Page 1 of How good is the Ariston DVD player?

I have heard some really good things about this machine and see it as a good alternative to the Wharfedale as I do not care about the lack of S-Video and DTS out sockets on the Ariston. What do others think of the Ariston?

Well I wouldn`t touch any DVD player which has no S-Video out!!

Mine should be arriving any day now.
I`ll let you know how it goes.

Well, my Ariston DVD 2000 arived a few days ago and I’m quite pleased with it.

It isn’t going to win any prizes for looks, but it’s very sturdily built, moreso perhaps than some more expensive machines. Unfortunately, although it is easily strong enough to have a VCR or Digibox put on top of it, there is a ventilation slot along the top of the machine towards the back, which can’t be covered up. This has meant that I’ve had to reshuffle my gear a bit to fit everything in. The remote is rather boring, but does the job well enough.

The multi region hack is a doddle, with the drive tray empty or open, simply type 7 7 Enter on the remote and a hidden menu appears where you can change the region coding to 13. This seems to disable the region code alltogether the machine quite happily plays region 1 or 2 discs (and I assume others) without having to change it again. The nice thing is it seems to stick even when the machine is unplugged.

Incidently the multi region hack isn’t mentioned in the manual, which is a very basic affair to say the least! It tells you how to set the machine up and what the basic controls do and that’s about it.

It plays The Matrix (R2) fine and also the two R1 disks I have caused no problems. I have however hit a snag with the sound on 13th Warrior (R2). It may be a dodgy disc rather than the player but there was a definate stutter, for want of a better way of putting it, all through the film. Strangely It was less of a problem when listening through the head phones , but it still wasn’t right. Fortunately I was able to return the disk for a refund. I’ll be watching the newsgroups and forums with interest in the future to see if anyone else has had a similar problem with this disc. Apart from that disk, the Ariston’ sound output seems fine to me but since my old TV doesn’t have stereo I’m hardly the best judge! It sounds fine to me through the Ariston’s headphones though. The picture quality also seems very good, but since the aforementioned TV is only a 15inch job I’m not the best judge of that either!

Generally speaking I’d say that for anyone who just wants to “test the waters” of DVD without spending too much money, then The Ariston is well worth a look. The region hack couldn’t be easier, and if like me you don’t have a stereo TV yet then the headphone socket is a real plus. (Not many cheap DVD players seem to have them)

I had to take mine back. They do not play dual layered discs When playing Pulp Fiction the bottom half of the screen blocks up when there is motion. On the set up I changed the OP PORH setting to 13 this played the disc but in letter box format, and the menu features were disabled. I tried three othe meachines all the same. I now have a Samsung 709 This is a better Quallity meachine but I still get a letterbox effect.

NB - this should have been a reply not a new thread - sorry.

I hope you still log onto this site Nick.
I have now got a Samsung aswell and mine does not show letterbox format but probably blows up the picture and elongates people.

Keep in touch

This item was edited on Tuesday, 11th April 2000, 14:32