Customer Reviews

RCA RC5220P DVD Player

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(26)

 

 

After reading the reviews here I was very skeptical about purchasing this unit. I have several RCA components and wanted RCA because their stuff works so well together. Sure enough, we bought the unit, plugged it in, and our existing RCA TV remote started controlling the DVD player without a hitch (of course the remote that comes with the DVD unit also controlled all of our other RCA units without a hitch too). We even rented Bugs life to make sure ours wasn't one of the "bad" units. Everything worked fine, even in wide screen mode!

I bought one of these for my father after seeing how great my roommate's was but after 2-3 months both of them started flickering and would freeze up from time to time and now my fathers only plays about half the DVDs he owns and my roommates can't get through 20 minutes of a movie without flickering then locking up. I found out from talking to people on the internet that about half of these units have MAJOR hardware issues. Buyer Beware.

The Good
I must say I love this DVD player. The first one I have owned and it playes great. I use the A/V jacks into a 28 inch Phillips Mag TV and it looks like a movie screen. I'm so spoilled that I don't even rent VHS tapes anymore. I had one problem with a rented DVD (Wag the Dog). But once I cleaned the disk like the manual says it played perfectly. The stero sound is great too. A quick tip though.
If you don't have a receiver and just use your TV for sound, in the system setup choose PCM sound and high compression for the best sound. No compression makes you have to turn the TV up real high in order to hear clearly.
Make sure the sound on your DVD player matches the one on your DVD when watching movies. I bought The Best Man for my lady and the player was set for Dolby while the disk was sending DTS. Result, no sound and 5 minutes of PANIC. Just match them up again and all is fine.
The Bad
Not being able to burn your own Audio CDs is a bit of a moan. But once you play the Matrix for the first time you get over it. I am mad that I can't play burned Video CDs. Wanted to archive my collection of Kung-Fu movies and tapped Saturday morning Cartoons. But in a year I should be able to upgrade my pc and get a second DVD player for the bedroom so I could do that then.
The Ugly
All the reports I have heard about the DVD player had made me kinda scared about my future with the RC5220P. The review seem to be about 65% to 35% in favor. I am almost past the 2 month mark so I will do a follow up if anything happens. But so far I am on happy camper.

This is a simple player that does not have many features but what make me choose this one is that the video and audio is the same as those high priced dvd player, no difference whatsoever. For the features it matters to me little, once the movie is razor sharp and the audio crisp and clear i am happy.

I bought this unit after purchasing, and returning a more expensive Samsung 709. The 709 kept skipping on The Mummy,after the layer change, and a few others. After purchasing the RCA, I had NO PROBLEMS whatsoever playing the movies I want to.Great audio, Great video! The only con to this unit, is its lack of features such as zoom, vcd play ability, and lack of track display on front panel. But hey, for this price, who cares?

I've had my RCA for 5 months and have no troubles with it. It is true it won't play CD-R. The only trouble with locking up, pixelating, freezing and not starting have all been with rented movies. I keep good care of the DVDs I own and have no problems with them. I have it hooked up to an RCA dolby digital surround reciever. The optical output on the back puts out amazing audio (can't tell real sounds around me from the movie). The matrix works without a flaw on the RCA. Before i bought it the sales man told me that any brand associated with GE, or cheaper would not play the Matrix. I would have to agree with the review about the quality control at RCA though, because all the reviews I've read have either been really good or really bad. I recommend the player.

I bought this DVD player last Christmas from a department store. I always liked RCA. I had no problems with the DVD for a few months and I liked it, it had good features but missed zoom, and the menu screens were easy to get around and the glossry was a nice touch. But then it started making a high pitch noise that sometimes became louder than the movie I was plaing on my Dolby Digital theather system I used. Then the Disk Tray would not come out the whole way and would get stuck. It made noise from the beggining but this noise was crazy. The manufcr. would not do anything for me. I would have to pay for the shipping to get it fixed and for labor. I did not get it fixed and am currently shopping for a new one with a better Rep. I don't recommend shopping for the lowest price. Because the most important thing is not features, but if it works and if the thing breaks, is the warranty going to help you if it is not just a 90 day or one year parts. Look around, Buy smart!

Now, I have no problems with any discs or how it plays.. when it works. We bought our player in February from Circuit City since it was the only one that works with coax cable, and it worked fine for a month. We had a storm, and it was unplugged before the storm since it was on the same surge protector as my computer. When we plugged the player back in, the cable went out. We tracked it down to the RF adapter, and replaced it. It worked fine for 9 days, when the exact same thing happened. We did the same, waited a week, and it went out again. This time when we replaced the RF adapter, it didn't work. We sent the player in this time, and they exchanged the unit. Another week goes by, and then the unit wouldn't even turn on. We plugged it into other outlets, and it would click when we plugged it in, but wouldn't turn on. We took it back in, went back the next week, and they tried to give us a messed up unit (faceplate lose, unit wobbles, drawer part way out). We told them to try again, but we wouldn't be back for 3 weeks (marriage, honeymoon). Came back a few days ago, they gave us the same unit with the drawer back in, and said to go down to the service center to get the faceplate repaired. Circuit City said they'd shore up the faceplate, but they aren't authorized to do repairs, they have to ship it to RCA's factory in Mexico to repair it (which is fishy, since we get the units back in 1 week). We call RCA to complain, they said that Circuit City does the repairs. My advice is, do not buy any RCA players from Circuit City. My faith in both companies is gone.

For some reason I read the reviews, and chose to believe the good ones and not the bad.

This unit has played 3 DVDs for me. Now however, every DVD gives a NODISK error on the main screen. I already through away all the packing so I can't send it back, and you see the difficulty that people have had with RCA.

DO NOT BUY THIS.

I found this a good entry-level player. If you have a nice home theater system set-up already, I wouldn't go with this player though. The player lacks several features an audio/video enthusiasts may want: there is no component video output; no coaxial digital output; black levels, color, contrast, etc. cannot be adjusted; it cannot play cd-r/rw's or video-cds. It had trouble reading a DVD (ALL region Hong Kong Movie DVD) and it is very sensitive to the discs it plays; it doesn't even like minor scratches, causing skipping and pixallation. In addition, it takes longer than my other DVD (panasonic Rv31s)to load discs and ESPECIALLY to skip songs on audio CDs. This RCA, however, is great value player if all you do is watch DVDs straight on TV. The colors are good and contrast is good. I feel that the brightness level is a bit on the low-end causing some loss of clarity in the dark areas of the movie. I do pay attention to details so I notice these things. But, the difference is so MINOR visually most people won't notice anything less in this RCA than a more expensive machine. I would say that this player is perhaps the best you can get for this price (better than APEX and Oritron). Samsung players in this price range did get good reviews as well from Consumer Report.