Acoustic Solutions DVD-421

The DVD421 is quite simply a little gem of a machine for the price, I purchased it for £54.99 from Richer Sounds. I was fairly impressed with the picture quality through an S-Video lead, but the 'normal' setting through a Scart lead wasn't all that good at all. If you have an S-Video socket on your TV then you'll be fine with this unit. Whilst the picture isn't as good as my old Toshiba SD2109 you can't really complain considering the price.

Sound isn't too bad at all and compared favourably with my Toshiba model.

You won't believe the size of unit itself! It's tiny and makes my Toshiba look like a behemoth! It sits quite snugly on top of my Sky digibox.

The remote control response isn't too hot however. You have to make sure that you point the remote directly at the IR sensor on the 421 to get it to respond. It is annoying, but I can certainly live with it. You do have to be quite heavy handed with the buttons on the main unit too.

So - if you don't have much money to spend on a DVD player (and you have an S-Video socket on your TV) this could be the baby for you!

The A S 421 is excellent value for money..........but, mine only lasted 2 months and then took on a life of its own.

Sometimes it refused to recognise the dvd or anything else for that matter.

Sometimes it played fine and then just stopped and refused to start again.

Other times it became jerky or blocky.

I have today returned/exchanged the unit at Richer sounds.

They were helpful with no arguement and hopefully I can be up and running within the next few minutes.

Overall: Whatever you buy can go wrong.

Before probs I was very satisfied.

Happy with return/exchange policy.

Only time will tell.

Other reviewers have commented on the box being light and panel buttons needing a hard push, but I've no problems here - considering the small size, it's heavy enough to stay put, especially with a Digibox on top.

The remote control does have a narrow angle of operation - you need to be within about 30 degrees of the IR receiver window. The remote allows control of the line out volume, so if you're connecting to an amplifier, you get remote volume control. However the volume level is quite low compared to broadcast or Digibox, so you need to keep your TV remote handy.

The remote control itself feels fine in your hand, but the curved back means that it slips easily from any surface that's not completely flat.

I've not been able to do a side-by-side comparison for picture quality, but I've no complaints. Overall it's great value for £70.

So far so good - bought mine last week from Richer for £69 and it plays everything I want (even though the muppet from Richer said it would not play VCD in order for me to buy a more expensive model) with the hack codes, see

http://www.dvd.reviewer.co.uk/info/multiregion/full/Acoustic421.asp

Like the quality of sound and picture - Lord of the Rings was amazing.

Not had any probs from the remote yet like other reviewers.

I boought this from Richer sounds for eighty quid (timed it badly). At first was chuffed. Good picture, good soound but after a few minutes of watching I could see that there was something not right. Where there should've been smooth colour gradients there was staggered effects. When I was watching large dark areas there were huge pixels that seemed unsure of what exact colour they were supposed to be. It was way more distracting than any effects generated by a video so I returned this player to the shop. Smoked jerked across the screen rather than flowed.

I did think it may have just been a symptom of such a cheap machine but I took the films I'd been watchiing to my mums house and a sixty quid 'Apex' machine and the picture on that was much better.

Richer Sounds didn't have the 421 in stock so they exchanged it for a 451 at no extra charge. There is still some small grainy pixelation but it is reasonably easily ignored. The colour and brightness on the 451 isn't as good as the 421 though. It seems to flatten skin tones to an ugly orangey peach and it seems dull. Still trying to decide whether to keep this one or not.If I had any spare money I'd definitely change it.

The most tempting thing though is the Macrovision crack. My TV is old and only has one scart so it is easier for me to play the dvd through the video. (I have tested it 'direct' though, to check it wasn't causing any of the picture problems!!)

I originally had an Alba 108 purchased from Argos, but I wasn't happy when it turned out that it couldn't play VCDs, despite the picture on the back of the catalogue that featured a version of the model that could. I found out about the hack from this site, but found it too annoying and unreliable, plus I also found out from this site that there were various models of DVD player around that could be hacked to disable the macrovision. I had been looking into the possibility of buying an expensive device to overcome this feature, so was well pleased when I found out about the Acoustic Solutions 421.

Argos helpfully took back my old model, even though I had had it three months, and so I went off to Richer and bought it the same day. They even supplied a pre-printed hack sheet! It only took a few minutes to make it multi-region, VCD playing and copyable. I was worried that it would be poorer picture-quality wise than the Alba, but it was equal to or even slightly better, plus the features are more numerous.

