Customer Reviews

Zenith ZDA-311 Slim Progressive Scan DVD

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

 

 

After having used a Zenith combo player (XBV-443) for over 2 years with no problems with either DVD or VHS components, I was looking for an inexpensive Zenith DVD player hoping the quality would have continued. I was wrong. This thing is not very good at all. But, what does one expect for the price?

It plays Joliet mp3 CDR's flawlessly, just like the XBV-443; you can navigate menus while playing, and track names are not truncated like on other players (eg, Phillips DVP-642).

The universal remote is logical & easy to use, the menus are fine, the manual is well written.

BUT, the main problem with this player must be the quality of the laser, for it has skipped on over 85 % of the mass-market DVD's I have played in it. I even returned it and tried another one -- same deal. The old XBV-443 had no problems at all with the exact same DVD's that skipped in the ZDA-311.

To boil it all down, if you want a cheap prog-scan DVD player, don't buy this one until they put some better lasers in it.

I've owned Zenith products in the past and was always pleased with their quality and performance. When my last DVD player stopped working I purchased the Zenith, thinking it would be a quality product. Much to my amazement I was horribly wrong in that assumption. This DVD player is a fart. That's right, a fart. Ten minutes into a DVD it stops playing and is completely unresponsive to any attempt to resume playing. The only solution is to unplug the unit and then plug it in again. This problem developed immediately after purchasing the DVD player with less than ten hours of use. I would rather buy a new DVD player than deal with the hassle of sending this piece back. The next time I feel compelled to waste some money, I'll just go buy a nice hat and sun dress, then break into the zoo and attempt to make the bear wear the hat and dress; because that would be less painful than trying to watch a DVD on this pile. Good bye, Zenith, never bother me again.

This is not the DVD player for you if you want it to work. Within a month of purchase, it quit playing all DVDs. It stops at 3 seconds and will go no further. Spend extra money and get a DVD player that works. I would never have purchased this one if I had read the reviews.

Regardless of whether this is a low-cost model or not, in this age of electronic gadgetry and falling prices on e-componentry, I would have expected this thing to function better. Up until now, I had a neutral-to-favorable perception of Zenith. But this DVD player works as if DVD players were a brand-new concept in which all the bugs have yet to be worked out. I have a seven-year-old Samsung DVD player that works far better than this, and has more features. What exactly is wrong with this Zenith model? Let me tell you.

It is advertised as an MP3 player. You can put an MP3 disk in and it will play, but the player makes an incessant, steady clicking or chirping noise which is quite loud, and intrudes upon the listening experience as much as someone with whooping cough at an orchestral performance. (CD play is acceptable though.) I called Zenith customer support regarding this and the "line" was that the disk was probably formatted wrong or the brand of disk was not compatible (in other words, blame the disk or the software which created it, not the player). But I tried a variety of MP3 disks in it and it had the same crappy play with all of them; and all of these MP3 disks play beautifully on my other, much older DVD player. But I didn't feel like wasting my time arguing with the support rep (nor was I in the mood to bang my head against a stone wall), so I let the matter drop with their tech support. Mainly I had just wanted to get it "on the record" with them (if they even keep such records) that their product has faulty performance in this area.

Moving right along, this thing will not play any visual media outside of DVD's. It has the distinction of being one of the rare few DVD players that will not play an SVCD (super video CD). Even my seven-year-old Samsung player recognizes SVCD's, for crying out loud. In fact, this Zenith model does not play any form of Mpeg that I tried, be it Mpeg-1 or Mpeg-2 or what have you. I guess the Zenith team which threw this thing together have not heard of the revolutionary entity known as the PC. Cross-platform the ZDA-311 ain't. It is strictly limited to straight DVD and CD formats.

And I even have gripes about how it plays standard DVD's. Within several hours of using it, it froze up on a movie, and the only thing that worked was to skip ahead to a later scene before it would play normally again. I tried turning it off, re-inserting the disk, but it persisted in freezing up at the same point in the movie. This happened on a store-bought DVD movie that plays perfectly in my other, older DVD player.

I would have been better served to shell out an extra thirty or forty bucks and gotten something that works properly; and so will you. As for Zenith, after this frustrating experience, they go on my short list of companies to avoid.

I have owned this DVD player for 2 years now. It has worked extremely well for me. I have not had any breakdowns or mishaps. I use it pretty regularly with parents and in class with students. I have shown full length films, clips, played music and photo slideshows. I highly recommend this machine as an economical highly adaptive tool.