Customer Reviews

Sampo DVE-631CF DVD Player with CF Reader and Photo Playback

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is unquestionably the best budget priced DVD player on
the market. Build quality is good. Picture quality is good.
Feature list is outstanding: Plays MP3s. Plays "burned" VCD
and SVCD disks. Can display a set of pictures from a compactflash
card using the built in compactflash reader (only DVD
player in the world with this)...

AND then there's the really good stuff: 1) For those with
aptitudes for this kind of thing, you can hack this deck
to replace the compactflash reader with a hard drive. This
turns the DVD player into a DVD player + MP3 jukebox; 2) You
can hack the player to turn off Macrovision and to make it
region-free (so you can play DVDs from other countries).

There are cheaper players on the market, but they all
pale in comparison to this one, both in quality and/or in
hackability.

Unless you are looking for a very high end deck, or a feature
like progressive scan (which is one of the few features this
deck does not offer), your search should begin and end with
this player.

Not to mention that as of this writing, Amazon has the lowest
price on the planet (as far as I've determined) on this deck!

dap

I have own this unit for 1 week now and finally deceided to write this review. All I can say is best well spent money in my life.

1. Unit came in a nicely packed box. Very well protected. Came with a remote, the unit and user manual. (I am the type that never read the manual and just jump right into playing with it. Without learning, this uint is extremely user friendly.)

2. I first tried opening the tray and put a DVD in there. The tray opened smoothly on a constant speed. (which is a good sign) Picture loaded up almost instantly....however, due to my wide screen TV. The aspect ratio was off. I pushed SETUP and made the proper adjustment under TV setup. The setup menu is very friendly.

3. Next, I inserted a CF card into the slot. A folder list came right up. My pictures and some of my MP3 files are all there. All you have to do is scroll with the up down arrow key to get to your favorite then enter to select the item. I had some 3.3 Mega images saved on it. It loaded up faster than my computer. Now, I really dont use my computer to do the image preview anymore. You may also do Slide show, Zoom, and Rotate on all the images.....>AMAZING!!! MP3 played just fine, very good audio quality.

4. I burned some images onto a CD-R and MP3. Pop it in the tray, the folder menu came right up! I was shocked...... Wwhat else can I expect more? Componet out, Optical audio out, Dolby, DTS decoder built in! Subwoofer out....Sampo have really out spec this unit for the money.

I ordered another unit to use in the office because I can show digital image instantly on our screen in the conference room.

At first, my biggest concern was the brand Name. I have never heard of SAMPO in my life. I took the risk to try it and realized they have really put out a great product. Highly recommanded.

Joe Umemura

I bought it primarily for its photo viewing capabilities. Able to view crisp and sharp digital photos in JPEG either from my compact flash card or a photo CD, burned on a CD-R with Nero 5. A must for the digital photographer.

This is an amazing Player for the price. It will play the standard DVDs, VCDs, MP3 CDs plus it will play straight MPEG files off a data CD or Compact Flash Card. With both optical and coaxial digital audio outputs and composite video this will connect to anything. This is an amazingly versitle player everyone should be happy with.

For a relatively inexpensive DVD player this machine is incredible. It can play DVD,VCD,CD,CD-R,CD-RW,MP3,JPEG and even some MPEG's. Also for those so inclined the player can also be "modified" to enable features such as "VCR friendly". It truly is amazing and should you decide to buy this player you will not be disappointed.

I like this DVD very much. Its processor is fast and menu is easy
to access. Images are sharp and detail. If DVD can play sound
and pictures in the same time plus transitions, it will be perfect I experienced that DVE-631CF works very well with picture
format 1280x960, it produces DVD quality and fast display.
However, it won't work with some JPEG format download from WEB,
you have to convert it to JPEG from PhotoShop or other software.

I am very pleased with this model. Thumbs up for Sampo.

The good: Its picture quality, ease of operation and extended features (mp3, jpg, vcd) are excellent. It is fast, decodes jpegs correctly (mind you, not all jpegs: read the user manual), and has this very nice compact flash card reader which goes beautifully with my video camera.

The bad: Several bugs one can live with (such as: cannot eject an mp3 cd from the unit if it is in standby, must use the remote) and some features I really wished it had: picture slideshow using multiple directories, mp3 playlist from multiple directories. Also, the remote is too cluttered. I've seen better designs for primary use buttons (play / stop / still, program / navigate / select).

The ugly: Sampo should double-check the consistency and correctness of its user manuals before sending them to the printing press. For instance, on one page you are advised against playing mp3 CDs with this unit (?) whereas several pages later you are given a lenghty description on how to do just that. English language also suffers from grammar and syntax mutilation.

Conclusion: excellent player, good capabilities, excellent price. Such a pity it is no longer in production (so, if you want one, hurry up before it goes out of stock).

I got my first DVD player as a Christmas gift 3 years ago. It was an overpriced sony - the run of the mill fodder type that just played DVD's. The fast forward was a bit querky and slow, and for the price my sister payed for it definatly not worth it.

So, I gave her the sony back this Christmas and got myself a the Sampo DVE-631CF. Partly because I wanted something that would play my hundreds of my custom burned music CD's.

I decided to get this model after reading many reviews on it online and a friends reccomendation.

It played all my VCD's, SVCD's, XVCD's, DVD-R's, and DVD-rw's
and my MP3's perfectly without a hitch! Couple that with a solod design - What more could you ask for!

Ohh yea.. Compact Flash reader! I wonder why anyone never thought of this before! No more plugging my Canon Digital Camera into my TV, No I can just take my digital pics and preview them through my DVD player. Very cool feature indeed!

To top it off the Sampo has an excellent FF/REW capabilities. I was able to due 20x FF without the picture jumping all over the place and skipping like my sony did at 4x FF.

The one negative that I can find about this unit, albeit a small negative, would be the remote. Its comfortable and small
but something about the button arangement just isnt doing it
for me. :( But aside that its 100% PERFECT!

All in all I'd have to say this Sampo DVD player is an excellent addition to system and it has found it self a permanant home along with the rest of my AV equipment.

With all of the features (RBG output - sub woofer... etc)
the only reason I didn't give 5 stars is because of the
remote control. The most used keys, "play pause slow stop"
are the smaller than the number keys.. go figure...

This DVD player doesn't offer a very good DVD playback quality. It has great features - jpg, mp3, vcd, CF card slot, PAL->NTSC conversion etc. but the basic functionality of the video display is lacking. Contrast and brightness of the picture are "improved" (not!) by the player and colors look dull and inaccurate. The black level and brightness dynamic (shadow detail) are not satisfactory. Sharpness is good. DVD should look better than this (vibrant and accurate color, stable picture ?), so please be careful when purchasing this unit. Also the DVD drive inside is very noisy.

I'm comparing this unit to a RCA player displaying on a Sony 27'' Trinitron. The 4 year old RCA clearly outperforms this machine - color accuracy is way better and shadow detail is preserved. I don't know why Sampo added this Black Level extender and smart brightness&contrast enhancement circuitry. It just doesn't work and does more bad than good. I constantly have to adjust brightness and contrast on my TV. With all other video sources I can just leave all picture controls at 50% on my Sony TV and they look good. Maybe I need a Sampo TV. Also some DVD disk start to vibrate in the drive when they spin very fast. They should not have to spin that fast - just at 1x DVD speed as they are DVD-Video disks.

So as other reviews may suggest this is the only DVD player you may ever want to own I would disagree. But I agree that it is a budget player and would not outperform higher end machines.