9 out of 9 people found this review helpful.
Don't let the price fool ya, this one hangs with the big dogs.
Date of Review: Feb 7, 2006
The Bottom Line: If you're in the market for a DVD player. BUY THIS ONE!!! You won't be disappointed.
I bought the Astar 3800 because for the price it played almost every video and audio format under the sun. When it arrived i was pleasantly surprised to see that it was utterly gorgeous (Just so you guys know the picture isnt of the actual player. The actual one is silver with a mirrored front.) On just about every picture i have seen it was shown as silver with a black front.
Now for some info about the player. Its fairly thin, It replaced my AMW S99 player. One thing that i have seen mentioned about the Astar was that there were no region hacks for it, the reason why is because it doesnt need one. I was able to play a Region 6 DVD with no problems (shocked the hell out of me too!!). So, im guessin its region free from the factory, im not mad at all :) I had to hack the AMW S99 to get such a DVD to play.
The error correction software on the Astar is top notch as well. I have a highly scratched CD that makes all but the best of players go crosseyed trying to read it without skipping. The Astar didnt miss a beat, and played the CD in its entirety with out so much as a skip.
Track selection also occurs lightning fast (enough for me to notice the speed difference). I have had players before that seemed to take for ever to seek out a particular track. Not so with the Astar. A full disk seek (From track 1 to track 19) takes less than 3 seconds. Track to track (sequentially) takes less than 1 sec.
I have read other reviews on different websites stating that the remote is poorly designed and whatnot. I beg to differ. It might look a bit bland, but it gets the job done with no problems.
DTS and Dolby Digital work flawlessly. Just make sure you set everything up in the menu of the Astar. The aforementioned setup menu is fairly easy to understand. The manual fails to mention the function of a few features, but this didnt detract from the use of the player for me.
A worthy mention is that the CD tray on the player is a bit thin (about 3mm) and looks like it will snap off fairly quickly if youre not careful. I would suggest using only the eject button to open and close the tray. As well as inserting disks with care. The Display is also fairly bright, i have yet to find a dimmer feature, but i dont think this will distract me during a movie. I just have all of my equipment dimmed out to its darkest readable setting.
Overall buying this outstanding DVD player for $47 including shipping gave me the same feeling i would get buying a Corvette for the price of a Civic. I wont be buying another DVD player any time soon Astar has made one hell of a product here.
