CyberHome CH-DVD 500 Progressive-Scan DVD Player

This was purchased from Best Buy 5 or 6 years ago (maybe even a bit earlier). It was cheap - not inexpensive but downright cheap. It has given me my money's worth without question. Plays DVDs that I have burned - music that I have burned to CD from Vinyl on my computer.

But now it seems as though it is ready to give up the ghost. Fond farewell - it has been a good ride.

New Samsung LCD to be delivered this week from Amazon. Time for a new DVD player to go with that unit and the Onkyo 606 I bought (but not yet installed).

Progressive scan, DTS, Dolby 5.1, Auto PAL or NTSC, region free (set it to Region 0 via the remote), component video output, selectable aspect ratio (4:3 or 16:9), composite video and audio cables included.

Put in any disc from any country and it plays. Beautiful picture and sound. What could be easier?

That about says it all - it broke within 6 months of purchase. I'm definitely not happy about that. Cyberhome charges for labor for any services after 3 months, so it might just be cheaper for me to get another player from a more reputed manufacturer (probably should've done that in the first place).

I don't think I mistreated the player in any particular way. I did often pause DVDs mid-way and leave the player on. Not sure if this should've caused any damage.

recently I bought this for my friend but I am not happy with this one, I have cyberHOme 300 that's very good and very cute.

I think CyberHome CH-DVD 500 Progressive-Scan DVD Player is very good. Its not you $30 basic payer. It has progressive scan and outputs, but sold for a reasonable $50. Pretty good so far

The is the 2nd CyberHome DVD player I have purchased. I use them to play DVD-R disks I burn at home. I have 3 combo VCR/DVD players, and find they will not play most of my homemade DVD-R (or +R), but the CyberHome works fine with them.

On many past DVD players, certain discs would never play. Others would also skip in a certain chapter.

With this player, all of that is gone. It works great.

I'm also digging the S-video output and digital audio output. Older DVD players wouldn't feature these things, but now I can take advantage of my nice t.v. and watch DVDs in 5.1 surround sound.

I bought this a year ago, probably used for 25 hrs max (since I had another DVD player also). This is broken already.

I don't advice people to buy this.

Easy to hook up. Great picture on my flat screen (not HD). Has played, so far, all music and video I have burned to disc with my PC. Great, economical price also.

Buy at your own risk. I got it since it was multi-region, great output options etc'. and it really was great in all other usability terms. However, Cyberhome sells bad quality. I know of 3 friends of mine that had CH and the unit stopped loading DVDs after less then 12-16 months. I thought I am ok since I had this 500 model, and they had the 300... no luck.
I got it sep-04, it was pronounced dead on apr-05... that is just 1.5 years of life time, which apears to be the going rate for Cyberhome.

here is the reply I got from them when I complained:
"'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
Sir, we appologize for the inconvenience and do really wich that you are under warranty but policy is policy and we have to be fair to everybody as well. Since we do not offer any refunds and we no longer have any parts or unit for this model. You would need to get it repaired possibly at a local repair shop. Once again, we appologize for the inconveneince.

regards,
jerry
CSD
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

good luck.

I bought one two years ago and it went out of service 13 months later. I could see only 15 DVDs. It was impossible to find any spare part of that player. So, I lost all I paid for it.

If it quits working do this! Open the disc tray and enter STOP-2-0-0-2 on the remote control. This will reset the factory defaults. IT WORKS!!!

This unit will not play DVDs that are coded for other regions than region 1, even if it does read PAL format DVDs. It is apparently illegal to sell DVD players in the Americas that can read DVDs coded for other then region 1. I thought this unit would allow me to see a DVD that a friend sent from France, but no way!

I bought this player two years ago, mainly based on information I'd researched online. The PAL->NTSC conversion, region code and Macrovision loopholes, and price were the deciding factors for me. This is the first (and only) DVD player I've ever had, and hopefully it'll stay that way for a while longer.

