Dansai DVD701

Advantages: Cheap, lots of features, easy to make multi-region
Disadvantages: Few

...After Christmas I found myself with £100 to spend which I risked on Tesco's "own brand" Dansai DVD player, the Dansai 852. According to the newsgroups these have sold out very quickly in some stores but I had no problem sourcing one in my local Tesco. The player is silver and good looking. It would not be out of place amongst much more expensive hardware. It has the added benefit of a hidden menu, only four presses on the front panel to access which allows the machine to made multi-region, and believe it or not, to turn off the copy protection, allowing you to make video copies of DVDs. It will also play MP3 files and the usual repertoire of CDs, audio VCD etc. Audio quality is very good; in blind tests I could tell it apart from a mch more expensive Arcam CD player, but only just. The remote is a bit finecky and its not always... Read review

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Advantages: MultiRegion, plays all formats of CD/DVD
Disadvantages: Minor glitches on some DVD's and certain CDR media

...As someone who travels a lot to other countries, I purchase a lot of DVD's from overseas. This saves me a lot of money for starters and also allows me to own the film prior to UK release. Prior to owning one of these players, I have had numerous others including those which had been 'chipped'. With a hardware chipped player, certain film studios decided to use a seperate encryption process which would mean that the DVD would not play on machines that had said 'chips' installed. A classic example of this is the Region 1 version of "A Knights Tale". I purchased a Dansai DVD1010 prior to this one, and although it had all the same functions as the 955, it lacked analogue 5:1 output (which I already owned a 5:1 analogue speaker setup). So I returned the DVD1010 to Tesco & exchanged it for the 955. The 955 is of a much higher build quality... Read review

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Advantages: Very Cheap! Unlockable!
Disadvantages: Some poor quality picture

...Ok so very expensive chips but thats the best title i could come up with! When I bought this product it was very cheap at the time £70 from Tescos. The main selling point for me was the price. However there is an extra bonus to be had because the dansai 1010 can be unlocked via the factory settings in your own home to turn it into a multi-region DVD player making the price of the DVD player even better for what you get for the money! APPERANCE A nice cool silver colour (noticing a trend in the products that I buy-there all silver!) and the buttons are ergonomically designed to fit in just right to the front of the player. There are all the basic buttons on the front such as play stop etc. but you will need the remote to operate the other functions (see features). The unit is quite big and chunky compared to some of the players... Read review

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