A networked DVD player? Is it any good?......NO! (Kiss DP-1500)

Member Name: contagiousmind

Product:	Kiss DP-1500
Date:	03/09/08 (159 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: At the time, the features were very good!

Disadvantages: Extremely unreliable

The Kiss DP-1500 on paper is a brilliant peice of kit. I honestly can't remember how I stumbled across it, but it fitted my needs perfectly. The one thing that stood out to me was the network streaming functionality. It would connect to your home network and internet via an ethernet or wireless connection. (A wireless PCMCIA card required for wireless connectivity). With the aid of some software on your PC you could browse the media that is on your PC on this unit, select it and play!

This device has numerous connection methods which make it extremely versatile, both digital optical and coaxial audio outs, scart, and stereo phono outputs.

I paid a full £100 for this from ebuyer.com over 2 years ago. It was relatively easy to setup. I connected it to a router via ethernet that connected to my PC to get the media streaming working. The sheer amount of codecs it supports it very impressive, DivX, Xvid, RAM, WMV etc. I don't think I found a video file that this thing wouldn't play. The picture quality wasn't bad at all either. obviuosly this would depend on the quality of the network connection and file you were streaming.

Unfortunetaley the pleasure was short lived! After a couple months the unit would freeze up every now and then, which was solved by unplugging, leaving a few seconds and plugging back in. Obviously not ideal, and not what you want a £100 DVD player to do! One night about 7 or 8 months after purchase, it froze while I was watching a DVD, and that was it.... dead, finished!

I contacted the Kiss 'customer services' via email and phone a numebr of times to no avail. Around this time I found out that Kiss had been bought by Lynksis which I though might help me, as they were a large company! But still got nothing! In the end I decided to take matters into my own hands and after looking on the internet for advice I found help and assistance at mpcclub.com. I found out what the main causes for my problems, and possible fixes. I followed some advice and managed to replace a couple components on the PSU which seem to bring it back to life, but with all the same problems as before!

Within a year, this thing has died and came back to live more times than Elvis! Luckily for me I now have an xbox 360 and PS3 which do the media streaming from a networked PC, but they do it well, and without breaking!!

In short I would not recommend that you get one of these. Get an Xbox or PS3 instead!

Summary: Don't get one!

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