ShipsWoofy
Well-Known Member
This is a copy of a post I have added to the lounge, I thought as it is often asked here on PBO that I would repeat post. I know it is frowned against, I apologise, but I know many people avoid the lounge.
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Here is a short but until today unhappy route to finding a decent player.
Last year I decided it would be nice to have a 12v DVD player on the boat rather than always relying on the laptop which means getting it out and setting it up, a portable DVD player would be ideal, plug in - switch on. Here is my story...
First I bought a so called 'cheap'Innovatek portable DVD
Lovingly made by our Chinese friends with a single function, to pi<span style="color:black">ss</span> us off, it jumps, skips, stalls and in the end dies on you. Bought from E-bay, absolute garbage, do not touch. Cheap Chinese crud.
So I decided to up the anti, I did some research and found a respected make was Centurion. They make a great player named the DVD899, an in car DIN sized unit with remote IR eye which means you can mount it out of sight.
A great player which did all I asked of it, until it broke down, I was happy to get a direct replacement but the on-line shop had none left and Centurion have stopped supplying it. If you can get one I would advise it, even though I had bad luck. The on-line shop wound me up so much in the end trying to fob me off with no name brands I fought and got a full refund.
I decided to try local the next time, you know, to have some kind of counter feedback and support if it went wrong. After many hours on the telephone I found an ICE type place in Warrington who sold a variety of players.
They convinced me to buy a player similar to above but by a company called DE from China, I was dubious, but thought it worth a punt, it was a shade under a ton, not cheap, but not at all expensive compared to many car DVD players.
Over the following weekend the player did not play any Divx/Xvid movies I owned, which it promised. It went from bad to worse until the point I had to dig a DVD out of the drawer when the motor went up in smoke. More Chinese Crud!
I took it back on the Monday, they took it away to test and agreed, smoke should not come out of the drawer. I suggested a different brand, my budget was up to about £350 if needed for the right equipment, they seemed hell bent on selling me cheap junk. They convinced me to try another DE brand (they are distributors for the UK I think). I kept asking for a decent brand, Kenwood? JVC? Alpine? Oh no Sir you will not be sorry, this is a great head unit. This was another problem, I did not want a head unit, just a player, the power difference is phenomenal. I did not want swanky front panels, the less the better.
So I gave the other DE head unit a punt.
Now this would be fine if I wanted to watch every moving image a second ahead of the audio, I could imagine I was a long long way away, no? I should have realised the moment I booted it when it came up with the same menu system as the Innovotek rubbish I bought first. More Chinese Crud!
Right, back to the computer after another refund. What amazed me was the guy would not even show me the decent gear, he just kept wheeling out this DE stuff? I told him I had a far larger budget, but he was hell bent on me buying more of this DE rubbish.. I walked out in the end. (They had decent brands in the cases)
Criteria>>
Not Chinese
Respectable brand
Not Chinese
Not easy!
I wanted Divx capability, no amplifier, hide away player.
I found one. About £160 (reasonable for ICE). It does everything it says on the tin, it looks good and well made too. I recieved it this morning and have it set up next to me. It has opened and played every Divx / xvid / mpeg 1 & 2, vcd, svcd, dvd file I have thrown at it. It has a proper remote, not one of those flat panel airfix type pieces of junk that seem to come with anything Chinese now.
So which did I buy and would advise strongly on first impressions.
This one >>
Blaupunkt DVD-ME4
Just thought I would share my experiences as more people are adding DVD players to their boats inventories.
Learning Curve
Do not buy Chinese branded shi<span style="color:black">te</span>
Do not buy cheap unknown brands, it has taken me 5 players to get to here
I tossed up between the JVC KD-DV6200 but that is a head unit and I already have a good head unit / mp3 player. This would be ideal if you are looking for an all in one entertainment centre.
Do not buy Chinese branded junk, it is junk.
**declaimer, yes sailing is supposed to be to get away from it all yada yada yada, but I am going to move onboard, time to relax is very important and I do like watching films. To many on here this is a sin on board, they type as they watch their television or home dvd. No connections, just a run of bad luck that I hope to save someone else from. Oh did I mention, do not buy Chinese crud?**
_____________________________________________________________________
Here is a short but until today unhappy route to finding a decent player.
