The Panasonic DVD-A300 still works great for a 1997 model and Region Free

Panasonic DVD-A300, A Great Older DVD Player. Model Year: 1997

Will not work with CDRW or MP3 But Works Fine With CD's CDR's and DVD's Not DVDR or DVDRW

We bought this DVD player because we didn't like the current ones out their for the price. We where lucky enough to find it on an eBay auction for less than $50 shipped, was listed as just A300, so no one found it but us. It's also our first standalone DVD player, we are a little behind. Have three DVD players for the computer Toshiba SD-M1612 16x/48x DVD w/CyberLink PowerDVD 4.0 Software, don't like the Cyber link software, ATI's DVD software is better, but the DVD rom is very quiet and costs are low. Look at www.GoogleGear.com They are a great company, or check www.pricewatch.com for the best price.

The Panasonic DVD-A300 has perhaps the nicest looking front panel of most of the Panasonic DVD players we looked at and is built real well. It has a lot in common with the ProScan PS8600, which, feature-wise, it closely resembles. Aside from the disc-transport controls such as play, stop, pause, and chapter skip, the Panasonic DVD-A300 includes a search knob that you can use to scan for a particular scene, a useful front panel amenity many of the other players lack in this class and or age.

The remote is small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, and in many ways easy to use. The majority of buttons are gathered in the center of the remote. The important ones that control playback functions are clustered around a central joystick type button that is used for both navigating menus and operating the play modes. This makes selections easy, but of course this is our first standalone DVD player so perhaps this may vary from user to user. What we don't like is the remote has no back light, but at the price who can complain.

On the back panel, the Panasonic DVD-A300 has a six-channel audio output for connecting the unit directly to any A/V receiver or preamp / processor that has a six-channel audio input. That's because the Panasonic DVD-A300 contains an internal Dolby Digital decoder only one of two units in this class and year (the other is the ProScan PS8600P ) to include this feature. If you already have a Dolby Digital-equipped processor or receiver, you of course won't require this and can connect the unit using its optical digital output. Other outputs on the DVD-A300 include a stereo analog audio output, two composite video outputs, and two S-video outputs.

The video performance of the Panasonic DVD-A300 was comparable to the other models tested in showrooms, just wasn't convinced that the newer models where all that better in quality others offered additional formats or media it could read, just didn't see an advantage so we choose the Panasonic DVD-A300, we are glad we did.

Even if you're not impressed by the features or any lack or new functionality, we wanted to let people know that if the price is right buy it, it originally sold for $999. The Panasonic DVD-A300 still has a lot of things going for it. The video performance is great, and the unit's internal Dolby Digital decoder is practically on par with the other models we looked at that are up to date.

We mainly decided to buy this unit due to it's great price even under $100 would have been good. Haven't found any DVD's that don't work in the Panasonic DVD A300 yet, perhaps we will, don't know yet. Also did we mention that ours is [Region Free], some retailers are charging more for a so called [Region Free], DVD player. Now if we could only get a DVD burner for under $100, sign us up, maybe some day huh.

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Added: Friday, January 10, 2003 12:47:39 PM

Region Free means is that the DVD player has a built in pal/ntsc converter, 110-240 volts, plays RCE and REA discs, manual selection of regions, in other words will work with foreign DVD's as well.

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We also learned that some are not [Region Free]: But here is a way to make it Region Free However we are not responsible for any boat anchors, well maybe paper weights instead, this unit only weight 8 pounds, so no boat would be stopped with that. We never advise for anyone to remove or change anything inside the case, open the case at your own risk.

This is what we found online for the Panasonic A300 (Region Free):

If you have the front towards you, there is a circuit board to the right of the laser enclosure. In our player this board is marked 7718HK. If you remove all the connectors to this board carefully, remove the 4 screws and turn the board upside down, you will see something that I suspect is the Region Free modification.

There is a small IC named IC6041 on the board. It is not in a socket, but is soldered directly on to the circuit board. The writing on the IC looks like it says C01A on one line with 725 on the line below. This IC has 8 pins. It looks to me that the modification is done by removing pin 7 and 8 from the circuit board, solder them together with a small cable and to solder this cable on to a connection named TP6205 another place on the circuit board.

Perhaps you would want to do more research before attempting this and ending up with a paper weight, I would. But it's here for people to learn and perhaps tell a qualified technician about.

BTW: This is our first review, if you have any comments let us know.