Wharfedale M5
Value For Money
Wharfedale M5
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User Reviews
Value For Money
One Of The Best Players On The Market In The Uk Wa
One of the best players on the market in the uk WAS on sale in the uk at Tesco store but sadly not anymore ... but you may be able to find the odd one on sites like e-bay and so like .. a definite must if you want a great player .
When switched on, all it does it light up all the lights on the display and that's it!
Has worked on 3 seperate occasions between the freezing, but now sit's a collect's dust in the corner of the room, sad to see it laying there, I loved the machine! I went back to my terrible 750 Series One! Not bad a machine still, but doesn't play RCE nor MP3!
Now recieved a cheap M3 player, just messing round with it now.......
Only seen one review for the M3 so can't judge it against other users opinions!
any possible points to help me would be greatly appreciated...
send to email below. but remove the nospam. from the address... lol
Value For Money
This Player Is/was The Only Uk Sampo Based Player
This player is/was THE only UK Sampo based player with an IDE interfaced DVD rom.
Apart from the obvious, with a bit of jiggery pokery and the correct firmware chips it is possible to run a 30gb hard disk in conjunction with the dvd player! Yes that's 30Gb of MP3s without even openeing the tray!
How many players do that?
DVD/MP3/VCD/SVCD/CDR/CDRW/JPG/NO MACRO/REGION FREE/IDE HARD DISK/
Along with the audio outs & seperate DTS board this forces me to conclude that you can't buy better!!
Value For Money
I Have Had My Wharfedale M5 Dvd Player For 6 Month
I have had my Wharfedale M5 DVD player for 6 months now and have had no problems with it at all, it plays most stuff I throw at it-VCD MP3 multi-region-all fine.
I am trying to find a store around Redhill that stocks one for my sister if anyone can help.
Got mine from a computer fair for £155.
Value For Money
I Got This Wharfdale M5 Dvd Player And Was Reasona
I got this Wharfdale M5 DVD player and was reasonably happy with it until I got 2 or 3 DVDs where the picture quality was just rubbish.
Goodfellas was particularly bad with a grainy picture and lots of artifacts, to the point where it spoiled the film.
Magnolia was the same. I ended up feeling that buying DVDs was a bit risky as I couldn't tell whether I was going to get a good disc or not.
Anyway I tried the discs on my brother's machine and they were exactly the same. His was bought from a different store in a different part of the country.
In the end I returned it for a full refund and bought a Pioneer DV444 for 50 quid more. I have never looked back, the problem disks are crystal clear and the picture far far better.
All in all spend a little bit more and buy a quality player.
Value For Money
Bought This Wharfedale M5 Dvd Player As A Replacem
Bought this Wharfedale M5 DVD player as a replacement for the excellent 750 because of the MP3 playback facility. Didn't bother reading reviews at the time so was unaware of the problems surrounding the drive in early players. The video output is superb and is easily a match for more expensive players. Audio too stands head and shoulders above many a dedicated CD player. For me the sound is crisp and rich whether playing from CD or DVD.
One of my complaints with the 750 was the slow take up speed of the drive. This has been eliminated on the M5. Also the remote on the 750 could be somewhat temperamental. Not so on the M5. Everything about the operation of the player is slick and well thought out. Some colour coding of the remote keys, for grouping purposes, might be nice but that is a very minor quibble.
My unit is one of the early models and as such the drive suffers from stuttering where it will stop at random intervals for a second or so before continuing. More recent models are reported to have cured this.
MP3 playback works but the menu system is limited to MSDOS file format. That is you are limited to an 8 character name. Considering that MP3's are generally burnt to CD on a Windows PCs using long filenames this seems rather shortsighted! I understand that a newer firmware version, 2.0, is now available which can handle long filenames. Whether an update will be made available to existing owners or not I have no idea.
Check out http://www.area450.com/ for reviews and updates of this otherwise excellent player. If you are considering buying a new DVD player then you could do worse than buy one of the latest M5 models, but check out the Area450 site first for information on how to spot the newer models.
