Schneider DVD 857 from ASDA (Schneider DVD 810)

Member Name: baldrickuk

Product:	Schneider DVD 810
Date:	07/04/03 (1206 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Plays anything, multi-region, 3 year ASDA warranty

Disadvantages: uses, elec, tricity

This is for the Schneider 857 from ASDA, bought March 2003.

This all started when my Brother in law couldn't play a DVD on his old DVD player. It was a region 2 DVD but it turns out it was NTSC (American Format) and his player wouldn't convert it, the DVD was from Singapore hence the strange combination.... anyway.

Off he goes at 9pm on a Saturday and returns with his 857 from ASDA £89 quid bargain and the disc played perfectly. I read the box and handbook this is what I found.

Outputs

SCART, Composite, RGB and S-Video outputs, coaxial and optical digital sockets, Dolby Digital and DTS decoding on-board with individual Sound output sockets, great so what can it play?

Formats

svcd's, vcd's, cdr, cdrw, dvdr, dvdrw, dvd+r, dvd+rw, mp3's, music cd's copies and originals

If you want you can rip your CD collection into MP3 format, stick as many as you want on a CD and it will play them for you excellent but there is one more thing it can do which i was chuffed to monkeys about; If you have a digital camera, you can copy the JPEG files onto a CD and this machine will play them for you, you can pause and rotate pictures while looking, or it will just play them in a slideshow. I use this function alot.

It appears to handle NTSC or PAL discs and outputs a PAL signal and if you want it region free there are several ways of doing this, just do an internet search for "857 region free" and you're bound to find something that works. I have made mine region free and it works, definitely.

Controls

The panel controls are small and not easily read, plus they all look the same (small round buttons) but you didn't buy it for those did you it's got a remote control which does everything, and includes a key lock feature which prevents the player buttons working, great when you've got a 2 year old.

Setting up

Easy peasy, the man
ual is comprehensive, I thought, and the on screen menu's are easy to follow, there is a password feature where you can set up parental controls for level of certificate, you know PG, 18 etc. The default password is 1234 in case you can't find it in the text (I missed it twice). You can set up the audio and type of screen that you use 16:9 etc

In summary

It's silvery in appearance, quite slim about 2-3 inches tall. It plays just about anything including JPEG files, it can be made region free, oh and ASDA give it a free 3 year warranty, yes 3 years.

As far as I'm concerned for less than 90 quid you can't go wrong

Summary: