Customer Reviews

AKAI DVDP5851 MULTIZONE MULTIVOLTAGE REGION FREE DVD PLAYER WITH KARAOKE

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This is a great DVD player. No fuss. You just plug it in, hook it up to your TV and Voila! you can play any PAL or NTSC DVD without doing anything else. No need to change anything to play differently coded DVD's. Couldn't be simpler. I love it. Now I can buy PAL DVD's instead of buying VHS and paying extra to have them converted to NTSC. Highly recommended.

But only for a little while. Got this for xmas, and it worked fine for three months. Then it suddenly stopped loading discs. Time to toss it.

I purchased this DVD player and had problems with it. I sent it back for warranty repair 9 months ago. AKAI keeps on telling me that it will be shipped back shortly, BUT NOTHING!!!!!! I have called so many times that I feel like a fool. I guess I will just have to buy a new DVD player ... Save yourself the aggravation.

I bought this because I couldn't get to all the options on the newer DVD's like the interviews. Worked great! I thought I would have a problem setting it up because I had a lot of things hooked up to my TV but it was no problem! Great Buy!

I would love to give this one 5 stars, because it is a great player, very versatile. However, after less than one year, our AKAI gave up the ghost: it will no longer read any disks. Reluctantly, I may buy the same model again, because I like the design, features, and price. However, one other thing that I like less that 100% is the very large a clunky remote. Such a slick player, such a goofy remote control!

I guess you get what you pay for - this player is cheap with a cheap remote (that stopped working within one month), a cheap loading tray and pretty poor performance.
Yes - it plays multi-region DVD's but when it plays them with pixelated images and you can't use half the functions because the remote doesn't work, this player becomes a bad buy.
Plus, the warranty from the seller was only 15 days.
Avoid this player and get something decent. There are too many reviews like this for this player. Be warned.

The unit looks good (well, except for the remote, which could look better - it has, compared to the player, a cheap plastic look. It plays European PAL DVDs as if they were U.S. NTSC DVDs - no menus, switches, or the like. The video output quality is great. Love it!

Also noteworthy: If you have an older receiver unit without digital audio inputs, this player is your friend. It has, aside of digital outputs, 5+1 analog outputs - something that it increasingly hard to find nowadays.

This DVDP5851 player has not worked properly since we bought it. It is not worth the money, and replacing it was too much of a hassle, according to the person who spoke to us on the phone.

From day 1 it has trouble loading discs, many times it tries for minutes and finally says that there is no disc inside, even if there is one. I've read several reviews that mention this problem, so here are some things that I've found helpful:

1. Pop in a cleaning disc (somehow it is always able to read it), and after that it may load normal dvds.

2. Tilt the player until you hear the noise of disc loading. Ours has a specific angle at which it can load discs, but I'm not always able to find it.

3. Try a different disc (if you don't mind watching something else).

4. Sometimes we just cannot make it work. Then we take out the disc and let it rest a few days, usually after that it works fine for a while.

Since the Akai player is so bad, while my region-1 dvd-player that I bought in [...] for 35 bucks has always worked without a problem, I'm thinking that the best thing for me to do would be to buy a cheap Region-2 dvd-player in another country, and bring it here to play my Region 2 discs.

Bought mine here from Amazon for watching Asian and European region dvds. In spite of the impossible-to-read small type under "initial setting up", all I had to do was plug it in. No programming was necessary. I can watch dvds from any region without adjustment. Using an s-video connexion and gold-plated audio connectors, I get great picture and sound. Further, I haven't found a dvd yet that skips on it. The price couldn't be beat, and Amazon's service was quick and flawless.

I purchased this DVD player (initially as a cheap, non-hacked region free player) in December and recently set it up to my new Samsung 1080p 46" LCD HDTV. Using the component connections and progressive scan, I could not believe how crisp the images were (Harry Potter and Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow were crystal clear with no pixelization or jagged lines, and no fast-action blurring). If you want a cheap, region-free SD DVD player for your HDTV, this machine is ideal.

The AKAI has played everything I have put into it without hesitation. The menu takes a little getting used to at first, but is fairly simple to understand. The disc tray seems a bit fragile, but works without a hitch.

For those stacking components, the AKAI is a little more than an inch tall, and not very deep, so it economizes space very well.

Connections are limitless: coaxial, rca, S-video and component. Plus, there are two mic inputs (with individual volume controls) in the front.

AKAI has an above-average repair rating (according to Consumer Reports) and for the low price, it seems like a waste of money to go for a hacked, or unkown player for region-free use, while this is available. The amazing image quality is the icing on the cake. Truly a top-notch machine.