This player can play just about anything I put in it. I have the region code set to "All", via a hidden menu accessible by a code on the remote. PAL DVDs convert to NTSC format perfectly. Home-burned VCDs and SVCDs seem to play fine. Some DVD-Rs have not been able to play on this machine. And it apparently doesn't support DVD-Audio, but you can't really expect that from a lower-end model from 2 years ago. Considering the price, I'm sure the audio and video quality aren't top-of-the-line, but for my purposes, it looks and sounds great. Then again, I do only have it running through a VCR, as my TV only has a coaxial input. (for a while, it was connected through component inputs on a former roommate's TV, and the picture quality was considerably better) The stereo audio outputs are connected to my home stereo receiver. Another nice feature of this player, is that it can down-mix Dolby 5.1 and DTS audio tracks to 2-channel stereo, so I can listen to DTS tracks and not miss anything.

The only problem I've ever really had with this, is that it's freezed up on a couple of discs. The culprits being "Little Nicky" (freezes up on deleted scenes) and a Spanish R2 "Torrente" (freezes up on the warning screen). Oh, it also won't play enhanced audio CDs (CDs with data/multimedia files), but since I don't use this as a CD player, that's not really an issue for me. And, as previously mentioned, it's picky with DVD-Rs. Other than that, it's worked just fine for the entire time I've had it. Seeing how many people have reported problems with this player, I guess I've just been lucky.

i cant sing enough praise for this player.i have had mine for 2 years,and still going strong.i purchased originally as a back-up player,but now use it as my primary dvd player.the feature that many may not know about or understand,is the ntsc to pal conversion(and vice versa).this allows you to view dvds from ANY region/country in the world!!to do the same thing back in the vhs days would set ya back around a grand!

I have this player for about one year. It plays
all kind of DVD/VCD/CD disks, and it can be made region free.
However, The player started to overheat and frozen recently , and it has problems reading some disks. I cleaned the player with a lens cleaner disk, but it did not help.
Looks like it is dying. My Old Pioneer player still works after more than 3 years.
It was a nice machine, but it did not last.

I experienced the same as many previous reviewers. And just like one of them, I bought two of these units. One quit working after about 6 months of VERY LIGHT USE. I'll bet I played less than 15 movies with it. It said "Bad Disk" with any disk I loaded.

The other lasted a bit longer but after having a baby we used it less than the first one. Now this one turns on, but there is no response from the buttons on the bezel or the remote.

I bought these after reading great reviews. Don't make the same mistake! Check out the reviews on their other products. Do not buy ANYTHING from this company.

I have not had any problem with this player. So far it has been great. At first, it wouldn't play all regions but I went to videohelp.com and found the region-free crack. Now, it plays any region dvd even bootleg copies burned to DVD-R/+R. It is well worth the 50 bucks I paid for it.

I've used this player off and on for about a year and have no complaints other than the sub woofer channel apprears not to work. Tried every possibility and after reading these reviews, I think it is the player. If anyone has had a similar problem, please contact me. I'll probably buy another player and see if the problem corrects itself.

We bought two of these DVD's from Sams Club because of the great price that they were. We loved them at first, and thought they were very user friendly compared to another higher priced DVD player we had in the past. The first one quit working after about 7 months, and the second one literally "BLEW UP" after 9 months! Sparks, popping and everything. I wish I had read these other reviews before buying. BUYER BEWARE!

I bought this player about a year and a half ago and haven't had any complaints. It's not the best player in the world, but for the price it's worth it. My only complaint has been that the display on the front is starting to dim after about an hour of play but thats the only problem I've had. And for the $50 I paid...I can't complain.

I've had this DVD player for over a year. I have upgraded the BIOS twice. I have it set as region 0 (in other words, region free). There are tutorials on the internet on what you need to do to make it region 0. It's just in a hidden menu.

I play this thing to death, and have only ever had one problem with it. The problem was with "Anger Management," but I flashed the BIOS the the new version, and everything was perfection again.

The new BIOS is available from Cyberhome's official web site. All you need to do is download the ISO (disc image), use an ISO burning program (nearly every popular CD burning program will do this) to burn the CD, put it in your DVD player, follow some instructions, and there you go, BIOS flashed. Easy.

The only complaint I could have with this is the lack of DVD-A support. But, it came out before that was available.

I play US DVDs, imported Asian and European DVDs, mp3 CD-Rs, audio CDs / CD-Rs, VCDs, xVCDs, SVCDs, xSVCDs; all of them play beautifully.