Value For Money
Took Ownership Of The Wharfedale M5 Dvd Player Fro
Took ownership of the wharfedale m5 DVD player from Tesco after reading some good reveiws. Worked well for three weeks but then froze in a mozaic pattern. No end of resets would fix it.
Tried CD's only to find a loud hissing sound that almost cancelled out the music.
Fit for the bin
If my DVD had frozen after three weeks of operation I would have either had it replaced or got my money back. I've had the M5 for nearly four years without any problems at all. I did have a Samsung machine prior to that which kept freezing and I just took it back. I also bought my M5 from Tesco.
When considering the reviews of the Wharfedale DVD player, I do sympathise with both writers. However, a more helpful approach would be to identify whether the particular faults that are occurring are common to a percentage sold through Tesco or whether it is a wider problem. It could be poor handling by Tesco, rather than faulty goods by Wharfedale. This would offer Wharfedale the chance to maintain its reputation and correct the problem. Also, when faults are identified, it is helpful for contributors to establish whether the technical fault is fatal to the machines operation or whether it is worth the cost of repair. It is one thing to have a machine that goes faulty and another to be ripped off by a repair company who know all too well that the machine is beyond repair. In the case of the Wharfedale, is the fault worth repairing? If so can Wharfedale help? Are Tesco prepared to consider asisting? Most companies deserve the opportunity to correct a fault, if they don't, then they deserve adverse publicity.
Surely the whole purpose of any review is to make an assessment of a product based on your own experience. If the product fails, as it clearly did in my case, then any review should reflect this. I am not an expert on dvd players, but I am, or I was a customer of wharfedale, and it is customers views that should count. If we all follow poll's suggestions that we only conduct reviews on products that work, no one will ever know those that don't!!!!!
Obviously this is a faulty DVD player that you have brought. Had mine for months and months, and it's flawless. A reveiw of a faulty product is not a very good review. The same thing that happened to yours does not happen on all of them, only faulty ones. A lot of people have been putting these players down, saying that the DECCAVIDEO and the Dansai 852 (same player) are better and cheaper, but those two players don't do onbard DTS/5.1 decoding, which means that if you want the same DTS audio playback of the Wharfedale M5 on the Dansai or the DECCAVIDEO you need to spend an extra god knows how much on an external amp that decodes DTS.
Why don't you take it back?
Value For Money
The Wharfedale M5 Is A Straight, Good Quality, No-
The Wharfedale M5 is a straight, good quality, no-nonsense dvd player. And to quote another advertising slogan, "It does exactly what is says on the can!". No Problems with picture quality as far as I could see. Probably some dvd boffins will pick fault at tiny little defects, but for your average user using it for average use then the Picture will look flawless. Audio Quality is Superb, onboard DTS/5.1 decoding means that all you need is 3 stereo amplifiers, one to power the front left and right speakers, one to power the Back left and right Speakers, and one to power the Sub speaker, then if you connect the centre speaker to the speakers on the TV, you're sorted. With the easily executed Region Hack, you can make this player region free, the player doesn't even bat an eye-lid when changing from region to region.
I only have two tiny gripes with this DVD player and they are nothing to get worried over. Firstly, there is no Macrovision hack. Had to buy a macro master scart cable to banish the puny macrovision, and secondly, the MP3 menu can be a bit of a puzzle at times to navigate around as it only supports DOS file names, but I've just been told that there is a firmware upgrade that adds long file name support, so that should be fixed. Haven't tested the firmware upgrade yet.
For the money (£150 from UK Tescos) I haven't seen a dvd player with Onboard DTS/5.1 decoding to equal it.
My machine came with version 2.0 firmware (type 12345 at the logo to reveal) It handles MP3's, MiniDVD, Mpeg files etc. far better than the original 1.7 version. Keep an eye on www.area450.com for a firmware update.
I thought the review was fair and just. This has been my first DVD player and I think that for the money it does a good job. However I would like to see it reviewed by someone who knows more about the subject.
Q&A
Hi, how does one switch to digital audio output?
Regards