Bush DVD2040 Reviews

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Good Points: Cheap to buy, compact, good-looking and good remote control.

Bad Points: Some poor picture quality. Unit has no stand-by mode. On-screen display only.

General comments: The Bush DVD2040 is a cheap and cheerful dvd player that is ideal for taking on holiday or away to university etc. It's only about 25cm wide and bit longer in depth. It's only 5cm high, so it's compact.

I paid £33.95 including delivery for mine, which came from ebay. I think most of these will now appear predominantly on ebay so this review is posted in case people search for a bit more info. That price is fair, I would say anything up to £50 is a fair price for this player at this time.

As a budget dvd player, it does exactly what it says on the tin, plus a bit more. It plays your dvds, it will play audio cds, and picture cds. As is usually the case with Bush the unit has good features for this price range. For a start it comes with a SCART cable included, many cheap units do not. It also boasts a coaxial connection so that you can connect to a surround sound system etc. Another feature those without a spare SCART socket may find particularly useful is the ability to connect to a TV via video and audio leads. There's standard Video, Audio Right, and Audio Left outs. Using this method you can also connect to a VCR which is already connected to a TV. This makes this Bush an ideal addition to a home cinema system currently lacking a DVD player.

Installation is literally plug and play. If your TV is already on, switching the Bush on switches your TV to its AV channel and you're away. There are some attractive blue LEDs around the buttons on the front that come to life. DVDs load quickly and quietly.

The remote control is the key to operating all the adanced features of the player. It feels a little cheap and some buttons are a bit fiddly, but it's better made than many budget remotes. It is fully featured and allows you to completely control all aspects of the player. When playing you can pause/step (pressing pause repeatedly alows you to move forward one frame at a time), slow playback (1/2, 1/4, 1/6, 1/7), stop1, stop2 which stops the disc completely, move to the next chapter, move back chapters, skip forward (2,4,8 and 16x speeds) or skip back.

Sometimes during playback the audio can become a little out of sync with the video, especially if you pause/freeze/skip a lot. When skipping at higher speeds it can get stuck for a few seconds before moving on again. I put both of these annoyances down to a cheap laser having been used, but in the case of the former all you have to do is briefly press stop once, then play and it cures it. It's less than ideal but at this price you have to accept minor niggles. It should also bve noted that this may vary from unit to unit, I have no way of verifying.

Playback is programmable, with shuffle, repeat and goto and bookmarking available. A nice feature is A-B repeat. When you press it once it starts, when you press it again it stops, and then repeats the selected section ad infinitum. There are also 16 volume settings and mute available.

The player, like many in this price range, lacks a front display on the unit itself. It does however have an excellent OSD (On-screen display) which displays all information possible about the disc being played. This is turned on and off by a large button next to the eject button.

A final quibble is that the player has no stand-by mode. Some Bushes have overheated in stand-by mode in the past and this could explain this. It does mean that to turn the unit off you have to get out of your chair but maybe that's no bad thing!

All other standard features are present. You can set the shape of your TV screen, and the player has a screensaver to protect your TV screen. A final feature parents may find appealing is a choice of 8 different ratings modes ranging from 'kid safe' right through to 'adult', all of which are enabled via password.

The instruction manual is excellent and very clear, and the packaging is also very compact, no large cardboard boxes, so you can literally pick it off the shelf and buy it.

Overall, despite one or two annoyances, this is an excellent budget player for secondary use or as a cheap addition to a home cinema system lacking a dvd player.