Panasonic DVD-CV51 5-Disc DVD Player
By: Panasonic Average Rating: 3.0 Total Reviews: 19
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 On: 2004-04-26
Ive generally been quite satisfied with the CV51 I purchased in 2001, though it occasionally fails to read a given disc, as others have noted here. When this happens, turning the player off and then on again clears up the problem, at least in my experience.My needs in a DVD player are partially defined by the fact that I dont really have a home theater set-up. With a Panasonic 20-inch TV with no component video input, and two JBL speakers hooked up to an inexpensive Denon DRA-275R receiver, Im not in a position to have the absolute best that any DVD player can offer. All I really want right now is a machine that can reliably play my DVDs and CDs, and thats what I have in the CV51. I use the player for CDs as often as I do for DVDs (which is the main reason I wanted a multi-disc changer), and they sound just fine. I rarely play CD-Rs, but Ive had no problems with the few I have. The CV51 lets you program 32 CD tracks, with an interface that is very easy to use. There are times when I find the machine to be a bit too noisy, but not often enough to strike me as major issue. DVDs played on the CV51 look great on my aforementioned 20-inch TV, but without a video component input, Im not asking for very much from a player. While Im satisfied enough with this machine to overlook what I consider to be its minor annoyances, Im sure there are better purchases, at least at the $150 price point, than the Panasonic CV51 DVD Player. If you can get one used for $75 or so, and youre looking for a second DVD player for the bedroom or someplace else, Id recommend it. In fact, Im pretty sure that both my TV and the CV51 will eventually be relegated to my bedroom, once I get a 36 or larger TV for the living room.
 On: 2003-09-30
A common error happens with this DVD player that requires you to pay parts+labor after your warranty expires. Im supprised mine lasted this long, (about 2 years), before the dreaded error H02 appeared when trying to play ANY media. NEVER buy a panasonic product, if you care at all about quality / longivity of your product.
On: 2003-09-01
My dissatisfaction with this DVD player began with the manual, which had no useful info on hooking up the player to a receiver rather than a TV (even though it also plays audio CDs). Then, several times during its lifetime it wouldnt "see" a DVD or CD that was clearly there in the tray, which could be remedied by moving that disc to a different slot in the tray. Finally, after 1 yr and 4 mos, it has died with a fatal H02 error that is not fixed by any of the suggestions in the manual.
by: Anonymous On: 2003-06-04
Ive had this dvd player for almost 2 years...worked fine (except on MP3 CDs) until about a month ago. I was watching a dvd, got a phone call and put the dvd on "pause",and got up and walked away. Now the toshiba DVD player that I used to have, would switch into a screensaver if you left a movie on pause for too long, and would eventually shut itself off. This Panasonic DVD player isnt apparently designed to do any of that. I forgot about the DVD that I had left on pause and came back in a few hours and to my surprise the "paused" scene was still being displayed on the tv. I hit "play"...nothing. I hit "stop"...it stopped. I hit "play"... "reading", "reading", "error no play", "error H02". I tried unplugging it, plugging it back in, tried to play a different dvd....nothing...same error. (which according to the panasonic manual means that a panasonic "technician" needs to look at it). I tried the Panasonic online customer support, all they told me was to go to the nearest Panasonic technician. Forget it...Why should I pay a ton of money for them to fix it, when I can buy an new (non-Panasonic) dvd player for the same price.
by: Anonymous On: 2003-05-14
I make lot of home video in VCD format on CD-R & CD-RW discs, this unit has terrible compatiblity when reading these discs, it play the slow rated 8X or slower CD-R/RW OK, but virtually all the blank CD-R/RW disc are high speed rated like 32X to 40X, the player just wont read those disk at all half the time, those it reads but skipps a lot. So if you want just play commercial type DVD movie, its a great player, but for home made CD-R/RW recordings, forget it. Get an APEX DVD player, it reads them all.
On: 2002-11-01
I purchased one of these in November 2001. By May it had gone haywire, refusing to load any disc, giving me an error code that meant "contact service." I spent a great deal of money on shipping and repairs (it was past 90 days of course) and then by October, less than a year after purchased, the problem had occurred again. Panasonic support is terrible, non-responsive, promising callbacks, and then nothing happening.
by: Anonymous On: 2002-10-14
had the unit for a year and didnt use it very much. one day it wouldnt read any discs. would open and close on its own. happened a week after the warranty. brought it in to an authorized repair center and was told it had 2 blown IC chips... ill get some other brand and hope for better luck.
