Customer Reviews

RCA RTD255 5-Disc DVD Home Theater System

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

 

 

The DVD player started freezing up on me after only a few months of use. Sometimes if I unplugged & plugged it in again, it would temporarily fix the freezing problem...for a few days...maybe. A few weeks after the freezing started, the DVD player wouldn't properly play DVD's. I tried several different discs, even brand new ones...same issue. The audio and video wouldn't be lined up, now it is only showing half of the picture and the rest of the screen is yellow. My TV is fine, it's this RCA DVD player. The player itself seems to get very hot, so maybe it's an overheating issue that causes all the problems? Overall, it is LOUD (lots of clunking noises when changing discs), SLOW (painfully slow, like 30+ seconds to load a disc), and just plain unreliable. I've had better luck with my 3 year old Apex DVD player (which never freezes up BTW).

The speaker system has been pretty decent (so far)....the only reason I gave this system a 2-star rating.

For close to $200 I expected something a lot more reliable that wouldn't poop out on me after 2 months.

My next DVD player will NOT be an RCA!

I bought this unit as a present for my husband, the first one we had only a month, it continually froze up during frames until it finally froze up and we couldn't get the door to open and give back the DVD. We returned it and the new one has the same problems. The discs regardless of the brand skip, freeze up, the audio and video will become unlined. I believe one of the prior reviews is correct in saying that the unit overheats. Most of the time when we turn the unit it on it makes a horrible loud noise, we will have to turn it off and on until it starts up fine. The sound, once it gets going, has great quality but I would not recommend purchasing this item.

I had RTD250 system that ate the DVD's within a month. After sending for repair, RCA said they would send me a new model and a couple of weeks later the RTD255 arrived.

The systems were very similar, but the drive changer does make a lot of clunky noises. This new unit did lock up, but unplugging it from the wall, and plugging it in again worked.

I never had an compatibility issues with the unit, all the DVD's seem to work fine.

The surprising thing I found is that my RCA VCR when controlled by *any* controller, will switch the theater system back to DVD mode. So RCA have obviously used the same IR code, so it frequently does this!

The sound and picture quality is fine. I output to a RCA 52" HDTV through component and the quality is fine.

The controller isn't programmable.

The unit does work, but seems a lot cheaper than the RTD250 (not that I got a rebate on it!)

If you get it cheap, go for it. If your considering other, read their review.

Have a great day.

RCA perhaps indicates its opinion of their machine in that the RTD255 does not exist on their website -- no manuals, no information about it.
The sound and DVD quality are quite good, when it works. It usually works.
But occasionally when loading or unloading the mechnical apparatus just stops working. Mysteriously, if I cycle the power off and on, it sometimes starts working again. It is also -- as other reviewers have noted -- Very Slow at loading CDs and DVDs; and the MP3 picture viewing is so slow as to be worthless.
The remote control is strangely designed; certain source types are not available on the remote.

Everytime I buy RCA, I get burned. Last month it was the wireless headphones that stopped working afetr 2 days, this time it's this horrible piece of garbage. It won't read half of my DVDs. I put in Alf Season One, and it reads it, displays the title on the menu screen, and then says "disc incompatible." Also when switching discs it makes a loud clunking noise and makes you think it's eating your DVDs. RCA needs to go out of business.