Oritron DVD600 DVD Player

by Oritron

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 14 x 10.8 x 2.8 inches ; 6.4 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 9 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• Shipping Advisory: This item must be shipped separately from other items in your order. Additional shipping charges will not apply.
• ASIN: B000051XHM
• Item model number: DVD600
• Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (72 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #178,095 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Review

Oritron, famous for its lowest-possible-price approach to DVD players, has a sure-fire winner on its hands with the DVD600. And while Oritron has made its newer player more reliable than the infamous DVD200, it's still affordable--and still a little quirky in its performance.

For the most part, the DVD600 is a very basic DVD player: it passes (but doesn't decode) DVD-based Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1-channel surround formats, it offers both stereo analog and coaxial digital outputs, and it routes video through two composite-video connections (there's no S-video jack here). Not bad for a budget model!

But this DVD player offers a couple cool, if only marginally significant, features we haven't seen elsewhere: a five-disc resume capability and A-B repeat.

Resume--whereby a player will begin disc playback from the last point viewed--is a common enough feature, but normally just for the disc currently in the player. As soon as you open the drawer, forget it--you have to know where you were or start over. The DVD600 will let you not only open the drawer, but remove the disc and start four other DVDs, all the while remembering where you left off on each of them.

A-B repeat is used mostly on CD players; it's a handy feature for looping and scrutinizing (or digitally sampling!) a riff, a line from a lyric, or a bit of between-song banter; the A and B represent user-definable start and end points for the loop. DVD broadens your A-B repeat options. Now you can savor special effects, dancing, or fast-moving action over and over at the touch of a button. Want to pick up some moves from Gene Kelly? Here's your chance.

The DVD600's sound and picture quality are very good--that's one area where microchips have helped narrowed the quality gap between cheap and expensive electronics. The sound from the analog stereo outputs is definitely inferior to what you'd get from a better DVD or CD player, but the DVD600's coaxial digital output lets you listen through your surround receiver's digital-to-analog converters rather than those onboard the DVD600 itself.

After experiencing the earlier DVD200's difficulty with delivering high-bit-rate audio and video (that is, loud and busy DVDs), we were skeptical about this area of the DVD600's performance. But the player pulled through with none of the picture freezing or excessive pixelization of its ancestor. And while this model does play DTS surround-encoded DVDs with ease, it does not pass the digital signal from DTS-encoded surround CDs, so fans of multichannel music should take note.

The DVD600's biggest drawback is actually something far more mundane than any technical shortcoming: its lack of a front-panel display. There's a red power-on light, a green status indicator (basically saying, "I'm ready for action"), and that's it--no chapter or title indication, no program time. So if you're planning to use the DVD600 as a CD player, you'll have to do so blindly or with the TV on. The onscreen display for menus and commands takes up some of the slack when you're watching DVDs.

The unit is lightweight and smaller than the average DVD player, but its build quality is lower. At one point in our testing, we hit eject and the tray emerged--without our disc! It did come out with no trouble when we tried reclosing and reopening the drawer, and it didn't happen again in our tests, but it's something to consider.

Is the Oritron DVD600 a great player? Not in the growing scheme of all-around great DVD players. But with its feature set and remarkably good sound and picture quality, we have no reservations about calling this a great buy and a terrific starter or bedroom DVD. --Michael Mikesell

Pros:

• Great deal for the money
• Plays both Dolby Digital- and DTS-encoded DVDs
• Unique features
• Rapid disc access
• Helpful onscreen display
• Plays CD-RWs

Cons:

• No front-panel display
• Cheap build quality
• No S-video output
• Will not play CD-Rs or DTS-encoded CDs

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

341 of 357 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Oritron DVD player, December 1, 2000

By 

Kabron Kline (Ohio) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Oritron DVD600 DVD Player (Electronics)

I think that this product is awesome! It never freezes or skips, and the sound is great, with the DTS! I was first infulenced by a friend saying,

"You going to have to pay a lot to get a lot."

I thought,

"Well I'll get it and see if it's good."

And was I suprised! The sound, the picture! I plan to buy another for my house, and a sound system to accompany this bad boy! So want if it dosen't play CD-R's? A DVD player is a DVD player, people don't buy these things to play CD's in them; they want good sounding, great picture DVD technology. So if you want a great DVD player at a great price, then this is what you want!

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars NOT BAD NOT BAD, November 8, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Oritron DVD600 DVD Player (Electronics)

I recently purchased this Oritron DVD600 as my first DVD player. I figured for under [dollar amount] what do I have to loose. I was very impressed with the quality of the player. Yes it has a few features missing like the front display but I did not care. I have watched many DVD's on my friends players and this one is about the same quality and they spent way more than I did. If you want a first DVD player that is affordable and nice. then this is it. Lots of features are nice but most of my electronics have them and I rarely use them. This is a simple DVD player with good quality.

51 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars You get what you pay for..., December 11, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Oritron DVD600 DVD Player (Electronics)

This DVD player was not worth the money, it was returned the same day I got it! The digital out was not in its 'normal' form and it had typos in the menus. As soon as I put a DVD in, it flickered for awhile before the DVD started playing.

I was not impressed by the quality of the workmanship or the quality of the player.

I suppose if you want a DVD player to just play DVD's, this is for you. If you actually want to get use out of the great quality that DVD's have to offer, I suggest spending a little more money and go with a brand you trust.