Initial DVD-5820 Portable DVD Player with 5.8-Inch Screen
Good product - poor customer service
I've owned this unit for about 2 years. The only problem I've had is the power receptacle came loose. I work on mechanical and electrical devices quite often, so I found it easy to disassemble and repair that. I eventually purchased a DVD recorder to make back up copies for movies I wanted to take on trips and for my home movies. The unit was not able to play any of the DVD-R or DVD+R formats I tried. I called the customer service people at Initial asking if there was a firmware upgrade I could acquire that would make the unit compatible. (Firmware is the operating system and is actually software that is written to a memory chip on the player). The person at Initial was polite, but decidedly very unhelpful in a smug way (smarmy). He told me the unit is no longer manufactured and that they do not have the firmware. Thinking I might also have a corrupt firmware, I asked if I could get just the original firmware; either just the firmware or send the unit to them to have them install it. He told me THEY DON'T EVEN KEEP THE ORIGINAL firmware. I had to laugh. I know it's a little piece of code that will fit onto a floppy disk. If the R&D people don't keep that, they don't have anything with which to use as a base for the next version of players or to fall back on if the next version fails. Not only that, but to those wanting to purchase one, this means INITIAL CANNOT FIX THE UNIT IF IT BREAKS. I asked him &quot;So, in reality, you guys don't want to help me, right?&quot;. The lack of a reply was enough for me. Other than that, I've put the unit through a lot of abuse and it is still going strong! <br />