Generally a good machine, but … (Grundig GDV 210)

Member Name: Brett Bligh

Product:	Grundig GDV 210
Date:	26/09/00 (295 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: good price, doesn’t crash on ‘problem DVDs’ (such as The Matrix), easily handset-hacked.

Disadvantages: one or two irritating features, mainly involving onscreen displays (see below).

Retailing at less than £200 and sporting a sleek grey case, and with the added bonus that it is easily handset-hacked to multi-region status, the Grundig GDV210A is certainly a choice that should be considered when buying a DVD player. It supports anamorphic attempts to increase picture quality on widescreen televisions, and unlike other models which have low price tags attached, this player does not, to my knowledge, have problems playing any generally available DVDs (including The Matrix, a common sticking point, especially for the Proline), it has a zoom facility, and region 1 DVDs play with no problems at all once the little code has been typed in (if you really can’t find the code on the net then e-mail me).

There are, however, a few quibbles. Firstly and foremostly, the activation of almost all player functions is accompanied by an onscreen icon which appears in the top-left hand corner of the screen. This would be irritating in itself — I personally hate onscreen displays of any kind and turn them off whenever possible, but no such option is given here — if it weren’t for the fact that many makers of DVDs tend to program the DVD to pause at certain points, especially on copyright warning screens and non-animated menus; this would normally go unnoticed, as the pause facility for the DVD format is so good as to make it look as though you are looking at a completely unmoving picture which is being broadcast continually, but in this case the illusion is shattered by the intrusion onto the picture of a pause icon, followed by a play icon when the screen’s duration has expired. This is particularly noticeable at the end of films, when some releases include a whole host of copyright notices for different countries, and when you activate a menu option. It could be said that this does not interfere with the actual film itself, but purists like me would have preferred the option of turning these damn icons off — are you list
ening, Mr. Grundig?

The second problem is a related one. The display on the front of the machine shows the time elapsed for the current Chapter. In order to learn how far into the Title (and hence the film as a whole) one has watched, something any VCR user would take for granted, it is necessary to bring the damn information up on the screen — once again, an irritation for purists, but even more so when this information is displayed at the very top of the screen and hence cut off when watching a film in 16:9 mode on a widescreen television.

Oh yes, and, thirdly, the zoom facility is slightly blocky (this may be, of course, unavoidable). Since I didn’t buy this player to watch porn, however, I don’t think I’ll let this worry me too much.

I realise that at this point the tone of the review has turned decidedly negative; this was not, it must be stressed, my intention: I actually believe that this player IS good value for money, with a crisp and vibrant picture and good sound decoding, as well as SCART, S-Video and optical outputs (three out of three, not bad!), and I would say that overall I am satisfied with my purchase. It is simply that, having created an otherwise fine unit, the designers at Grundig had to mess things around: the main point, about the appearance of icons onscreen, is not about something missing from the player but actually about something the player has that I don’t want. This indicates a general lack of thought on the part of the designers of the device, which is a shame because otherwise they did a good job.

This IS a good DVD player for the price, and I would choose this against any comparable machine. But purists beware.

Summary: