ClearPlay DVD Player with Free Trial Membership

by ClearPlay

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 17 x 10 x 1.9 inches ; 3 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 6 pounds
• ASIN: B000Z0K7VC
• Item model number: CP-427b-USB
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #66,003 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: November 16, 2007

Product Description

Watch movies with the whole family! ClearPlay provides a new choice in movie viewing, smoothly editing out offensive content from regular DVD's according to individual viewing preferences. Your family can now enjoy all movies at your own comfort level.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

51 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Works well, if it works at all, January 18, 2009

By 

D. Krueger (Ohio USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: ClearPlay DVD Player with Free Trial Membership (Electronics)

I really am debating whether 2 or 3 stars. Read below and see why. In the end I give it 3 stars due to the good Customer service we have received most the time to resolve issues.

Let me start to say that we really prefer to watch edited videos. In this, the DVD player works great-- no more language and nudity and swearing. We love it. Not seamless edits like Family Flix used to do, but does the job well enough that we don't mind. We wish it had HDMI output and quality, but we knew going into it that it didn't. The YPbPr works well enough for now, even hooked up to our HDTV.

The only downside of our experience, unfortunately, was the amount of time and effort it took us to get a working player. We purchased the first about 6 months ago from Target, and it couldn't read any DVD's. We called Clearplay customer service, very helpful, and they told us they had a bad batch of DVD players go out with this problem and told us to return it to Target. Which we did. Then I decided I'd surprise my wife (who still wanted one) with one for Christmas. This time ordered from Amazon.com. Arrived quickly, sat under the tree, went to hook up on Christmas day and the DVD tray wouldn't open. At all. Could hear it trying, but it was locked or something. Opened up the case and fiddled with the mechanism, got it open and put a DVD in, read just fine, and played well. Went to open it up after, and it was locked back again. This was a mechanical issue, and after our first go around decided just to return it as defective merchandise. We got an RMA, returned it back to Amazon at their charge, and got our money back. Third try around New Years--bought it from local Christian Family Bookstore. Got home, player worked fine but memory stick did not. Talked to Clearplay again, first rep not helpful but second one was very much so, who sent us out a new memory stick that solved all the problems (curiously, a new USB stick from local electronics store did not, even when formated and copied files same).

Now for past couple weeks, Clearplay DVD working great and filtering movies as advertised. Moral of the story--Quality of player itself is suspect at best (read = cheap) and many would not have the patience and fortitude to go through our experience. But if you do, or if Clearplay improves their product quality, then the end result is worth the money if you like movies but not everything Hollywood likes to add to them even when they are totally not relevant to the plot or enjoyment.

43 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Really works, December 15, 2007

A Kid's Review

This review is from: ClearPlay DVD Player with Free Trial Membership (Electronics)

These Clearplay DVD players really do work. You can configure the settings you want and it automatically skips certain scenes and mutes certain words when the ClearPlay feature is turned on. It's done carefully so it's as smooth as can be expected. As long as I keep it up to date it supports almost all the movies I've tried (I've mostly tried recent PG and PG-13 movies). It makes watching movies together as a family a lot more fun instead of always worrying about "that one part." Of course some movies just aren't appropriate for kids with or without filtering, but the majority of movies are mostly good but with just a couple problem areas seemingly inserted just to ensure it wouldn't get the dreaded 'G' rating and be automatically considered a kids movie, even when that's not really the case.
I originally had the older MaxPlay model and replaced it with this one which is a big improvement since you can update it using the standard USB flash drive they provide (the MaxPlay had to use a phone line to dial up and retrieve updates).
I've contacted support on a couple of occassions and got a quick and helpful email response, so no complaints there.
I haven't had any problems with audio or video as long as the unit is plugged in properly and configured correctly. I use the digitial audio and component video outputs so I'm not sure about the analog audio out, but I'd be really surprised if there was a widespread audio problem as another review seemed to indicate. A hum can be caused by almost anything, from RF interference to a grounding problem in the house wiring, or a just plain cheap junky TV in combination with certain types of equipment.
I have had to "reboot" the unit once or twice by unplugging it for 30 seconds and then plugging back in, but for the most part it works great, and it's by far the best option for viewing your existing DVD collection without the scenes and language you'd rather not watch/listen to.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Good filters, disappointed in hardware, June 29, 2009

By 

White Sheep (Sandy, Oregon) - See all my reviews

This review is from: ClearPlay DVD Player with Free Trial Membership (Electronics)

We were Clearplay "early adopters." We purchased one of the first DVD players that loaded filters from CDs. The player worked as advertised and our family used it about once a week or so. We loved the fact that we could watch movies (and some TV shows) that we otherwise never would because of the content. After several years of light to medium use, the player began to stop playing DVDs without coaxing and finally quit altogether. We were not happy about this, but reluctantly decided to purchase another, newer machine. We were told by ClearPlay that the new DVD machine was higher quality and improved interface. We purchased the new machine in December of 2007. The first thing we noticed was that the new USB "filter stick" was DOA. In order to use the player at Christmas time, I had to contact tech support and download the new filters onto a USB stick that I provided. The machine then worked OK, but had a constant low audio buzz. However, because we liked the filtering so much, we decided to live with the product. Now, it is a year and half later and the new machine has stopped reading DVDs! Of course, the company now says that "we're sorry, but you are past the warranty. Would you like to purchase a new machine and a 15 month subscription for $150?" A new machine would be our third due simply to poor quality. Frankly, we are not happy. This is a good concept. I hope that Clearplay improves the quality of the hardware. We can buy a cheap plain vanilla DVD player for $29.95 at retail. If the players are going to break so often, then their pricing needs to reflect that.