Customer Reviews

GE DGE100N DVD Player

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

 

 

Purchased product at [store]. I am using this unit with an eight year old 31" dirct view TV made by Mitsubishi (4:3, no high def).

Exterior appearance of the DVD player is very clean. Remote control lacks backlight, but is well laid out and comfortable to hold. Good video quality, especially at [money] price point.

Very impressive reading of MP3 and JPEG files on homemade CD-R's. This machine was able to read discs that several Toshiba, Philips anad Panasonic units were unable to read. However, the user interface for non-DVD features is disappointing:

-- Unit only displays the first 11 characters of MP3 and JPEG files. Since most of my files names have 40 characters or more -- they include the artist and song title -- this restriction made it difficult for me to navigate my files.

-- Unit does not support 'random play' or 'play lists'. This makes the unit inflexible during parties or for background music.

-- When you want to play, say, song 24, you must press 0-2-4 on the remote. If you press 2-4, the unit plays song 2, then jumps to song 4. This operation frustrated me.

This unit can also display JPEG files. I found this feature exciting; it let me see pictures taken with my digital camera on my TV (after I burned them to a CD, of course). High resolution files loaded quickly, but they flickered a bit on my screen. I don't know if this was due to the DVD player or my TV or my interconnects (S-Video).

Like MP3 files, JPEG file names are restricted to 11 characters. This was less of an issue for me, though. Generally I view images as a slide show without jumping from picture to picture.

My opinion: if you only want to watch movies and have a non-HD setup, this machine offers great value and good performance. If you demand flexible audio controls or have a large collection of homemade MP3 discs, this user interface on this unit is limiting.

I purchased this DVD player a week ago and find watching movies a very frustrating endeavor. This machine refuses to play some DVDs; abruptly stops an hour or so into the movie; and locks up randomly. When it does play a DVD, the picture quality is very good as is the sound. I attempted to contact customer support but was foiled by the inability to speak to a live person. They refer you to the RCA.com website which is also useless. If you wish to talk to someone, they refer you to a non-tollfree number. Having had many GE products in my five decades, I guess I expected a better product and at least customer support for one's questions. Now I am looking for a better quality DVD player and one which also offers customer support.

It looks like there is a common bug on the chip in this machine. I bought a DGE100NA at Circuit City so I could play a VCD a friend sent me - and because the Apex DVD player I had could not read the VCD, even though it was supposed to be able to. The GE was able to play the VCD.

This DVD player does NOT resume properly from Pause. But I've found a work-around. When you are ready to resume, press the Pause button and immediately press Stop. Then press play and the movie will USUALLY start from the place where you paused. If you try to resume by just pressing Pause, the unit locks up, and as the others have said, the ONLY way to get it to re-start is to pull the power plug - even the Power On/Off button is frozen.

The fact that it sometimes also randomly starts movies in the middle is another annoyance. This unit will PLAY a DVD, but it is sadly lacking when it comes to reliable functionality.

Bought this machine for [X] and expected minimum features and performance. I was pleasantly surprised. I read the instructions, hooked it up, and was playing a movie within thirty minutes after opening the box. Nice machine!

I don't know if this player is still being sold but if so, steer clear of it. When it works, mine works reasonably well but it rarely works. Most of the time it gives me a "no disc" message when it has just spooled up a DVD that works in every other player I have.

More interesting is GE's response to this. They don't acknowledge that it even exists. Could it be some kind of illegal copy, I ask? No response. I think they know there's something wrong with it.

The only good thing about it was the price, but on a per-play basis, I probably should have bought a different player. What also bothers me is what this says about GE. Would this be true of all their other products? I wonder.

I have used this product for over a year now and I have never had a problem playing any of my 100+ DVDs. I would never claim that is is the best DVD player on the market, but I argue that it is the best for the money.

The front panel layout is plain and simple, as it should be. The remote control is divided nicely into DVD controls and TV controls (if you have RCA or compatible). The only drawback is no backlighting, but I have never really missed this feature.

