Customer Reviews

Panasonic DVD-S29K DVD Player , Black

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

very happy uses a low amount of power both on and standby.
Plays all my cd's and dvd's and has better video sigal to noise and audio s/n than any of the cheaper radio shack brands and others etc. Plays more media than others DVD+-R&RW CD-R/W plus mp3&wma and highmat2 files. this is a superior low price unit.this was my pick over sony, jvc, pioneer and samsung i looked into them all carefully. great picture and sound make this a best buy

This is the best dvd player I've ever had..and I've owned quite a few. I recently bought a 3 disc DVD collection of "Kolchak the Nightstalker". These turned out to be dual sided discs of dubious quality. They exhibited major warpage, and numerous flaws. My Magnavox DVD player was freezing up trying to play them. My Toshiba did marginally better, with only an occasional "freeze". My Panasonic S29 played these discs with no problem at all, and a crisper image to boot. It's true that this Panasonic will play anything you care to feed it. It might be a "low end" player, but it performs better than anything I've seen yet..at any end.

Consumer Reports ranks Panasonic as the most highly rated manufacturer of DVD players in terms of durability and performance barely easing out Sony. The Panasonic S29 player works beautifully and provides an exceptionally sharp picture. It is a slim unit that uses a low amount of power (1W) and is able to read digital media formats such as DVD-RAM, DVD-Video, DVD-R/DVD-RW, +R/+RW, VCD, and CD-R/RW recorded with the following formats:CD, WMA, MP3, JPEG and VCD. My only complaint with this unit is the disc tray. The indention in the tray used to situate the disc is a complete circle with no spaces on each side like in previous models. Instead of being able to lift the disc off the tray by the edges with two fingers you now have to press your finger through the hole in the middle of the disc and lift. And hope that the disc doesn't come loose off your finger. Why change something that already worked well? I'm not sure how scratchproof DVDs can be, but the disc tray on this unit makes me hope that they're as durable as Panasonic's player are. Other than this quibble, Panasonic has done an excellent job.

Having used and thrown away many DVD players in the past few years, I have finally purchased one that will be with me for awhile. Ease of operation, quality picture and sound, and easy to follow directions are high points of the S29K. You can spend a great deal more money, but cannot determine how you can get a better DVD player for under $100.00. Try it...you will like (love) it!

We are loving this player. It was inexpensive and its nice and thin. The remote control has too many buttons and they all seem to be the same shape. The rewind and fast forward are a bit too finicky too. But, it might be that we use it in low light room after a few glasses of wine. All in all, I would recommend this DVD player to anyone who doesn't want to spend $200.

The picture is incredibly rich and razor sharp, it plays a ton of formats and has more settings and adjustments than you will ever use in a lifetime. If you're picky about adjusting every detail of picture and sound, you'll love it. But, its also simple enough to use so that you wont be intimidated by it. If you're concerned about reliabilty (H07???) I highly recommend an extended warranty as Panasonic's players have a rep for conking out unexpectedly. I got a 3 yr warranty for 20 bucks, which is less than 1/4th the cost of the player. Overall, a great player. Best Ive owned yet.

Because of what Sony did with their horrendous XCP cds, I am cutting ALL ties to their products (they've been going downhill for years anyway). This is an interesting player I got to replace an old Sony single-disc player that, while solidly built, just wasn't reading newer dvds when loaded. So it was time to get a new one and this is it. Already I can tell you that it has successfully loaded every dvd I've put in it (that's especially good, particularly with adult XXX titles). Access times are lightning quick (again, unlike Sony). Picture quality is excellent. I really like the different "picture mode" settings; unlike Sony players, the differences between them are noticeable and effective at enhancing whatever you want to see. Unfortunately, if you want to change time mode (from elapsed to remaining) you have to enter a "Functions" menu, then select your time setting from there - not convenient. On my 4:3 television, the "Zoom" feature produces interesting results. It actually has the ability to zoom in on several different aspect ratios, including 1:66:1 / 1.78:1 / 2.20:1 / 2.40:1 / 2.55:1. So that's a nice thing to have for variety anyway. You need to be careful with the disc tray - it looks very flimsy and it doesn't have recessed edges on the sides so you'll have to remove the disc each time by sticking your finger in the center hole and lifting it out. WARNING: if you have this hooked up to a plasma set, MAKE SURE YOU DON'T LEAVE IT PAUSED - THERE IS NO SCREEN SAVER MODE. It's made in China, but so far it's a pretty good player.

The S29 is an excellent DVD player. Picture quality is great and it plays all commercial CDs & DVDs and all of the burned CD-R, DVD-R and DVD-RW discs that I tried. The best thing I like about this player is the zoom feature. It can zoom in on those really narrow letterboxed movies leaving smaller black bars or even full screen with no picture degradation that I can see. When zooming in it does lop off the left and right sides a bit but I've watched the same movie in normal (skinny) and European Vista mode (bigger picture will small black bars) and I found that I don't miss the left and right sides at all (I live in the USA, NTSC land). I would buy this player again even if it sold for more dollars.

I bought this for my uncle. It is typical Panasonic build quality - really good. Very slim and plays excellent.

Few points to improve:

1- put open sides on the disc tray to help remove the disc holding the disc sides. Now need to put finger in the hole to remove - not good. Old disc tray worked better.
2 -display on front should be larger and more info - CD plays track OR time, but not both. Would be nice to see both plus highlighted number of tracks like older Technics CD players.
3- put "skip" buttons on the front of the player. Remote is not always the way to use.

Other than that, excellent value for the money. Better quality than the cheapo players. Trust me.

The speech enhancement option is a nice feature. As remotes go the remote is fine. The unit has all the advanced features I might want. I agree with other posters that the tray could have been engineered better. I wish the unit was deeper. I have a CD player of standard size over this unit and it has to stick out further due to this unit not being deep enough.

I wanted to comment on the connection instructions in the manual. They are very bad. The instructions on page 6 state that you can't connect this DVD player to a VCR due to copy guard protections. That's not accurate or true.

There are basically four ways to move a video signal. They are in order of quality from worst to best:

1. RF cable = 70 ohm coax
2. composite = 3 RCA, (1 VID -- 2 RCA audio)
3. S video = 1 S video cable + 2 RCA audio
4. component = 5 RCA, (3 VID -- 2 RCA audio)

This unit does composite, S-video, and component. There is only one set of audio outputs however. So let's say you want to connect this DVD player to a VCR that requires composite inputs and a TV that can handle component inputs. You will need to split the audio outputs. Radio shack makes a y adapter for $4. With two of these you can split the sound and wire up both units. Alternatively you can use the S video to the TV if the TV can't handle component connections.

4" Gold Plated Shielded Y Adapter 1 Phono Plug to Dual Jacks 42-2536 $3.99 each

I have the unit wired up to both my TV and VCR and it works just fine.