TCL 3101a DVD Player

I am a DVD enthusiast but unfortunately not a particularly rich one. So once I got the taste of DVD I decided - instantly - to dump my VCD player and move on to a DVD player. Cost having been my only consideration that time.

However being a lil tech savvy I did some research on the DVD technology and set in place a few basic ’must-haves’ in a DVD player and a few ’nice-to-have’ features.

Being a major Hollywood movies fan the clear ’must-have’ for me was ablity to play Region 1 DVDs [What is region 1 and all that blah ? Check out the FAQs at - https://DVDTalk.com]. In case anyone of you are planing to buy a DVD player - make sure u play a Region 1 DVD in the showroom on that player first - ask your DVDwalla to lend u one - all original DVD prints of hollywood movies are Region 1. DVDs from UK are region 2. The ability to play all region DVDs is also called Region hacking [More on all this at DVDTalk.com - or maybe mail me and I can tell u more]

OK now a real nice-to-have feature was MP3 capability.

I tried ’Usual Suspects’ in the showroom and it played perfectly. It also had MP3 capability and was priced at below 11k so I jumped at it.

So far so good ...

However now the trouble began.

In the DVD technology there has ben a recent enhancement called ’RCE’ [Region Coding Enhanced - more at DVDTalk.com] It so happened Usual Suspects was a Region 1 DVD but not a RCE title sigh]

Problem 1: TCL DVD player does NOT play RCE DVDs.

So a recommended title while trying to evaluate DVD players is - Brad Pitt’s ’Snatch’ This double DVD collector’s edition is an RCE title. So if this plays all other Region 1 DVDs will play too.

Now back to our TCL

So it did not play RCE ... hmm.. ok not many people are producing RCE titles so with a disappointment or two I shud get by and all.

But soon I discovered that there were few absolutely normal DVD Region 1 titles that it does not play - Psycho(The original b/w Collector’s edition), Scarface.

Problem 2: Not all normal Region 1 DVDs play. Some will just throw up an error saying ’This DVD is not intended to play in this region’ [India being in Region 5] So the region hacking algorithm is not exactly of a very high quality and has a few bugs

Recently another problem - DVD starts beautifully for a 10-15 mins and u are getting into the groove and all - but holla ! You are not blessed with the opportunity to enjoy the movie. Your player hangs. It just hangs on a specific scene. The remote does not respond nor do the buttons on the player. You restart the thing - forward past the scene which got stuck - it plays for a few mins ad then figures out another scene where it must get stuck. I had a very nasty time with ’Spy Games’. However it was only this one a number of movies after that have played beautifully.

Problem 3: Gets stuck with some titles.

Problem 4: No support any more :(

So in all though it has all kinds of technology support (VCD/ACD/S-VCD/MP3/DVD) and region hacking it is not exactly of a very high quality. But then at that price I was expecting a problem or two.

I believe that at that price it was a GOOD buy.

However if you can afford a little more - u know - 16-17k kinda stuff I’d recommend going for a Philips/Panasonic/Pioneer player. Have seen a few and they are good. Not so sure abt Sony - Seems they give a problems with Region 1 DVDs.

With TCL the biggest problem is that there is no more support the players in India. So if someone is selling a second hand TCL player I guess you shud not pay more than 5K. That is AFTER trying out a few DVDs. Do not try the titles I mentioned as they will not play and u will frustrate the poor seller :)

Try say - The Matrix or Godfather. If it plays fine - 5 K shud be a good deal I think.

PS Being a major anti-music-piracy exponent I have never had and hence never tried any MP3 CD on it so have no comments to add on how good this player is with them.

OK ... phew !

am done with my 2 cents. I hope it helps anyone who is evaluating this piece of gadget

Cheers !