Cyberhome CH-DVD 300 DVD Player

Well, for some time now, we've been using a Panasonic DVD player for my mother's bedroom which has worked just fine. But a few months ago, it started to refuse to play a lot fo DVDs for no reason and it just started crashing down. Then the final blow was when it was a final "no disc". So this means to go out and get a new DVD player. We weren't looking for stellar quality, just something inexpensive that would do what DVD players are meant to do--play DVDs. Already had a working VCR, had a working TV, just no DVD player. So at Best Buy there were tons of brands to choose from but the inexpensive and working were the most important priorities. We knew that since it was inexpensive and looked small it probably wouldn't last a long long time, but something that worked at least a year or so would make it well worth the money. Overall, the CHDVD300 has a lot of defective units and is questionable in construction but it does the basics well, it plays DVDs without skipping or freezing and has the common features of most DVD players.

Features

The CHDVD300 Cyberhome DVD player has most of the basics. It is completely HD TV compatable. What I meant in my pros about playing a ton of CDs is that it plays them all. DVD, DVD-R, DVD-RW, CD, CD-R, CD-RW, SVCD, VCD (ones that are burned and not with a DVD burner), MP3, and JPEG CDs for slideshows. For the price I didn't even expect it to play CDs or burned ones but for what it plays it made it already worth the thirty bucks. It's 5.1 surround sound compatable but I can't say if this is true or not since the TV is only stereo, but the sound is really loud. It plays PAL and NTSC discs, again I have no clue what those even mean, but NTSC is listed on most DVDs I own. It has most of the basic features: program, angle, subtitle, title, mute, return, zoom, and bookmark, along with speed changing. It also has A-B repeat. It's not heavy on features but it's only a $40 DVD player so don't expect a whole lot. If all it did was play DVDs and had play/pause/stop/skip I would be pleased for only $40, having that many features for $40 is actually a good deal. Another good thing (but doesn't relate to me) is that it is region free which means it will play DVDs around the world.

Playing

I first tested it on a DVD and it played it just fine with good picture and sound quality. One thing I was impressed with was its volume, it was very loud which means you don't have to turn it all the way up for a movie and then turn on the TV and blast your speakers. It also gets high points for the lens reader. I put in an extremely scratched CD even my Sony DEJ001 player had problems with and played it without a skip. It also read all of my burned CD-R/CD-RWs just fine. I also tested it on the MP3 CD, and it did a pretty good job but took longer to read it. The JPEG slideshows also works flawlessly for me.

Picture Quality

This is something that's pretty important no matter what the price is. The sound can sound terrible and the picture be perfect and I would be satisfied. But bad picture quality and the whole thing, to me, is garbage. Overall, it had above average picture quality. It was pretty vivid and sharp, it didn't shock me but it was definitely good. The DVD player is progressive scan, I have no clue what this means so I don't know if it makes it worse or better. I tried out a variety of DVDs and overall I was pleased of the picture quality with every one of them. It does have its own display quality adjuster, something that's not very common in DVD players but I did adjust and play around with it and everything seemed to be fine.

Sound Quality

This is another big part of the DVD player but like I said even if it was poor I'd still be slightly satisfied. Overall, I found the sound quality to be above average. Of course it depends on what your TV's sound quality is like so I set the TV to be average sound and the DVD came out with average sound. It doesn't reduce the sound at all and sounds pretty good to me. It probably won't shock anyone but I did find it to sound good enough to win $40.

Style of the Player

CyberHome gets high marks for the style of the player. It's extremely compact and small, it's not very long like most DVD players and is more like a neutral rectangle and it's not much bigger than a little drawer (look at picture to see what I mean). It is full silver/gray, which doesn't matter a whole lot to me unless it looks like something that came from Mars. The buttons are chrome styled small little circles, they all look identical so you'll have to look up and see what they see. It has a little light on it that flashes red when it's off and green when it's on. One good thing about it is that it's not so bright that it disturbs you during your movie experience.

The Remote

This is one of the most annoying things about the player--the remote. Trust me, in the dark you will never be able to use this remote. First off, it is a little too tall for my hands. It's really hard to get the up and down buttons pushed. Secondly, every button is shaped the same. EVERY DAMN BUTTON. This makes it impssible to use it in the dark unless oyu have a flashlight by your side. The way the buttons are arranged are also a little strange. First at the top are the power and open/close buttons. Then you have about ten buttons with features. Then you have the keypad which is placed right in the middle and then the rew/ff/skip/play/stop/pause buttons are spread out making them difficult to find. Then you have four more features and then you have the repeat a-b buttons crammed to the right with the numbers and overall, the remote is confusing and is similar to navigating through hell. It does have all of the features but even if you studied it for a month and took a test on it you'd get a lot of them wrong. CyberHome also gets low points for the remote batteries. Why they could just do the open/close thing like most remotes is beyond me. They have this stupid slide-out thing at the bottom of the remote. It's impossible to pull it out with one hand because you can't pull it out. First you have to slide across this lock thing and then pull out the batteries, and I would be lieing if I said you could do it in one try and you really have to screw around with it to get it open. Then taking the actual cell battery out is a pain because you have to make sure you don't brake one of the battery locks off or you'll say bye-bye to your remote. And you have to make sure you don't lose it becuase it is a seperate battery chamber and when you pull it out it pulls out the whole thing. This just confuses me, why didn't they just do a simple open/close thing on every other remote? Really, the only thing good about the remote is that it gets a decent room-range out of it.

Questionable Construction

Of course this might have nothing to do with the construction but it does question it. Why is the CHDVD300 so beep beep beep beep noisy. I mean it just makes weird squeaks whenever it goes to the enxt chapter. IT's not so annoying if you not front up to it but if you're within two feet of it, it will be enough to drive you nuts.

Another thing that makes me question construction is the amount of defective units. It is only $40 so this isn't a gigantic deal but on both here and Amazon there are so many negative reviews regarding the lifetime of the DVD player. I'd expect it to last around a year but a lot of people have had problems with no disc, freezing, mono sound, and other weird problems. I do question construction but since it's only $40 it's not a huge deal and if it only lasts a year I would be satisfied.

Warranty

CyberHome will cover the CHDVD300 for three months for labor. If you did nothing to cause its faults, CyberHome will refund or replace the DVD player. I'd rather take it back to the retailer so you can just walk in and get a new one easily. The player only has a three month (around 90 days) warranty which is an indication it probably won't last much longer than around a year. It does have a one-year warranty on parts but then you have to ship it, fix it, and it's just a pain and will probably cost more than $40, the value of the player. It does have a small warranty but I won't blame them--based on the price, noise, and constant lemons, I don't think it will last much longer than a year.

The Bttom Line

CyberHome's CHDVD300 DVD player is a good choice for someone looking for an inexpensive DVD player that will play just about anything with good quality. It probably won't last a very long time but for $40 I honestly don't expect it to. It's a cheap DVD player that plays just about anything you can throw at it and it comes with the basic features--and really--for $40 on the market it is a good dealand I would definitely recommend it for those on a budget.