Last year I decided it would be nice to have a 12v DVD player on the boat rather than always relying on the laptop which means getting it out and setting it up, a portable DVD player would be ideal, plug in - switch on. Here is my story...
First I bought a so called 'cheap'Innovatek portable DVD
Lovingly made by our Chinese friends with a single function, to pi<span style="color:black">ss</span> us off, it jumps, skips, stalls and in the end dies on you. Bought from E-bay, absolute garbage, do not touch. Cheap Chinese crud.
So I decided to up the anti, I did some research and found a respected make was Centurion. They make a great player named the DVD899, an in car DIN sized unit with remote IR eye which means you can mount it out of sight.
A great player which did all I asked of it, until it broke down, I was happy to get a direct replacement but the on-line shop had none left and Centurion have stopped supplying it. If you can get one I would advise it, even though I had bad luck. The on-line shop wound me up so much in the end trying to fob me off with no name brands I fought and got a full refund.
I decided to try local the next time, you know, to have some kind of counter feedback and support if it went wrong. After many hours on the telephone I found an ICE type place in Warrington who sold a variety of players.
They convinced me to buy a player similar to above but by a company called DE from China, I was dubious, but thought it worth a punt, it was a shade under a ton, not cheap, but not at all expensive compared to many car DVD players.
Over the following weekend the player did not play any Divx/Xvid movies I owned, which it promised. It went from bad to worse until the point I had to dig a DVD out of the drawer when the motor went up in smoke. More Chinese Crud!
I took it back on the Monday, they took it away to test and agreed, smoke should not come out of the drawer. I suggested a different brand, my budget was up to about £350 if needed for the right equipment, they seemed hell bent on selling me cheap junk. They convinced me to try another DE brand (they are distributors for the UK I think). I kept asking for a decent brand, Kenwood? JVC? Alpine? Oh no Sir you will not be sorry, this is a great head unit. This was another problem, I did not want a head unit, just a player, the power difference is phenomenal. I did not want swanky front panels, the less the better.
So I gave the other DE head unit a punt.
Now this would be fine if I wanted to watch every moving image a second ahead of the audio, I could imagine I was a long long way away, no? I should have realised the moment I booted it when it came up with the same menu system as the Innovotek rubbish I bought first. More Chinese Crud!
Right, back to the computer after another refund. What amazed me was the guy would not even show me the decent gear, he just kept wheeling out this DE stuff? I told him I had a far larger budget, but he was hell bent on me buying more of this DE rubbish.. I walked out in the end. (They had decent brands in the cases)
Criteria>>
Not Chinese
Respectable brand
Not Chinese
Not easy!
I wanted Divx capability, no amplifier, hide away player.
I found one. About £160 (reasonable for ICE). It does everything it says on the tin, it looks good and well made too. I recieved it this morning and have it set up next to me. It has opened and played every Divx / xvid / mpeg 1 & 2, vcd, svcd, dvd file I have thrown at it. It has a proper remote, not one of those flat panel airfix type pieces of junk that seem to come with anything Chinese now.
So which did I buy and would advise strongly on first impressions.
This one >>
Blaupunkt DVD-ME4
Just thought I would share my experiences as more people are adding DVD players to their boats inventories.
Learning Curve
Do not buy Chinese branded shi<span style="color:black">te</span>
Do not buy cheap unknown brands, it has taken me 5 players to get to here
I tossed up between the JVC KD-DV6200 but that is a head unit and I already have a good head unit / mp3 player. This would be ideal if you are looking for an all in one entertainment centre.
Do not buy Chinese branded junk, it is junk.
**declaimer, yes sailing is supposed to be to get away from it all yada yada yada, but I am going to move onboard, time to relax is very important and I do like watching films. To many on here this is a sin on board, they type as they watch their television or home dvd. No connections, just a run of bad luck that I hope to save someone else from. Oh did I mention, do not buy Chinese crud?**