My Cyberhome CH-500 worked great for about three months. Now it refuses to properly mix audio on certain DVDs, typically leaving out the center channel, so no voices! This problem manifests itself no matter how the audio is connected-amplifier, receiver, or directly to tv. Not to mention that the player has the habit of switching on sub-titles by default.

There's FAR too MANY reviews here on the CH-500 malfunctioning after your 30 day warranty expires. Consider this player to have the plague: Avoid it!

I had this for about a year and I was satisfied with it. I liked the MP3 player interface compared to my old Apex player.
Last week, it just stopped reading my DVDs. It could still play any CD format (VCD,SVCD,MP3 CD). I tried to contact Cyberhome several times through their website and I never got a response back so I would caution those who are thinking of buying any of their products about Cyberhome's poor customer support.

Your player only plays one type of dvd that I have. I brought it here to Belize thinking that it was a good player..I won't advise anyone to purchase one. Please correct your scanner to be capable to scan any dvd disc. Jacqui

Worked wonderful for 9 months. Well 8.75 months. Then some screen lag and synch errors with the sound for a week before dying. Dead Dead and Dead. The cost of repair is more then the value of the unit, under their warranty. I'd advise against getting this unit unless you don't need one that lasts for some reason.

Died after 11 months of service :(
didn't expect that for today's electronic products.

This unit was 19 days in transit from Amazon (who was surprisingly uncaring about it) arrived nearly non-functional. The remote would turn it on, and illuminate the OPEN and CLOSE words on the display. No other functions worked. The DVD tray never moved. And the on-cabinet controlls did nothing. No open/close, not even on/off. It may be cheap, but it is also cheaply made.

I'm the 3rd or 4th person here to report this thing dying after eight months. Wish I had read more before I bought it.

I have a collection of foreign PAL DVDs, and CH-DVD 500 is a true find for it accurately renders anamorphic PAL DVDs and overall is a nice unit for that low price. It certainly has a few minor drawbacks... Like a remote control with unlisted codes.

I bought one of these just over a year ago because I wanted to watch DVDs from anywhere in the world. For $60 or so, it was a steal. I don't dig the silver case, the remote layout is awful and some discs seem to take inordinately long to load, but those minor issues are far outweighed by the features. A quick remote hack gave me all-region compatibility, I can watch NTSC or PAL discs, and Macrovision is disabled on most discs. This machine will play discs (particularly DVD-R) that my more expensive Philips player won't. And a feature that came in handy just this week is .jpg viewing: I burned a bunch of digital pictures to a CD, popped it into the player and voila--instant slide show.

I have had absolutely no mechanical problems with my player. (After reading the negative reviews, however, I'll keep my fingers crossed.) I liked mine so much that I just bought another for my parents for Christmas.

Update, 8/12/05: Problems have cropped up. The machine refuses to load some discs, and will only play the intro on others. No rhyme or reason to it as far as I can tell. You get what you pay for, and I think I at least got my money's worth. Still, my next player will be a *quality* all-world model.

We were happy with this feature loaded DVD player - until it went and died after ten months. Anyone else notice a theme here? Yes it would have cost $40 for the repair under "limited warranty" and the company was fairly responsive. But still. A great product that does not last might not be all that great a product. Hello? British motocars anyone?!?

Until it died it played beautifully. Had trouble getting it to play an SVCD - hmm, someone else had the same problem. Just wish it could have lasted longer.

I had the same problem that many other people had.
I bought this DVD player about 8 months ago and it died.
The warranty is for parts only and you have to pay for shipping back to them and pay $40 for labor.

I will not be buying anything from Cyberhome ever again.

My personal experience with this product has been very good. I don't watch hundreds of DVDs, but I've never had a problem with any DVD I've tried to watch. The progressive outputs to my HDTV are very good, especially considering the price. I don't use the on-board 5.1-channel audio decoder, as I let my receiver decode the digital signal from the player, but that might be a great option for someone with an older or less-expensive receiver that can't do digital decoding, or can't decode a DTS signal.

My only complaints are with SVCD playback, which may not matter to a lot of people. I occasionally record video on my computer and burn it to CD-ROM in SVCD format so I can watch it easily on my TV. However, sometimes those SVCDs exhibit very jerky playback, and are irritating to watch. I've learned that by tweaking some of the settings in my video conversion programs, I can minimize or even eliminate the jitter, but I don't need to do that for the SVCDs to play just fine in other players. In all, that's a very small complaint given the price and other features, but it's why I gave it only 4 stars instead of five.

Cyberhome also has provided firmware updates through their website to address some problems with this player. If you're having trouble with your player recognizing discs or freezing up during playback, you might want to try a firmware update. Go to http://www.cyberhome.com/downloads.asp?Product=500 .

i get this free when i bought my big tv from best buy no wonder why is free, retail was 79.99 dollars. i use it briefly and one night i watched dvd and i full sleep in morning i tried it but not working just green lcd lights out no function, i know electronics so i opened it and looked not repairable easy i emailled cyberhome they would charge me for labor not worth it stupid me to buy chinesse product communism products sucks

It plays some DVDs, but refuses to play others (won't play Cats or Finding Nemo). It sometimes freezes for up to 30 seconds and then continues. It is very slow to start a disc or select any options. The remote buttons are small and poorly placed.

I would like to get my money back for this piece of junk but I did not take it out of the box and discover its shortcomings until after 30 days ;-(

I would avoid this product at any price.

I have had this DVD player for about 8 months and it died. It was great while it worked, but now it will only read audio cds (I have cd players for that!). With the product PARTS ONLY under warrenty for a year, it will cost me as much or more to have this player repaired as it will to buy a new one. Next time I go with brand-names I know and pay more attention to the warrenty!

Brief History.

Purchased unit in December of 2002
3 days later it died, took it back and had it replaced.
Now 10 months later it has died again.

Note: The parts warranty is 1year but the labor warranty is only 90days. This player has some reliability problems so think carefully about the shortness of that labor warranty.

I can either pay $40 to have it repaired (luckily I live near the company and won't have to pay shipping too) or just move on to another player.

It's a shame the build quality is so poor, but that's what you get when you pay $80 for a player I guess.

Technically it's great - the way it could play Mp3 discs, and once you do the hack, any region DVD's, and having progressive scan and component outputs. And this is since late 2002 - many other players can do this now and at a low price but this was one of the first.

I read so many reviews about Cyberhome and thought I'll jump on the deal, but I'm not impressed at all. Seems it doesn't read the disc too well or makes my DVDs skip alot. I watch my movies on the Sony DVD player and it's fine! Also, the disc tray is a bit slow on opening.

I'm gonna jump in on the Norcent DP-302v and see how that goes.

The main reason I bought the cyberhome 500 was because of reviews stating that it can be switched to region free (search on google for info). I've been buying DVDs from amazon.co.uk and after switching the unit to region free via the "secret" menu, it now plays those DVDs with no problems, and also plays PAL version DVDs on an NTSC
tv. I've also upgraded the firmware, downloaded from the cyberhome website, and had no problems afterwards.
I have only had it two weeks, too early to see if it will have
the lockup problems others have reported.
I've also played SVCDs and VCDs without any problems.
It does appear to be cheaply made, not the nicest player out
there. But menu response is good, especially compared to my
Samsung player (721) which cost twice as much.

I agree with the other negative reviews. The picture and sound quality are good on this machine WHEN IT'S WORKING. Many times it does not accept new DVD's (Bad Disc message). It's a Catch 22 though. Not worth paying shipping and possible upgrade charges to send it in for repairs because it was so cheap. I think I'll just cut my losses and move on. Anyone interested in a used Cyberhome DVD player that works half the time?

When it's working the picture looks great on my 50" Pioneer Plasma TV throught the component video out, and the optical DTS/Dolby digital connection sounds beautiful through surround sound.
I am on my third unit so far, though. The early units had a defect in the hardware which caused on-screen distortion with bright scenes requiring a mail-back to the company ($15 postage! They wouldn't pay for that!)
Even with the firmware upgrade offered on the web, the unit was locking-up with some scenes, requiring a hard reboot via the hard power switch on the back of the unit. Eventually, it just started to lock up after 2 - 20 minutes of watching any DVD.
This required an exchange for another unit.

We'll see how long this new one lasts!

