Customer Reviews

Zenith DVB412 Ultra-Slim Progressive-Scan DVD Player

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

 

 

I bought the DVB412 through Amazon in December 2004 and it failed in August 2005. For many months after purchase it was almost unused. After about 3 months of use it gave "ERROR" on the display and rejected all DVDs I tried to play. Cleaning the DVDs was no help. I called Zenith's 800 number, and the lady immediately said "bad laser", but said unplug the unit for 30 minutes and try again. This did not help. I called Zenith again, they are willing to exchange the unit for $45 under the warranty which after 90 days covers parts only, not labor. (Guess it costs them $45 to ship out another one!?) I am thinking this player could be a lemon.

I should have read these reviews before-and not after-purchasing one of these players, for I experienced the same problem described by the reviewer from Canada. After one week of use, the unit began to reject certain discs that would play without any difficulty in other DVD players. Either it failed to read a disc and gave a "disc error" message or it read the disc but failed to show the movie. Not wanting to deal with the frustrations of a possibly defective unit, I returned it at once to Circuit City for a full refund and bought a Panasonic player (model S29), which, as of this writing, is working just fine. For those of you considering this Zenith product, my advice is "Let the buyer beware."

After having suffered for nearly three years with a three hundred dollar Sony DVD player that continually skipped, froze, and refused to play some discs, while giving out the dreaded error message, I finally tossed in the towel. I decided to go cheap and picked up this attractive compact DVD player for sixty dollars.

I have had it for six months, and it has worked perfectly. I have experienced none of the audio-synchronization issues about which other reviewers have complained, and I watch many, many films. It is easy to use and has never once skipped, froze, or given out an error message.

So, I am quite satisfied with its performance, which, thus far, has been stellar. If it should break down in a year or so, I will feel that I will have gotten my money's worth. I am sorry to say that I could not possibly have said that about the Sony DVD player that I ended up junking.

it gives good picture. i wouldn't know much about the sound since i use the thing on a mono tv. i can say more when i get a home theater system. anyway, it's a good dvd player at a good price. it reads every disc i've put in there (dvd, cd, cd-r, cd-rw, mp3, wma, vcd, svcd) and it even reads more from what i've heard. the only problem is the audio and video are a little unsynchronized. it isn't very noticeable like when people are talking or driving cars, but it can be sort of annoying when there are sudden sounds like gunshots and clicks. it would've gotten a five from me, but the a/v 'outta synch' stopped it.

The player plays video very well and plays all of the formats described but the audio does run in line with the action in the DVD. It only gets worse if you have to pause and restart the movie. Other than this annoying fact, the player works great but I would not recommend anyone to buy this player even at such a low price.

This DVD player is definitely the best I've had. As a college student, I have quite a bit of free time to watch movies. The TV that I had bought on [...] had a built in DVD player, which was one of the reasons I bought it in the first place. After about a year of owning the television, the DVD player stopped working. Amazon.com provided me with a quick and easy location to buy an affordable working DVD player and had it to me within a few days! The only downside of the player is that it is a bit larger than expected. It looks fine sitting underneath the television, but it is not small enough to put anywhere else...(I live in a dorm so things are a bit tight). Other than that, it is a wonderful player and I'm hoping it will last me until I'm forced to get a Blue Ray disc player...or whatever those newfangled things are called :P

I bought this player just after christmas. For what I paid for it, it was a great value. I especially liked that it played both
+/- DVD formats. The remote is standard and easy. Lots of players like the Panasonics only play the -R DVD format. I create my own home movies on both + and - R DVD disks and have not had a problem with the display formatting. I noticed others were complaining about the sound. I have not seen what they are referring to but will look more closely next time. LOTR 1-3 all seemed in sync to me. The only issue that I did see was that when I created my own DVD's with a background video running, the background video only ran for 10 seconds and then stopped. The foreground remained correct. I checked it on a couple other players and did not have this problem. This troubled me, but for such an inexpensive player, if I ever really get annoyed I'll just toss it out and buy something else.

This DVD player is junk, DON"T BUY IT. At first, it seemed OK, but i hadn't yet noticed the severity of the audio sync problem. My friend pointed it out to me, and then i began seeing it more and more. It's so annoying i power off the DVD player and power it back on to try and get it to work. Also, now it ahs developed a "Disc Error" problem. I put in BRAND NEW Dvd's, haven't even been played, and get a "disc error" problem. You have to repeat this process about 30 times before it actually loads, and some DVD's don't. I'm going to try and bring it back to where I bought it and complain that it has chronic issues (audio sync), and hopefully get my money back, because this was the biggest waste of money EVER!

after having over 15 dvd players ive come to expect the worst it seems u need to be lucky to find a cheap good quality dvd player i paid over a $100 a piece for 2 sonys both skipped i replaced one with a sumsung that also skipped so i tried cheaper ones like the cybertron and it skipped i tried a sanyo and it didnt skip but 2 units in a row couldnt detect the remote now i have this zenith thin line dvd player my first impression was o great more poor construction as i noticed only 2 of its legs touch the ground meaning the dvd player could rock back and forth if the musics too loud and thats obviously not helpful for a skipfree performance so before i returned it i decided to test it i played 4 new dvds all 4 have played perfectly thats 8 hours in a row of movies with no skips and no out of synch audio and the picture and sound is better than i expected and easily rival the sonys i paid twice as much for the dvd player itself is very cool looking and the remote is big easy to use and includes batteries so im going to rent a few movies if they play well as the others then ill be convinced i finally found a reasonably priced dvd player that works well remember it seems every brand of dvd player has problems and many are damaged in shipping so you just got to find one and test it if it works on several dvds its good as youre going to get so keep itUPDATE WELL ONCE AGAIN ANOTHER DVD PLAYER IS JUNK I THOUGHT I FINALLY FOUND A GOOD WORKING DVD PLAYER BUT AFTER A FEW MONTHS PROBLEMS HAVE OCCURED MORE AND MORE IT SEEMS THE MOUTHS ARENT IN SYNC WITH THE VOICES ITS LIKE WATCHING FREAKING KUNGFU THEATRE IT DOESNT DO IT ON MOST DVDS BUT IT STILL OCCASIONALLY HAPPENS ALSO BECAUSE THE MORON WHO MADE MY PARTICULAR DVD PLAYER DIDNT DO THE LEGS RIGHT ON THE BOTTOM ONLY LIKE 2 LEGS ARE TOUCHING SO IF YOU GOT A BIGSCREEN AND TURN UP SURROUND SOUND IT SHAKES THE DVD PLAYER MAKING IT SKIP OWELL IF YOU GET ONE WITH BETTER LEGS(IM SURE YOU WILL) YOU GET A DECENT DVD PLAYER FOR 50 WITH AMAZING PICTURE AND SOUND BUT OCCASIONALY SOME DVDS LIPS DONT MATCH THE VOICES IM NOW GIVING IT 3 STARS INSTEAD OF 5