 On: 2002-09-12
I bought this DVD player just about a year ago. Never had a problem. Plays well.It plays DVDs, CD, CD-RW, and even MP3 encoded CDs. Which is really neat because the 5 CDs if all are MP3, they can hold a large amount of music (each MP3 cd holds as many as 150 songs). The player is compatible with DTS which is almost a basic requirement for any good DVD player. It is easy to use, except that I always have a little problem getting discs out of the player. One disc always starts playing while i am getting the rest out and I have to keep punching buttons to get it out. on the good side, you can change discs while one of them plays without disrupting the play. What I miss in this player is that it does not have progressive scan. When I bought the player I thought I would not need it as HDTVs were way too expensive. Well they are cheaper now, and I have one now.
On: 2002-04-06
I am almost totally satisfied with this player! I love the DVD picture and the CD sound is great. It has a couple extra features that other DVD players dont have. One of the best is that the "search" mode has four different speeds. You press the forward button once and it begins to scan forward slowly and each time you press the button it scans faster. The fourth level scans by chapter. I never really appreciated this until I used my brothers $800 DVD player and it had only one search speed! Wow, that is annoying! So I gained a whole new appreciation for my DVD player!My only negative comments are minor things... When I listen to music, I stick five CDs in the player and stick it on random and let it just shuffle through all of the CDs for the next couple hours. Well, this "random" setting will only randomly play the tracks on one CD at a time. So Ive ended up keeping my old 5 disc player hooked up too and I use that most of the time for music. But while this is major for me, I list it as only a minor problem because it is more about my preference for how I like to listen to music. Another minor problem is that when the player is powered on, it instantly starts to read the current disc. This is a problem because usually when Im powering the system on it I am going to change the discs in there. So this adds a few seconds that I have to stand and wait for it to read the current disc and then I can open the tray and swap them out. Again, minor but irritating. Finally, my last comment is just that the instruction book could be more detailed. This is my first DVD player and I had some trouble understanding all of the controls. Part of this may have been my lack of familiarity with how a DVD player works, but the instructions didnt do much to help me with that problem! But, despite all of that, Im very happy with this DVD/CD player.
On: 2002-02-23
Approximately four months ago I have purchased the Panasonic CV51 DVD/CD Changer and everything is top notch ao far with the new player. The player even plays back all of my burned music, and this is a big advantage because my first generation Toshiba 3006 DVD player could not perform such a task. However, even though I am satisfied with the 5 disc playback convienience, audio detail (analog stereo and Dolby Digital/DTS performance), video detail, and remote, I was expecting a time-remaining indicator for movie playback via either on screen or on the machines display panel. I got acquainted with time-remaining with my second Toshiba player. This is possible only with CD playback. Also, with the advent of DVD-Audio I was having a difficult time trying to determine if I should have purchased this player when I did, or delayed the purchase until DVD-Audio becomes more widely accepted. Because let us face it folks; the player is on the cutting egde of perfect except for the fact that it lacks a feature as such. This is an expectation though, considering the price of the unit. My advice is to let those 5.1 channel analog audio inputs on the back of you receiver lay dormant until the war is over with DVD-Audio and Super Audio CD and witness the publics response. In the meantime, these two audio formats will co-exist together and increase in title selection. Perhaps when the time arrives when we are financially stable enough to aquire one of these multi-channel audio devices, the prices will have decreased sufficiently and we can have our 5-disc Panasonic CV51 back with a different model number, same price tag, and a new time-remain feature. Meanwhile, the player is a demonstration that Panasonic may make some of us audio and videophiles think we are schizophrenic. For my current home theater system set up, this player was made just for me. Was it for you?
On: 2002-02-20
Needed to replace my old Panasonic DVD player, which was faulty and would cost over $100 to repair. But I also wanted multi-disc capability like my old magazine style CD player had.This met both needs (DVD and multi-disc) and it runs flawless. However, the remote is difficult to read in the dark and the tiny closely spaced buttons dont help.
by: Anonymous On: 2002-02-08
I liked this DVD player when I first bought it -- sound and picture are good, but lately Ive been having problems with format incompatibility. Even though the product description says its compatible with CD-R I havent been able to get it to recognize that format. I also have a lot of trouble with Video CDs -- my success rate getting them to play is about 50/50.
by: Anonymous On: 2002-01-14
Id like to echo another review that I read on here. Overall, Im VERY pleased with this unit. Only complaints would be 1) that it takes a little bit to reach each disc (probably something youd find with any player that plays so many different formats), 2) the features, controls, etc. arent quite as intuitive as all the Sony systems that Ive had in the past -- Im sure they can all be figured out, but its gonna take some reading and getting used to (not a big deal, really), and 3) well...no...wait....theres really not a three. No other complaints. Im happy with the performance so far. And it beat most other prices.
