Creative Labs PC-DVD Encore

Ratings:Top:Audio/Video:DVD Players:Creative Labs PC-DVD Encore

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Brand and Model:Creative Labs PC-DVD Encore
Price ($USD):379
Formats Supported:
checked VCDchecked CDun-checked Laserdisc
checked CD-ROMchecked DVD-ROM 
un-checked DTSun-checked MP3 
Features:un-checked Portable un-checked Progressive Scan
Number of Discs:1
Audio Outputs:
Analog (stereo):1Digital Coaxial:1Digital Optical:0
Headphone:0
Built in decoder:
un-checked Dolby Digitalun-checked Dts
Video Outputs:
Composite:1S-Video:1Component:0
Weight (lbs):lbs.
Dimensions (w/h/d):in. (height/width/depth)
Description:

Vote Highlights Vote
Creative Labs PC-DVD Encore
Sometimes the video from the internet gets interrupted with a pink screen
display. Otherwise the video quality of Encore is Superb excellent.

Overall Rating: 9
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=30611

Creative Labs PC-DVD Encore
Issue 1: Severe incompatibility with Win2K. It hosed my video settings beyond repair (max 16 colors at 800x600) which could not be fixed by reinstalling the video drivers. This occured upon installing the drivers for the DXR3. I think I'm going to have to reinstall Windows clean. I should have known better than to install unsupported Beta drivers that hadn't been updated in a year. That's with a Matrox G400, btw.

Issue 2: Upon installing Win98 on another hard drive the drivers which came in the box were terrible. Movies can't go more than 10 minutes without dropping video frames and having the audio get horribly out of sync.

Issue 3: The current non-beta drivers had the same problems as issue 2 except now the player could get 15-30 minutes before becoming unwatchable.

Issue 4: In all tries, my Live Value card (with newest drivers from creative website) decided to randomly set Reverb. to 100% while watching movies... Needles to say this sucked. You'd expect Creative hardware decoder to work with Creative Audio card. Guess not.

Guess I'm headed back to the store before my 30 day money back guarantee runs out for a refund and replace my setup with a player that doesn't have anything to do with my computer.

Only redeming factor: It looked good with the SVideo connection during the short periods it worked.

-Tim
moomoocmu@yahoo.com

Overall Rating: 1
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=30609

Creative Labs PC-DVD Encore
Absoluetly agree with comments above.

I bought the PC-DVD Encore 6X just over 1 year ago. Drive would read discs slowly (some not at all). A lot of the movies that I tried to watch would crash the DVD-Player software.

Finally, the drive died just recently which was conveniently about 1 month after the 1 year warranty expired. I called Creative and they told me to go out and buy a new drive (Thanks, I only spent 300.00 for this package and you're too cheap to replace the drive). The tech told me that I could use pretty much any drive and leave the DXR3 decoder in the system. So, I purchased a 16X Toshiba drive and swapped it with the dead Creative drive. Now, I can watch DVD's but the sound is just a loud garbled static noise which is not even recognizable. Also, the Windows 2000 drivers are still "beta" (How long has Win2k been out now?). I just get the impression that they do not care at all. I won't buy Creative anymore.

Overall Rating: 3
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=30608

Creative Labs PC-DVD Encore
Yup absolutely agree .. Bought it a year ago had problems from the beggining with playing disks .. was skipping some of them or just halting in the middle and dying .. a week ago it finally died .. i stuck a new dvd that i just bought from the store and it started skipping it so crappy that i just called to the TOLL tech support telling them that i'm sick of this crap .. the guy authorised me for a return .. now sitting and waiting what's going to happen next .

CREATIVE DVD drives STINK !

Overall Rating: 0
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=30607

Creative Labs PC-DVD Encore
I have used about 10 different DVD-ROM models from almost as many makers. The bottom of the list is Creative. Recently, I had a project that would have required about 100 DVD-ROM drives, being a bit of a doubter, I purchased one 8x Encore DXR3 unit to validate the performance, same with the 12x as well. Just crap. Drivers are buggy in the extreme, no W2k support, the drive gets so hot after about an hour of use that the discs tend fail, on disc was so damaged that it does not even play in my SONY component DVD player as well. I have tested about 200 discs and more than 10% will not play or restart in the middle of play for no reason, again my SONY component DVD player never seems to have a problem.

I have also encountered just about every issue that everyone else has documented here as well. I can't believe that Creative does not understand that they are losing customers!

I have contacted Creative and been told to stick it where the sun does not shine. At $300 a package and an order of over 100, creative tells me to get lost? Creative can not ignore its customers! Well they have, I will NEVER recommend any Creative product again. Lets see, I recommend to clients over 300 purchases per year sometimes much more, with the volume of 1 to 5 units per, so Creative has lost somewhere between 300 to 1500 unit sales per year from me alone at an minimum.

They can kiss keep their crap DVD-ROM units. I believe that they are going to continue to produce crap until they chapter 13.

Overall Rating: 0
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=30606

Creative Labs PC-DVD Encore
I took the decision of buying a DVD player instead of just a CD player when I put together my new PC, which I've had a year now. Looking back it's been well worth the money. The picture is crisp and clear on the monitor, edges are visible on bright output. I haven't connected to the TV so I can't comment on that. Two points let it down slightly. The response time in actually recognising there's a disc in there is the slowest I've seen for any player. Secondly, although the on-screen remote control is easy to use, I get the impression the software is a bit buggy. For example when in full screen display, there's no easy way to re-access the control panel again if its been minimised. It also locks up occasionally on fast wind. But for general use I think it's well worth the money.

Overall Rating: 7
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=30605

Creative Labs PC-DVD Encore
great picture and DD quality, only bad thing is that you'll have to do special efforts to connect a GOOD quality cable.

Overall Rating: 9
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=30595

Creative Labs PC-DVD Encore
Was a good unit offering Crisp and natural output on a Grundig 84cm 4/5th Pal TV though S-VHS to peritel output. But the PC Monitor image was ghastly!!! I mean really awful. I saw a more recent dXr3 model with a better computer image.

The problem is that the laser head seems to go crazy on these, according to my supplier support desk and to my own dead Creative Encore DVD Player. Creative support is almost non-existant: no response to e-mails...?

Figure it for yourself, there's alot of competition out there and reviews rate the Hollywood 2 card better with a dvd-drive of your choice...

Overall Rating: 7
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=30592

Creative Labs PC-DVD Encore
EXCELLENT!! Only problem is no remote, cause it's on the computer. Plays all DVD, CDR, CD-ROM, whatever. Great picture too.

Overall Rating: 9
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=30590

Creative Labs PC-DVD Encore
just the best

Overall Rating: 10
Weight: 1 (Unreliable Vote)
Date:
By:
Link to this vote: http://www.excelsis.com/1.0/displayvote.php?voteid=30589

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