Customer Reviews

LG DN898 1080p Upconverting DVD Player

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

The LG DN898 is a very good player with a lot of great features: it does a good job of upscaling DVDs, it can output at a full 1080p, it supports playback of.mpeg, .avi (xvid/divx) and .srt files, and it can read from most recordable DVD formats as well as from USB. For the most part I have had a very good experience with this player and I would have rated it better if I had not discovered one glaring flaw. The LG DN898 is incapable of displaying 4:3 content in a pillarbox on a 16:9 screen. A pillarbox is the widescreen TV equivalent of a letterbox, the two black bars that appear on the top and bottom of a regular TV screen when playing a movie recorded in widescreen (16:9) format, only on a widescreen TV these bars appear as two black pillars on the left and right sides of the screen when playing fullscreen (4:3) content. This means that any video recorded in a 4:3 aspect ratio will be automatically stretched to fill the screen on a widescreen TV. If you prefer to have your video stretched to fit the screen then this shouldn't be a problem to you, in which case this player might be a good choice. However, if you prefer to watch video in its original aspect ratio then this is not the player for you. I have used other upconverting DVD players that let you choose whether or not you want to stretch the video. Considering the price of this player I am a bit disappointed that the LG DN898 does not offer this option.

Purchased a LG 47" LCD HDTV for my new apartment and needed a new DVD player to go along with it. I like the LG brand (bought girlfriend a separate LCD HDTV a year ago and it's great) so I wanted to get an upconverting DVD player to match the TV. Not in the market for a BlueRay yet so this was a happy alternative. Provides great clarity on its big sister TV. No clock on the front of the DVD player but I was buying a dvd player, not a clock so I didn't care about that. The remote also controls my LG tv (not sure if it controls all TV brands once programmed). Remote is a little busy with lots of buttons and with numerous small print labels to match. The 'zoom' function came in handy on some DVDs that didn't stretch well on the screen or that had black bars on the sides.

Easy to set up, easy to use, nice looking unit. As a fully functioning upconverting DVD player, it gets the job done.

An excellent DVD player. I can find nothing wrong with this unit. It plays all my DVD's and CD and CD/RW disks perfectly. The initial load time is quick and the setting options are very convenient and easy to understand. If you have an older television , as I do, ( I have a 20 inch Panasonic television that I bought about 10 years ago) you can even choose to set the aspect ratio to play widescreen movies at a normal television screen size. The unit has worked excellently from the start, no freezing or skipping, and plays both new releases and old movies with the same crystal clarity and clean audio. It has a built in memory feature that allows you to power off the unit. So if you were to stop a movie at any time at any spot and then press the power switch from the remote to shut off the player, the next time you press the power button on the DVD player, all you have to do is press "play" and the DVD will start playing from the exact place you stopped it. Very very convenient. The player has a wide range of audio options for PCM and surround sound, and has an HDMI cable connection slot for High Definition TV's. It has a built in screen saver that will start if the unit is left idle in the "stop" position for more than 5 minutes, and then if the screen saver runs more than 5 minutes the unit will power itself off. But that's fine since when you choose to Power it up again, it will pick up viewing the DVD wherever you had stopped it. The unit itself is very slim and very quiet. There is only a very slight spinning sound initially as it's loading, then it is whisper quiet during play. Even the remote is well designed. This is the first DVD player I've had with a remote that only needs one AAA battery. The remote has buttons laid out in sections that are easy to use without having to read the function printed on them, making it handy to operate in a darkened room. At first I was not sure about the LG brand since I had never heard of it before. But I was very pleasantly surprised at how sophisticated and well designed it is. Much better than the Toshiba brands I have tried and even better than some of the Sony units. I highly recommend this DVD player.

- Mike S.

A good basic DVD player with HDMI out that is easy to multi-region hack.

The setup menus are somewhat cryptic and will have you reaching for the manual to be sure what some of the options actually do. But this is a one time thing and the out of the box settings should work fine for most people anyway.

My old Panasonic player had the ability to remember where you were in up to 6 different DVDs, a feature which this player lacks. It does however seem to remember where you were on the current disk which is what I used the position memory feature for 90% of the time so no huge loss.

Converting the player to multi-region (or technically region 0) so that it can play DVDs from anywhere in the world is simple. Just download a file, burn it to a CD, insert into the DVD player and pick the region you want from the on screen menu that comes up. Just google for and follow the instructions for the LG DVD-5000 series players, it is the same hack for the DN898 as the LG DVD-5063 5083 5095 5183 5253 and 6053 and the Sanyo HV-DX1E, HV-DX2E and DVW-7100 and quite a few others.

Overall a good solid DVD player with minimal bells and whistles.

I've been very pleased with the performance of this DVD player so far. It's had no problems with any of the commercial DVDs I've played, and I like the zoom functions. I'm using it with a standard TV, so I can't comment on the upconverting quality. The main problem I've had with DVD players in the past has been failure after a year or so of light use; it's too soon to know if this one will be an exception. So far, so good.

I bought this for my mother-in law who was pleased with its quality and ease of use.

It did not work at all. No power. Sent it back and bought a different brand. Too bad, Consumer Reports touted it. But, dead is dead.

We're delighted with this model. We had purchased through Amazon this model's predecessor and still use that player (two years later) in our bedroom. This newer model receives much heavier usage in our family room.

The product is lightweight, durable, high-quality, thin, and the technology is easy to understand. It's inexpensive enough that you'd expect it to perform basic functions but it's so much more. The upconverting feature is phenomenal. Our older DVDs look incredible on our LCD TV and changing the aspect ratio of the film via remote is an incredible convenience.

If you're looking for a high-quality DVD player that looks and operates like a player that costs 2x or 3x this price...this is the DVD player for you. You cannot go wrong. Good luck.

I think the title of my reviews says it all. I saw a few mixed reviews on this item when I bought it, but I honestly thought it would last at least a year or two considering how little I used it. I think I played maybe 6-7 DVD's in it since I bought it in July 2009. In the middle of watching a movie the other night, it just froze. I thought maybe it was the rental DVD, so I put a brand new DVD in. The door closed, I heard it spinning for 30 seconds, then the error message came up. Cleaned the lense, tried it 3 more times, same results. Since when did DVD players become disposable within 5 months? Get the Sony!

I bought this primarily for USB port in order to play video files on a TV that does not have USB or VGA inputs. Unfortunately this DVD player not support DIVX format which renders USB port useless for the purpose I intended.

Thanks to Amazon for your hassle free return policy.