The player itself is fast in loading DVDs, and has all the features you would expect from a player in this class. However, I must agree with an earlier reviewer who noted that for non-DVD's, the user interface is poorly designed and only show the first twelve letters for a filename. Therefore, if you have mp3 collections sorted first by artist and then by title you might have some guessing to do.

Overall, I think this is a great product and I would definitely recommend this product to anyone who is on a budget (college students, for instance). It was designed for its video capabilities and not as mp3 player, and it should be used as such. You're better off keeping your mp3's on disc and playing them through your computer or stereo.

it has cool features...but good luck getting your disc into the tray to utilize them...

I received a GE dvd player (DGE100n) as a gift and had to take it back for exchange because the tray was failing to open/close for me, no matter if the remote or the button on the unit face were used.
Was able to "trick" it to open by holding down power and open buttons simultaneously as soon as it powered up, and finally were able to play a DVD for the first time!
Well...in the middle of the movie, the phone rang and we pushed pause. When we came back to it 5 minutes later, it was frozen. We could not get it to resume, stop, or even eject the disc! So we ended up having to unplug the unit from the wall and tinkering to "trick" it again to open so I could just get my DVD back out!

We exchanged it last night at Wally mart for another DGE100N, brought it home, plugged it in and guess what: Similar problems! Except that in order to get the tray to open on THIS different unit...pressing the play/rewind simultaneously with the open button works after powering it on/off every 3rd or 4th try.
I've tried it in different sockets around the house and ruled that out as a potential cause as all my other electronics have all worked just fine over the years.

Wally mart will not let me exchange it toward another unit...so looks like I'm stuck with exchanging it for the same model...again and again in hopes I'll finally find one that works right out of the box!?

Gee, do YOU think this quality GE unit will last me for years and years??

I bought this unit because it was cheaper than others and was recommended by the guy in the store. Since I bought it it has been problematic. It's very tempermental about reading the discs. When i called the store about the problem I was told that that was how DVD players worked and that it would work itself out eventually, like a bug in the system. It conitnued, well past the point of warranty and returnability. It refuses to read most DVD's unless I tinker with it, opening and closing the tray 6-7 times. It skips and stops a lot. There is a problem with the pause feature. Now, only a year after I bought it, it's refusing to work entirely and I have to go buy another unit. DO NOT BUY THIS DVD PLAYER!

I have to second Ryan's opinion. I almost could have written his review. I, too, received a DGE100N for Christmas and have experienced almost identical problems especially the problem with pause. We stumbled on the same 'fix', unplug it to reset the unit. When it freezes up, not even the front panel buttons will work.

When I first hooked up the unit, nothing seemed to work. It would not respond to the remote when pressing the open button. Then suddenly it started making a loud clattering noise that sounded like every tooth on some internal gear was being broken off. That went on for a few seconds until the tray finally opened. There hasn't been a repeat but that certainly was not the way it should have worked.

I haven't taken it back yet but I'm thinking about it. There's sure seems to be something inherently wrong with this thing and reading the directions hasn't helped. I've tried.

I would have to advise anyone considering the purchase of one of these to look at the competition.

...and that's precisely the problem: it doesn't work very well. From reading other reviews, I see I'm not alone. When it does work, the picture and sound are great. It worked fine for about 2 or 3 years after I bought it, then it started freezing up every so often. It got more and more frequent and is now bad enough that watching a DVD from start to finish is practically impossible. Sometimes it freezes completely so that it won't respond to the remote or buttons on the front panel. It's been like this for quite a while. It has trouble reading some discs that work fine in other players. I recently cleaned the lens very carefully, but it made no difference. I expected more than 2 or 3 years worth of trouble-free use, and I really didn't use it often. I highly doubt that this unit is in production anymore, but if you come across one, whether it be new in the box or used, don't pay too much for it.