Home > Consumer Reviews > Philips DVD825AT DVD Player

I tried-out a few of the $250-$300 range DVD players (Toshiba, Panasonic, Sony, Pioneer, and the Philips), and the Philips was the best. I have never been a Philips person, so I was surprised that I settled on this as my favorite to fit my needs. The one thing that made my decision, was that it plays my CD-R's. And so far, it has played every DVD that I have put into it. (It skips a bit on the Dreamworks intro, for Saving Private Ryan, but plays the rest just fine) I would recommend this DVD player to anybody. You won't be dissapointed.

After looking at several different models (Sony, Toshiba, RCA,etc...) under the $300.00 price range the Phillips finally won out.My Dad has the Toshiba SD1200 and constantly complained about the difficulty in setting up his DVD but we had the Phillips setup within 5 minutes. The Phillips came with the required audio/video cables(although no S-video cable)so there is no need to buy them. The freeze frame and frame advance quality are superb and this bad boy even plays CDs and CD-Rs as well. There are a couple of downsides if you want to call them that. There is no S-video cable that comes with the Phillips and that is almost a necessity. The controller that comes with the Phillips is small and somewhat akward to use. However those were the only two problems that I noticed with the player itself. We watched several movies over the course of the last couple days and experienced no problems with skipping or any type of sound problems at all. Overall this is a great DVD player and if you have small hands than the controller shouldn't pose any problems.

This DVD Player is THE ABSOLUTE BEST in the price range offering tons of special efffect features. Many reports of "skipping" on this DVD player are true, but they have to do with the disc, not the player. Some DVD discs are recorded in a "duel-layer" format, causing a slight skip, once, at the same place on the disc every time. If the disc is recorded in this format it will say so in the fine print on the back of the cover. This "skipping" should also be prominant on other DVD players as well.

The Philips/Magnavox DVD player is a great bargain because it gives you the features of a high end player for a low price. I first thought of getting a Sony DVD player but I researched and found out that there have been many problems with Sony/Panasonic/Toshiba DVD players concerning certain discs. But this DVD player hasn't given me any problems, it has more features than the other major brands and its price is lower. Also it has dual lasers which can play any CD/DVD out there, compared to the other major brands which only have one laser. So if you want to get more for your money, get this DVD player.

This was my my 3rd DVD purcahse after doing much research. This product is an exceptional value considering all the great features it offers. One unique feature, very rare among DVD players, is that it will play PAL format DVD from Europe. Only one other brand does the same for $500 +. Only drawbacks are noise levels when loading and the remote is small and cheap. Overall this is an excellent product with tremendous picture, controls and sound.