Customer Reviews

Creative Labs MK5004 Encore 6x PC-DVD with DXR3 Technology

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I am thrilled I bought this product. In fact, the reviews on this page convinced me to purchase the DVD player. I am very suspicious of magazine product reviews considering the same magazines that tout products accept advertising money from the manufacturer; hence, how can they truly be objective?

First, the quality. The video and sound just blew me away. When I view the movies on my monitor, which is 17 inches, the video is flawless. However, when I view movies on my TV, via an RCA cable, there are wavy lines on my TV. It could be my TV which is very old.

Second, the installation. A bit more difficult then I imagined. However, until I installed the DVD I had never opened the case. Even though I am a novice, total installation time did not exceed 30 minutes. I presume anyone with a little PC knowledge would have zero difficulty with installation.

A few issues. If anyone knows how I can connect the player to my stereo, please send me an email. There is an output jack on the decoder card labeled PDIF. I am certain this is the connection I need to use. However, when I connect an RCA cable from the card to my receiver, I cannot get any sound.

I would have given five stars, but calling Creative Labs has been very frustrating and their web site is useless. The two problems with my player seem easily correctable. It's a shame tech support isn't more comprehensive on their web site.

After having a second computer linked into my home entertainment system for nearly a year, (mp3's and such) I finally broke down and bought the Creative DVD w/ DXR3. Being experienced with computer hardware, it took me about 10 minutes to install, but if you're not experienced, it should still not take you more than 30 minutes. WOW! Definetly made my entertainment system complete, and at half the cost of a home DVD with the same features. The only problem I had was with some between track skipping, which was easily fixed with Creative's online update to the software. I now enjoy perfect video, and true Dolby Digital (AC-3®) 5.1-channel audio. And with the player being in my computer, I enjoy the extra features found on DVD's that will only run on a computer. Now if only Creative would design a USB port remote that will work with it, then everything would be complete!

I bought this DVD player after reading many online reviews. Most said this one was easy to install and, never having opened my PC case, I did not want any problems. It was fairly easy, but then I lost all sound for a few days. It may have been because I installed Nuts & Bolts the day after, which changed all my settings. I had NO sound on my entire PC for days. It took three days of calling customer service (up to 3 hours on hold on one call - NOT toll-free) for me to get some help. It was never completely clear what had happened. This was the only negative thing about the DVD Encore 6X - the customer service line was a joke until two hours on hold had passed - then it was just a sick feeling of despair for which I paid long distance fees. Three different reps suggested three different things; the third, a wonderfully patient woman, finally figured it out.

I will say that since then I have had absolutely no problems whatsoever. It never acts up and the picture is astounding. I can read the fine print in newspapers in movies and now even the picture in theatres seems out of focus when I compare it to what I can see at home. I will never buy another VHS if there is a DVD available, and I would buy another Creative Labs DVD for my next computer.

I have a Pentium 166 with 32 megs RAM, and even on my system there are no pauses or glitches during playback. The decoder card has jacks for TV and stereo output as well as headphones. The drive also plays CDs, CD-ROMS, DVD-ROMs (Riven)and enhanced CDs with no problems.

The Encore 6X also allows you to output to a regular TV, which works just fine, but a good monitor is far superior resolution.

Despite the abysmal customer service, I give this one five stars because it has never stalled in the several months since I finally got it installed, and I watch a LOT of DVDs.

I live with this stuff day in, day out. I hear the promises, see the product, fix problems, try to correct lousy service, and watch decent product with potential get rushed to market far too quickly. I read/hear so much 'techno-announcements' that "Whoop-di-doo!" says it all. :-)

The Creative DVD 6x Kit changed that (not bought at Amazon, but in a local Boxing Day Sale). This is a breeze to set up. It requires about 10 minutes of *patient* reading and understanding of the manual, a smidge of common sense, and some labelling of cables. If you skip the manual and plough ahead, you will be frustrated. Take the time to now to save the time later.

Once installed (30 mins start to finish), the DVD "Titanic" was dropped in and the drive closed. Superb quality picture, sound and control. One tiny beef: When viewing on the PC Monitor, if you click "Full Screen" there's no intuitive way to get back to the small viewing window (right-click on the full-screen if you get stuck at this point).

The Creative Player also plays VCDs, Video DAT files, and MPG files. If I can ever figure how to get it to play AVI and ASF, I'll be a very happy tech.

The phone support (I hear -- never used it myself) is terrible, but the web-based support is adequate. It's not for a first-timer/novice. If you are nervous about opening up your computer, get a competent individual to install it for you -- should cost $30-$60. HTH

I am very satisfied with my Creative Encore PC-DVD player especially given its amount of features for it's price. It offers instant chapter fast forwarding on both DVD's and CD's along with great sound and picture quality. I had no problems with the software after the hardware was installed properly. Installing the IDE cable may be trickier than the instructions say if your computer was like mine (HP-Pavilion) and you already have a CD-ROM as well as built-in ZIP drive (You end up daisy chaining the DVD player off your hard drive instead of the CDROM. That was the only complication I had to contact Creative's customer support for. I do however, recommend this product highly.

