Astar DVD-3200 Progressive Scan DVD Player
Non-Hollywood DVDs play sporadically
I bought two Astar DVD-3200 units to play training DVDs produced in-house.   <br /> <br />The Good: the 3200 has a nice sleek design and full function remote with zoom-in and volume control, and it automatically loops the program. It plays Hollywood DVDs well. It is amazing anyone could make this thing for $29. <br /> <br />The Bad: little things like 1972-style LED indicators (display says LOAd instead of LOAD or Load); big problem is that the in-house training DVD did not play well at first. It showed serious compression/decompression artifacts and audio skipping.  Sometimes when I insert the DVD, the player thinks it is a DVD-R, so I remove and re-insert the disc a few times until it read correctly. After several power cycles, restarts, disc reloads, and maybe the 1+ hour burn-in period, the training DVD plays acceptably. To be fair, the problem could be the disc, but the same training disc played flawlessly in an Xbox and a Powerbook. <br /> <br />According to my video post-production expert, short-run DVDs produced in-house often have problems playing in older DVD players and it would seem in new cheap DVD players. <br /> <br />Fortunately I burned-in and tested this thing before the training meeting.  If you need a perfect out-of-the-box experience playing in-house or non-Hollywood DVDs, you might want to test your disc before you buy, or spend a little more for a name brand.