Home > Consumer Reviews > Panasonic DVD-F65K Super Slim 5-Disc DVD Player , Black

Likes: Slim (2 inches tall), Quiet disc tray mechanism, recognizes and starts up DVDs fast, handles scratched/worn discs well, easy to use onscreen menu.

Dislikes: It takes 5 seconds to recognize an audio CD. The disc tray contents display consists of just 5 LEDs. I thought that was rather cheap for a Panasonic player. Trays with discs in them should have displayed lighted numbers instead. The main display is also small, and the disc indicator, consisting of numbers with circles around them, doesn't seem to work right (I need to debug this further by reading the manual in more detail). I tried these things out without reading the manual to see how easy the product is to use. However, these are just cosmetic issues, and there's nothing fundamentally wrong with this product. For [the price], the value can't be beat.

I have no idea what the previous reviewer is talking about. I own this unit and I love it. It displays full MP3 tags on your TV and various bit rate info and stuff. My MP3s never skipped. He must gotten a bad unit. Maybe it's just an illusion, but the sound quality from the optical out was much better than my old daewoo. I thought all digital signals are the same.

The DVD carosel is very smooth and fast. No problem changing discs. The setup menu is very good with lots of options. The manual needs work. It's too cramped with info. For the price, you can't buy a better DVD MP3 changer.

Well, were do I start? After a fair amount of research I decided that this was the unit. Hook up was straight forward, but the instructions are like reading a chapter in your high school trigonometry book. DVD picture and play back qualities are trememdous! I can't give enough praise! Better than my JVC unit. I initially bought this player to kill two birds with one stone. My first generation DVD player(5yrs old) was starting to have issues, so I thought why not replace it along with my 5 disc CD carousel This would eliminate one too many components. While in itself a good idea, the capabilities of the Panasonic unit have much to be desired for CD format. First off you cannot shuffle songs at random on a fully or partially loaded tray, nor can you program specifc songs for a play list. Because the Panasonic unit plays CD's through your DVD channel, the only options for sound playback are Dolby surround, and or stereo. A CD player that plays through its Cd channel on your tuner can allow many more options, such as concert, stereo, hall, jazz, Surround simulated, etc. This of course only applies if you have a Stereo tuner with a 5.1 surround system. I also want to mention that the message window on this unit is so small you have to squint to see which track is playing. I want to love this unit, but if not for it's short commings on CD playback and options, I'm left lamenting for a better versatile unit. In conclusion I would have to rate this unit 3 & 3/4 stars out of 5. I am considering trading it for the Panasonic S35K, which is a single disc tray with the same stuff. ...

After studying the many DVD players on he market that played the different formats, I decided to take a chance on this unit. First of all the price was right, not too cheap, not too expensive. Secondly, it plays all the formats that I wanted it too since my original sony single bay DVD player couldn't play any format other than a movie. Third, it had the component video and progressive scan options I was looking for which are a big plus for the Home Theater guru like myself. Finally I knew the Panasonic name is pretty well known in the electronics industry. After giving it a good working over for a few months now I would HIGHLY recommend this DVD player. The only 2 downfalls to this player in my opionion (the reason for the 4 stars, I'd actually give it 4.5 stars) is #1: The remote and it's tiny buttons. It's hard to get use to and feel around on the remote if you have big paws. Luckily I find myself not really using the remote a lot so other than that, no complaints really. #2: It helps if you remember what bay # you put the DVD in to play becuase of the reading process it has to do when you insert a disc. If you don't take note what bay has which disc, then you have to go through and read all 5 bays. That seems to be the only major weakness. But a press of one button on the remote and the unit reads all the discs (which takes a few seconds) then shows you a menu on your TV what format every disc is in the player.

It has played my VCD's perfect after making them with the nero software on my computer. I've enjoyed many JPEG cd's I've made, and it also plays my MP3 cd's perfectly. It has a nice nametag menu for the mp3's for ease of searching for songs. I love that feature! And of course the DVD movies are great. Also a big plus is the 5 bay carousel and what I really like is that you can change DVD's in the other 4 bays without stopping play. One more thing that I would definitely recommend is to splurge and get a component cable (I bought the Acoustic Research AP091 cable) and go that route for the hookup. I noticed a BIG difference in the video clarity and the colors are so much more vibrant it is truly amazing. I had been using an S-video cable on my last DVD player and upgraded hesitantly to the component video on this unit. I thought the component hookup was hype, but it does make a difference playing on a good TV. This unit is being used with a 43" Hitachi digital TV and the video is amazing. Especially for the JPEG photo's that you can view. Great for creating family photo albums!

So far This unit works great and has performed up to my standards and beyond. There may be better units out there or cheaper ones that might do as well but for the money this one is perfect in my opinion. All the cd's I've made have worked fine after converting them to the different formats on my computer. Bottom line, I have had no problems playing anything on this fine unit and found it is worth the money.

This DVD player will play ALL of your CDs/DVDs (including DVD-R, DVD-RW, SVCD, VCD, MP3, CDR, CDRW). Has not failed to play any of my discs. Video quality is very good. This is a great step-up from the cheap Apex DVD players that many people buy; it has many more features and higher quality but it is still priced reasonably. A complaint is the loading time, but it is bearable.
One of the people who gave a bad rating said that they bought the player out of country and it didn't work; that's their fault for buying a broken player from Mexico. And another person gave a bad rating because it wouldn't play 5 DVDs at one time...so you can increase the overall rating of this unit accordingly.