I am VERY pleased with it and I think that for £79.99 it is a great price. I also bought the Richer Sounds three year £20 warranty (refunded if not used) so have peace of mind as well.

I purchased this Acoustic Solutions DVD 421 DVD player from Richer Sounds in Plymouth. I was surprised at the small footprint of the unit. Having set it up, I tested it with both audio CDs and DVD films. Picture quality with the DVDs is impressive, even when zoomed in. Some older music CDs seem to have a slight static hiss, but for the money, you can't argue! The problems I have found with this unit are the narrow pickup angle and poor response from the remote control, and you have to be 'heavy handed' with the buttons on the player, which, for such a small unit, can cause problems.

The performance of this Acoustic Solutions DVD 421 DVD player is very good. Sound is punchy and crisp, but can be a little hard with vocals, especially with 'sh' and 'ch' sounds (I'm comparing to my Marantz 6000OSE though). The only problems I found with it is the pausing for a second in the middle of a film, and with some cds I have it is noisy and vibrates a lot, mostly on the first track. The former appears to be a software problem, the latter is cured by putting a big weight on top of it :-) can't complain for £69. The buttons are nice and positive, the drive opens and closes very smoothly and silently.

After having an LG 2880, I decided i wanted to go multi-region after seeing this Acoustic Solutions DVD 421 DVd player in Richer Sounds. So I went down to buy and when i got home unpackaged this and sat down comparing the size of the 421 to the 2880 for 5 minutes! This player is tiny!

Set it up and put in Final Destination to test it and was greeted by a better picture and audio then my previous player. No problems such as layer changing glitch as well (which was noticeable on my old player).

But there is a catch - the remote is not great by any standard. You have to press the buttons too hard and you have to aim it precisly at the ir port, but as they say nothings perfect!

My advice to anyone with more common sense then money is to pick one of these up as they are fantastic for the price!

I just bought this Acoustic Solutions DVD 421 DVd player from Richer Sounds at London Bridge (www.richersounds.co.uk) for £69.95. This unit is so compact that the box that it came in is as big as some of the DVD players that I've seen!

On opening the box it comes with manual and remote plus batteries but no connections, although for the price you can't really quibble about. 40x30x5cm thick it's one of the smallest DVD players around, setting up was easy having that it had a number of different connections (1x scart, s-video, coaxial, Dolby Digital & DTS Sound, MP3 player)I placed a gold scart > scart TV.

Placing a CD-R video into the player it auto detected the type of disk and played after a few seconds delay. This was pretty impressive since other more expensive brand name models you would have to set-up the type of disk manually. The same with DVD films.

One of the more impressive functions is the ability to go into "set-up" mid-film without having to start the movie again from the begining. As well as the normal setting on offer (multi-angle, zoom, slow motion, upto x32 f/forward or rewind, PBC) RGB & YUB is offered as standard as well.

Using "The Matrix" to test the player I paused and zoomed into the frame to find minimal distortion and playing at x4 zoom had the same results.

One of the only bug bears that I have is the remote IR connection which has a very narrow margin of operation and the need to press the buttons firmly. I can see the remote malfunctioning reasonable soon. The buttons on the player are not much better either: to operate the buttons you press so hard as to move the whole machine, but these are small prices to pay when you consider you can region select and can play RCE disks. The player is macro-hackable. If you want to watch an MPEG video on a CD single you won't be able to. Instead the player recognises that it is a "CD-DA" and will only play the audio part of the disk.

The region hack is as follows:-

1. Open the disk ray, then press "SET-UP"

2. Press the "NEXT" key

3. Press the "PREV" key

4. Press the "NEXT" key

4. Press the "PREV" key

Enter "Region code setup"

VER255 = Region free (under this setting your DVD Player should play most discs, except those with RCE)

VER1 = Region 1

VER2 = Region 2

Press "LEFT" (<) or (>) "RIGHT" key

To Disable Macrovision:-

Press "DOWN" key twice

VER4001 = Macrovision enable

VER4000 = Macrovision disable

Press "LEFT" (<) or "RIGHT" (>)

On the whole, this is one of the best DVD players available at the price with the expanded range of hackable functions to play almost anything you want (except the enhanced section on Audio CD's). For another £20 you can have Dolby 5.1 out. Richer Sounds offer you an insurance policy for £9.99 for 3 years including 50% buy-back if you wish to upgrade with them or if you don't use the policy they'll refund the money back. You can't lose. All that would complete the package would be a second scart socket.

Don't delay BUY this DVD player now. Each store only has about 30-50 units and once they've gone. THEY'VE GONE!