Protron PD-007 Nightmare! Major Glitches

[CeeKay]

Hi Everyone. Chris here. This is my first post. I am going to post a letter that i sent to Protron 5 times now! The customer service there seems to be non-exsistent. After you read it, tell me what you think, and what you believe is going on. This is from my 3rd letter. This goes back to early November. Since then i have tried 3 players so disregard what i say in the end about testng more. i think the entire batch stamped Q3 2005 is affected.

Dear Protron:

This is the 3rd message I sent to you guys. The first two I did through the website submit form. ( one to customer service and one to support) My first email was very in depth and technical. I don't know why you did not receive it. Also, I registered my product AND created a profile and when I try to log in, it cant find me. When I try to do a lookup through email, it says im not in the database. I think the site is having some problems.

Ok, on to the problem ( again) I am writing this for my own personal player, but as well as for my store which has more Protron DVD Player's right now then any other brand. I did not file a claim because I just bought the player 2 1/2 days ago and I can always return it. I want to make you aware of the issues I am having and see if you have a solution as I purchased this dvd player at a very good price as an associate and I know I will not find a comparable model with the same features for such a low price if I exchange it for another model. Ok, on to the problems:


I just purchased a Protron PD-007 DVD player from Sears Sunday night, the 13th of November. I Am also an electronics employee there so I know the technology. It's also my hobby. This is on MY player. My store just had a shipment of 100 or so of them. I hope this is not happening to all of them. My store is Sears Essentials, Port St. Lucie, FL Store # 02596 Here's the breakdown of what is happening:


1. The Player does not recognize "Highlighted Selectable Menu Items" on most DVD's: For instance, lets say you have a DVD of a collection of shows. It lists Episode 1-9, well, the software in the dvd player is not recognizing the menu's and does not highlight them for you to choose, therefore you have to GUESS what items you are selecting. To put it simply, you cannot select anything on most screens. This is the main problem. I tried a DVD that worked with the menu items but on another section of the DVD, you could not select the listed items. So I would say this happens 60% of the time.


2. There is a Brightness shift problem: When watching a dvd, the brightness will "creep" up and stay a little brighter for about 7 seconds, and then "come back down" to where it was, and then repeat this process. Very annoying.


3. When selecting certain chapters, the selected chapter will be totally pixilated and choppy along with distorted audio. You must hit the "Title" button to go back to the Menu Title selection screen and select that chapter again and hope it works.


I was wondering if you could provide a firmware upgrade possibly? the internal chip is upgradeable per the user manual. I know that some manufactures will make a firmware "patch" available. The consumer simply downloads it, burns it onto a CD-R, and then places it into the DVD player and the patch corrects the problem(s). I really like this player. It seems to have a ton of features for the price and I can’t believe all the outputs it has for the price. the design is very good as well. I am going to try and test out another pd-007 at my store since we do not have one on display yet to see if more of them are doing the same thing. I would hate to have us have to ship back the entire lot. If you are unsure of these issues, can you please pass this on to a technician. Thanks!


Protron PD-007

So that is what i sent to 3 of thier email addys and no response. I do really enjoy the features of this player but come on.... the glitches are unexceptable. Thanks to everyone that replies in advance!

-Chris

[Krispy Kritter]

As you stated above, sounds like the unit is faulty. It is possible they have a bad batch. Assuming of course that you are testing with store bought (pressed) DVD's and not copies, I would just get another player. If you are using copies, then I would say you have bad copies or the player doesn't like the media.

The brightness problem sounds like macrovision. Is the player connected directly to your TV or through a VCR?

[CeeKay]

Thanks for the reply. Yes, it is hooked up through my VCR so that may be the case of Marcovision. thanks for that tip. As for the DVD's, they are store bought. no copies. They play fine on friends players and my other player. Have you ever heard of this problem? Menu's not being hightlighted? The reason i didn't want to return the unit is that it was only 29.99 plus i got a $10 mail in rebate. It has many features for the price: Composite, Component, S-Vid, Coax, Optical and plays almost every format. I cant exchange for another since i already tried that once and pretty much every one is doing teh same thing at my store. Protron has no customer serice it seems. they seems to not want to listen that this entire batch is doing teh same thing. they wanted to replace my unit with anotehr but never sent out the UPS label. Anyhow.. What do you think is causing the menu's to not highlight? sometimes they flash like they are "trying" to come in. have you seen this in any other players? and what woudl you do in my case if you really wanted to keep this model? maybe exchange at another sears? ( maybe they have a different batch)


Thanks so much

-Chris

[hech54]

The reason i didn't want to return the unit is that it was only 29.99 plus i got a $10 mail in rebate.
-Chris

I pay more than that for a 6-Pack of Wigwam SOCKS.

[CeeKay]

Well, its been a whiel since i lasted updated everyone but it looks like ALL of tehse players (At least everyone made quarter 3 2005) has all these bugs and protron is not doing anything about it. My store may send all the units back. After 4 or 5 emails and 2 callsd, Protron never got back to me. Its past 30 days ( return policy for sears) and i got a product replacement for 4 bucks for a year but that only covers replacing the same unit. so now im stuck. It seems like all it needs is a firmware update. I keep finding more problems. i was watching Total recall the other night and the scean selection wont work. disc is fine. Ugh!! Protron gets away with this...nice



-Chris