I really wanted to play DVDs at home and read some quick reviews and have had good experiences with Creative Labs prior. I was quite disappointed.

Until I installed the dvdr3wup.exe drivers, I always had to switch to 800x600 before running the Creative Labs software as suggested in the manual. Even after loading the software it seemed to be more stable when running in 800x600. It usually crashes if you try and fast-forward right after playing a movie. Just hitting buttons seemed to crash it regularly so I would always avoid hitting any buttons. Having Norton Antivirus running at the same time causes crashes. Even being that paranoid, it still crashes! I am unable to watch certain movies all the way through. It always seems to crash on chapter 3 of Ladyhawke and in several places in American Pie and will not let me watch the entire movie. When watching 12 Monkeys when it hit the last chapter it started playing chapter 4. I had to specifically chose the last chapter to see the end of the movie.

Creative Labs phone support hangs up on you, and they don't answer e-mail. This product has really hurt my opinion of Creative Labs.

I have two friends who also bought this product and had the same problems I had. We have all switched to Pioneer DVD drives with slot loader and RealMagic Hollywood Plus decoder cards and are much happier. I can not count the times the DXR3 crashed on me in the 3 months I used it. In the two months I've been using the Holywood Plus it's crashed on me once.

The quality is poorer than my Holywood Plus or Toshiba 3109 when playing movies. However, the loopback quality on the DXR3 is better than on the Holywood Plus. If you look closely on the Holywood Plus at 1280x1024 or above the text is a little fuzzy.

The user interface in the player is horrid in comparison to the Holywood Plus.

The picture and sound quality are superb. I have a top of the line Sony 17" monitor and it blows away anything I have seen on an NTSC interlaced TV (even HDTV). I have just one very bad problem with it.

I have the predecessor (Encore 5x, with the DXR2 card) and at random intervals the picture goes blank. The technical support staff at Creative Labs had me change my BIOS, turn off all the power saving features, etc. and it still went blank.

This may simply be my computer, but I doubt it. I returned my first one and got a replacement. The replacement does the same thing but only once or twice during a movie rather than every few minutes.

The only way to get around the bug is to bookmark where you are in the video, shut down the software and restart the software and go to the bookmark. Blame Windows 98, or blame Creative Labs, but the problem is annoying.

I bought this as a gift for my husband. Since he's a service tech (certified A+, IBM, Compaq, HP, et al, with years of experience), he's the "expert" in the family and I tend to avoid making such purchases. However, thanks to Amazon's remarkably detailed description and the helpful customer reviews, I was able to make the right pick. My husband (also an avid Amazon fan!) reports that installation was pure simplicity; he didn't even have to call upon any of his training -- installing this beauty should be painless and quick (half an hour or less!) for ANYone. I've seen the results myself and am duly impressed. The decoder card is super-fast and installs easily. The software is remarkable: Compton's Encyclopedia, National Geographic and Riven (the sequel to Myst); these titles give you a mind-boggling preview of the excellent performance you can expect from this drive. Another noteworthy capability: it can read writable CD's. A sure-fire winner!

Installation of this product is fairly simple, if you don't follow the instructions too closely. I had to try a few alternatives to access the drivers, being pointed by the manual in the wrong direction. The product seems very good, but I expected a multi-read unit. It recognizes the drive, lists the folders, and files, but doesn't recognize the formats on CD-RW, and will not display,say graphic files. These files are easily opened on my recording CD drive. Seems the company of Creative Labs are "pinch-pennies" even having you copy and fax the registration, or as I did, bring you online to your own ISP, and register. I tried calling them about the multi read thing, going thru 3 seperate voice numbers selection, finally getting "the music" treatment and hanging up after a long wait. Hope I never have any serious trouble with the unit. By the way if you go on line to contact them you'll be told to call their "free" support, toll (405) number. Pity all these companies didn't conduct their business' as Amazon does. I've had very good experience and contact with this company. Tony Linton

I approached this with trepidation - cause I'd never done "surgery" on my PC before. However, I read all the manuals for my PC and from Creative Labs, and it took me about 2 hours (I did go very slowly and carefully). Someone who is familiar with PCs could do it in 15 minutes. It works swell, and the DVD image is really incredible. One big drawback, tho - with VHS you can tape or do screen shots, but DVD doesn't let you. If you try to hit "print screen" you'll get nothing; the images are very protected. Other than that - I was able to see details I never could before..really astonishing.