this means ... Read review

Advantages: extremely cheap
Disadvantages: Big and bulky

...only other problem is that Cyberhome is not a well known make (their German) so if develops a fault their quite hard to get hold of but I have never experienced any problems. Apart from that it is well worth the money. It is what i think the best budget DVD player out. I would definitely recomend buying one. ... Read review