Coby DVD298 Upconvert DVD Player w-SD Card Slot

by Coby

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 17 x 8.2 x 1.5 inches ; 5.4 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• Shipping Advisory: This item must be shipped separately from other items in your order. Additional shipping charges will not apply.
• ASIN: B001U3Y6I8
• Item model number: DVD298
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (52 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #11,687 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)

Product Description

Coby DVD298 1080p Upconversion DVD Player with HDMI and DivX Playback, progressive scan DVD player with 1080p video output for use with Full HD-capable TVs, upconverts DVD video to near-HD quality (1080p), DVD, DVD±R/RW, CD, CD-R/RW, and JPEG compatible, Official DivX Certified product, plays all versions of DivX video (including DivX 6) with standard playback of DivX media files, plays digital MPEG-4 video files (XviD), plays digital media files directly from USB drives and SD/MMC cards, Dolby digital decoder, HDMI output for perfect digital signal transmission to home theater systems over a single cable, digital and analog AV outputs for home theater use, NTSC/PAL compatible.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Plays well, but minor quality gaps, July 2, 2010

By 

C. Yee (California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Coby DVD298 Upconvert DVD Player w-SD Card Slot (Electronics)

Bought this as an alternate DVD player for playing DVDs & MPEG4 media files on USB devices (my primary player for which purposes is a Philips DVP5990).

A decent player overall, and I have no major complaints so far; but I have noticed a few things that could stand improvement, which I'll mention soley for the benefit of anyone who may be contemplating buying one for the same uses I did, and would have liked to have known, before purchasing this unit (over, say, the Philips DVP5990 for another $10 or so, which I can compare it to first-hand).

1) Case construction seems a bit delicate, as if it might be easily damaged in transit (don't know if it really *is* more susceptible to damage, it just feels much less solid than, say, a Philips DVP5990 case does).

2) Remote codes for this unit don't seem to be well-covered by aftermarket universal remotes; none of my remotes had a preset code that covered this unit, and many of its functions couldn't be "learned" by programmable remotes, either. If you prefer consolidating all your remotes into one for daily use, this might be an issue for you (the Philips DVP5990, conversely, is well-represented in most aftermarket remotes' presets, and all it's specialized button funtions are easily "learned").

3) Media file (music, pictures, video) playback, on either disc, USB, or SD Card is generally pretty good (basically, anything that would play on my Philips DVP5990 will also play on this unit), but some minor playback features are not present, such as "stop resume" (if you stop mid program, pressing "play" will begin from begining, not resume where you left off) and continuing play (play stops after each file ends, rather than automatically continuing to the beginning of the next file, meaning you'll be pressing "play" for every item on your media, instead of being able to just watch everything in sequence nonstop), features which you do see on the Philips DVP5990.

4) USB media port power output is too low to support external 2.5" portable drives. This means, if you want to play media on your USB devices, they'll have to be flash drives, or powered (wall-outlet) hard drives. Compare to a Philips DVP5990's USB port, which can power (most of the time) a 2.5" portable hard drive.

Overall, a functional and versatile player at a reasonable price, and I'm fairly satisfied with mine, but a few minor quality/feature niggles prevent it from being a "great" player at this price. For what I use these things for, this player works OK, but if you ever see Philips DVP5990's or comperable players on sale at similar prices to this, my advice is to go for those instead - the difference isn't great, but if you own both as I do, you will end up noticing them.

UPDATE: with a bit more daily use, I have discovered: 1) there *is* a "stop resume" feature, but for some reason, it only operates for media on disc, not on USB/flash, which is an odd omission; and 2) on some DVDs, video occasionally begins stuttering (while audio continues to play smoothly) - scanning backwards briefly restores normal play so it's not a huge problem, but it is annoying, as it can break your attention to what you're watching. Still a useful player, but with odd little quality gaps.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great for the price! SD reader is VERY handy!, October 30, 2009

By 

Reader in Palo Alto (Palo Alto, CA, USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Coby DVD298 Upconvert DVD Player w-SD Card Slot (Electronics)

This is a surprisingly good DVD player. It plays both pre-recorded and home DVDs very well. Picture quality is very good.

Features that I couldn't find on much more expensive players---like USB and SD readers---these save a LOT of time and effort.

Well worth the money!

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Great product but only last for a year!, January 4, 2010

By 

W.P. "Naive adventurer" (Austin, TX USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Coby DVD298 Upconvert DVD Player w-SD Card Slot (Electronics)

I owned Philips DVP642 (4 years old) that could also play DivX, but wasn't very satisfied. After it stopped working, I decided to try a different brand, rather than upgraded to a new Philips. Coby DVD208 made me proud.

Lots of great Pros and lots of minor Cons:
1) Play most Mpeg4 video I tried. Also play MJPG (most digicam uses this). However, it didn't play the 720p HD Mpeg4 I have. Didn't have time to investigate why. Only play *.avi, not *.mov and others, but this is expected. I'm a PC, not Mac so this won't affect me much. There are lots of software out there to convert *.mov to *.avi.
2) It can read *.srt subtitle file while playing mpeg4. It does not read *.sub. The subtitle font color, though, is not configurable and hard to read.
3) Play from USB or SD fine, also support SDHC (mine is 8GB) BEWARE: you need to insert the SD card upside down!! I was trying hard to push it in the normal way and it went in almost completely, but I had to use a plier to take it out.
4) Can change region or make region free
5) Has auto resume function, it can resume playing at the point where it was turned off
6) the remote has a reset button, which reset everything back to default. I used my programmable remote and got rid of that scary function. Also, make sure your remote has a learning function. You won't be able to use a generic programmable remote with this.
7) When the sd card contains both pictures and videos, it doesn't have an option to play both pictures and videos at the same time for a combined slide show. Have to choose one mode or another.
8) It's cheap, got mine for about $40.

I hope Coby will release some firmware update in the future to add more features and correct some of its minor flaws. Overall, I'm very happy. Only need to see how long it will last.

------------------ Update Jan 2011 ------------------
Sadly this box died for no reason just a little over a year of use.
I checked the warranty document and was surprised to see 90 days labor, 1 year part warranty, shipping extra! That tells you how confident Coby have with their product. I no longer recommend this.