Customer Reviews

RCA DRC285 DVD Player with HD Upconversion

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(18)

 

 

The DRC 285 is a good little upconvert. It upconverts to 480p 720p 1080i and 1080p. All the ouputs are active at once. The HDMI is the only one you can turn on and off. The componet outputs give a good picture but it is 480p. You can only upconvert through the HDMI output. Ive set mine to 1080i and was really impressed with the increased picture quality of standard dvd's. While Im not sure you are getting full blown HD, there is no doubt it looks alot better. The player menu is about as bare bones as it gets-only settings for picture ratio and setting the HDMI to how you want it. It does let you make adjustments on the fly as you watch a dvd. Another featue I liked is you can set the audio of the HDMI seperate from the digital outputs.{coax and optical} This way if your HD set cannot support a digital 5.1 signal you can set it to PCM and still get 5.1 for the other outputs to you home theater. THe player also has a USB 2.0 port on the front and a special menu that lets you rip your cd's to an ipod if you want. The remote is really small and I dont like it much. The instruction manual is just a paper flyer with very small print i didnt like it either. The player also dosnt come with an HDMI cable. All that being said I really like it, its cheap, plays everthing Ive put in it and handles layer changes better than any player Ive had. Recomended.

UPDATE: Ive had this player since May and I still have had no problems. I can only guess at the other reviews that RCA must have a quality control problem with this run. I dont have a problem with Divx or anything else. I did learn the 285 may have the Mediatek convesion chip in it. Ive heard its the best low-priced chip around. Ive ripped over 106 songs with no problems at all, I feel so lucky to have gotten a good unit.

I have purchased 2 of these RCA285 units and both of them failed within a month. I took a loss on the first one but thank goodness I ordered the second one from Amazon and was able to return it and get an immediate refund. Amazon is wonderful, this player is horrible. Amazon should stop their losses and pull this item from inventory now. So please don't waste your money on this unit and buy another upconverting DVD player from another manufacturer.

I have video hooked up with component cables and have not tried HDMI yet. It produces good video and sound. I have had it for about a month and have had absolutely no problems. The menu and remote are anything but sophisticated. Overall it gets the job done and keeps the kids happy.

Sure this player is inexpensive and is made by RCA (I guess a decent manufacturer???), but don't be fooled. This is a cheap piece of machinery. When I hooked the player up, I was able to play one movie. The picture was ok...definitely not great (even with the upscaling). After that movie though, no other dvds worked on the player. In fact, every film I tried to play ended up jamming the player and I had to unplug the system to release the disc. Thankfully, Amazon is refunding me my money. Don't waste your time with this player. Spend the extra $20 and go with another model.

I have had the player almost a year, bought through Sears. I have been careful to use the remote only opening and closing. So there is virtually no physical wear and tear on the device. It has been sitting in the same location. Recently it has decided to completely freeze up and cease working after getting about 15 minutes into a DVD. Some electronic glitch. Unplugging and replugging at first would reset it, but after a few times, that ceased to work and plugging it in no longer gets the red wait light.

I will not buy another RCA DVD player. Made in China. Piece of garbage. Not everything made in China is garbage, but like Pet Food and Babies milk, the Chinese and American corporations seem to care less about quality and safety as long as they're making a buck.

An otherwise good DVD player but with very poor product quality. Looks and feels cheap. Died on me after watching just a few movies and right on the very first time I hooked it to my TV using the HDMI port. Returned it to the store for an exchange. The second unit died in the same way after watching a couple of movies as well. The first unit first showed black stripes across the screen and then after a while it froze and the screen was full of garbled image. Second unit died suddenly with the same garbled screen.

It's a shame because the built-in USB port is really useful. You can view pictures and watch movies shot with a digital camera. You can also play music files from this port as well or convert an audio CD to MP3 files into any flash drive plugged in the USB port. This port was THE reason I originally chose this particular model over other upconverting models despite negative reviews I had read elsewhere.

I have one of these units and it worked fine for about 2 months and then it died. It had a great picture while it lasted but I would not recommend it to anyone. Buy a different brand if you want something that will last!

I purchased this from Amazon 6 months ago. It broke last week. Since it is suppose to be under warranty I called RCA. They wanted to charge me a $50 service fee to have the DVD player switched out, which is almost the full price of the unit. Basically you really only have a warranty until 90 days, after that point you are forced to pay their "fee". They do not support their products whatsoever. I am now left with a very large paper weight. Save yourself the trouble and buy from a company that actually stands behind their products and offers a full warranty with no strings attached.

I recognize that there are a lot of people who are dissatisfied with this product. I've had this product for about 3 weeks. The batteries supplied worked for 1 day. That was strange. Other than that, the TV Guardian works fantastic. This is the only product on the market, at the time of this review, that has both HDMI up-conversion and TV Guardian. Of course, TV Guardian doesn't work on all movies, but we've had very good success.

As far as quality, I kept my Sony HDMI up-converting DVD player because it is a clear winner in quality (I bought the RCA for the TV Guardian). But, my Sony also cost about 4 times more. The up-converted picture quality looks fantastic on my Panasonic 1080i HD TV. You do have to manually set your television's aspect ratio and resolution. (My TV can only support 1080i, and the screen went crazy when I set it on 1080p).

So, the DVD player isn't as bad as everyone says. In some ways it is a little complicating to set up, but it is do-able.

If something happens and the player breaks, I'll submit another review referencing this review.

Product was as described. Grandson was very pleased with it. Excellent service from Amazon. Nothing negative to say concerning my experience with Amazon. I will continue to utilize their site.