Things I like:
DTS sound
Optical and component connections
"screen saver" mode if you pause too long (good for plasma TV's to avoid "burn-in")
Firmware upgrades
Inexpensive price
3:2 pulldown for film movies on DVD

Intuitive remote with good button placements
Audio compression via setup menu for night-time viewing (keeps the volume more constant to avoid overly loud scenes if kids are sleeping in the next room.)
Ability to be controlled via a universal remote (though the website claims it can't, I found a code to program my Universal remote by calling the help desk for the remote)

Hope this helps!

I have this player for more than 6 months now. I love it. works great.

This unit came as a giveaway when we bought our new TV, and is our first DVD player. We have it hooked up to a Toshiba flatscreen conventional TV using component video, and I must say that the video quality is just amazing. Colors are deep and the picture is sharp. It's easy to use as well. We've had ours for eight months with no problems.

Bought this 3 months ago, thought it was a good deal. Now 3 months later it's been in the shop twice and this last time I was told there's no hope. Not only that, but I have to pay them to dismantle it to remove a rental disc. *sigh*

Yes its the best product in its class.! I have one, works great. Suggesed to three others. They are also very happy with this all in one DVD player..!

Bought this at Best Buy (who doesn't carry it anymore due to the possible number of returns/complaints they received, which I thought was premature, and now RadioShack offers the 300 model, a more compact version of this one). For someone on a budget who wants the latest features, this is a great player. I've only experienced the black screen maybe once in the 6+ months I've owned this player.

Two issues I found, however:

1. You can't switch on text commentary while watching movies that offer it. It tends to switch to the subtitles after a track switch. While this is a minor inconvenience, it tends to get annoying after a while.

2. If they only made it in black. Then I'd get another one for my main setup and transfer this one to my bedroom!

Bottom line: If you're tech savvy enough and can deal with a low-tier name, get this player! Your wallet will thank you!

I needed the player to play PAL DVDs from Europe and this player handels the task perfect. It looks good too and seems much more durable desigh than Apex models in this category. If you need to find about features not stated in the manual or in the official description, just do the search for the CH-DVD 500 on the net.

This is headed for the junk pile. It rejects brand new dvd's as "bad discs." Save yourself the trouble.

This review refers to the Cyber Home CH-DVD 500.....

I am extremely happy with this DVD player. I am a DVD junkie and use it just about every day. The player I had before this one was good, but there were just certain DVDs that didn't play all the way through on it. I would get about an hour in and all of a sudden there were skips and pauses for several minutes at a time, that would totally interupt the flow of the movie.(I never could figure out any similarites on the DVDs themselves). All of the DVDs that skipped before play beautifully now(except one that I think may be the DVD itself).

That was my main reason for upgrading to this DVD, but I have found many other perks I didn't have before as well. The sound is now filtered through my home theatre system much better than before.It works great with either Dolby Digitial or DTS and my tuner is now indicating the exact sound I am getting whether it be 2.0 or 5.1 or 4.0 . It never did that before! And the picture and sound are beautiful!

I also didn't think I would get much use from the other features such as the MP3 player, but now that I've learned how(and if I can learn how, anybody can), and realize how many tracks I can put on it, I can unhook my CD player and have one less thing plugged in! You can also just play one CD at a time. The music sounds terrific as well.The player automatically adjusts to whatever type of disc is in use, and when listening to music you can program it any way you want the songs to play.

Now my TV is not Progressive Scan ready and I am using the S-Video(and someday when I get a progressive scan TV I'll be all set)and it still looks great. The remote is nice and has many useful features(zoom, bookmark GOTO, etc) and the owner's manuel is simple to follow.

There are just a couple of little things you should know. When the tray slides out to insert the disc, there is just a smidgeon that is not all the way out(on mine anyway) and you need to be careful inserting and taking the disc out. The other little thing I noticed was that after pausing a movie and then restarting it, it sometimes comes on with subtitles for a couple of seconds but then corrects itself. Just thought I'd mention those, but hardly worth taking a star off.

I see some other reviews here on the more technical aspects, that may be of more help. This review is just to let you know that I am really getting my money's worth from this purchase and that I am thrilled with the way my movies look and sound as well as my music.

It came with a Limited Warranty...Three months on Labor and One year for defective parts(this did not cost extra!)

A great buy...enjoy...Laurie