Very nearly
Was in Dixons in Nov 2000 and was looking at the TiVo system. It was £400 plus I think there was a subscription on top of that. The salesguy was pushing it but we stood our ground and said no. It was a large outlay and the subscription on top of that put us off.

So we ended up buying a decent DVD player. This Sony affair that played R2 dvds and fuck all other formats at all. Video CD, audio CDs, nothing. It was £299 and was very nice though.

A few weeks later my brother bought one. He asked me how much mine cost. His response was,
"That's a fucking lot, ours was £80 from Asda" and he showed it off. The tray mechanism was modelling on Arkwright's till from Open All Hours and appeared to be made of that plastic that the little compartment trays in boxes of chocolate are made from.

Ours lasted 9 years, his lasted just over 18 months.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Wed 6 Oct 2010, 14:40, 7 replies)

the first DVD player I bought was a Matsui player from Curry's in 1999
for £124

My brother laughed at it's huge size, clunky looking tray and remote. He showed off his fancy Sony 5 disc DVD changer that same night.

Mine turned out to be multi-region and still works. His wasn't and was obsolete in 2 years and failed long before that.
( Bamboo Steamer, Wed 6 Oct 2010, 14:52, closed)

Wasn't Matsui
a Japanese war criminal and they dropped the brand name and come out with Saisho instead?

A bit like, "Buy our Hess TVs, they're ace. It's who? Hess is what? ooh fuck"

Edit: No, it appears they still market the brand, notwithstanding this man en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iwane_Matsui
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Wed 6 Oct 2010, 14:57, closed)

Matsui
Is the man in Dixons very own brand
(andythepieman Is surfing the waves of indifference on, Thu 7 Oct 2010, 11:14, closed)

Blimey.
First DVD player I ever bought was in Brazil, it was a Panasonic I think. It cost me over $1,000, which is about £600.

Although it seems a lot now, I can't say it was a waste of money, as at the time I didn;t speak a word of Portuguese, had no cable TV so used to buy DVD's all the time. It kept me entertained for 3 - 4 years.
( Not Pineapple anymore, Wed 6 Oct 2010, 17:04, closed)

So, in essence, boiled down, iterated etc...
... you get what you pay for with reference to electronic equipment.
(Chopsey, Wed 6 Oct 2010, 19:21, closed)

I had a cheapo TV that oulasted a couple of Sony's...
I also suspect that many other people got more than 18 months out of the cheap DVD player -- I bet some lasted more than 5 years...
You were lucky, some are not.
(Me, I'm not... in any way intoxicated, Wed 6 Oct 2010, 20:06, closed)