On: 2001-10-01
Ive had this DVD player for a month, picked it up while my Sony was in the shop for repairs. I love the fact that it can play MP3 CDs too. It works well with my mostly Sony components. I have found that the controls are confusing. Now I love electronic devices, audio/video, Ive been working computers for years professionally. When I have a difficult time getting then hang of a piece of equipment, I couldnt imagine my parents trying to figure it out. Heres my pet peeves...
1. Since the discs can be changed while the player is running (a feature I loved with CD changers), theres a button for Disk Exchange, and one for Open/Close. Each have theyre own unique function and changing the disc thats in the currently "selected" spot can be difficult. It doesnt seem to want to cooperate and takes a little fussing. Another sitting with the manual should get me straightened out though.
2. The discs sometimes slide out of theyre trays, once obviously after the changer received a little hit accidently, another time just out of the blue.
3 & 4. The disc tray doesnt like to open when discs are knocked loose on it. Perhaps because it seems like the tray wont open until a disc has been read once. Seems odd but youll notice the lag when you turn the player on then hit eject.. itll try to read a disc first before opening.
5. The display doesnt show which disc is playing in big enough numbers. Its difficult to tell which it is from far away. Havent looked into the possibility of a on-screen display for this on the remote.. will have to check..
Overall, I do like the player. Much better than the sony 1 disc I was working with. Great price for the features.
by: Anonymous On: 2001-08-04
Got it a month ago....... install, set up, playing is very easy. Plays DVD, home-made CD, and regular CD perfectly. Change rest while playing one. Excellent! Highly recommended.
by: Anonymous On: 2001-08-03
I have no complaints with this highly versatile machine. I find that it works well with my other Components, has a great picture and does more than most other DVD players do at a much better cost. There is currently nothing else like it for the money.
On: 2001-06-18
I recently decided to purchase a DVD player and wasted hours checking out what was available. Well i was definitely not going to pay more than $250 and needed to maximize on the basis of that. Of course all DVD players generally play DVDs well so that was not the issue What I wanted to see were the extras- other than my computer I have nothing that plays MP3s and neither do I have a Home theater receiver. Since the DVD player was going to be the first step in my home theater I wanted something that would add less to the "muddle" in the long run. SO I was looking at DVD players that could do all of the following a) Decode Dolby Digital and DTS (no point at this stage buying a DVD player that only does the former). b) Plays MP3 (which usually means it also plays CD-R) c) If its going to play music cds it might as well have a changer. As of now there is nothing in the market that does all of the above (at least in my price range). So I was left between stuuff that does 2 out of the three (a number of combinations for that exist). Finally I decided to choose to go with this player because I felt that a home theater receiver would be something i would need to purchase later on what with all the TV broadcasts also begining to carry dolby digital signals. This one does a very good job of playing all your music cds and of course DVDs. In both respects its flawless. The sound reproduction is great. There are a few things to note though: a) As the other reviewer suggested- it does not display the track names of MP3 songs and this was something I did not expect but I can live with it. I am the kind of person who usually slips in a cd into the tray and listen to all the songs. But note that "random" track selection ALSO DOES NOT WORK on MP3s. b) It does not have a coaxial sound output (why did panasonic decide to do that?????). It only has an optical sound output (I think Panasonic has made this technological choice for some inexplicable reason. Their Technics home theater receivers only accept optical inputs in most of last years models and no coaxial inputs!) Except for these two drawbacks, I think this is a very versatile system and should serve well. Come on MP3, Cd-Rw and a 5 disc changer where you can change your cds even while you are watching a movie!!!! ps the remote- dont expect it do anything other than control the dvd player. PERIOD
by: Anonymous On: 2001-06-15
Excellent picture quality for both DVD and VCD! Ive hooked it up directly to my amp and TV so I can play MP3s and CDs and take advantage of the 5 disc carousel without having to turn on the TV. I do wish that when MP3 songs played, it would show the artist and song name too, atleast on the TV screen, but I didnt find that. Otherwise, this brand new player is flawless.
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