Customer Reviews
Recommend the Panasonic DVD-S53S Up-converting! 
2007-09-08
Before purchasing the Panasonic DVD-S53S Up-converting player -- I had a cheap DVD player I received for free when I signed up with Direct TV service. This player was an APEX. Had trouble with this player stopping all through the various movies I would watch. The Panasonic DVD-S53S Up-converting got rid of all the previous problems I was having. For simple playback of DVD movies I highly recommend this machine. Well worth the money for just under $100.
BUY THIS ONE 2007-09-07
This is a great upconverting 1080p DVD player. It has all the bells and whistles. I have had a Toshiba upconversion and it doesn't even begin to approach the clarity and definition. Panasonic always means quality. It does not come with HDMI cable but you can find on the web for $4-$6. And yes they work everybit as good as the $100 cables.
Same as S53K (Only in Silver) 
2007-09-05
I got this product (S53K) after a long research. Put the first CD (The lord of the Rings) and image quality was disappointed. Up-conversion was the worst.
Returned this product quickly and got and Oppo 981HD. What a difference!!
If you are looking for a good DVD player don't buy this, instead buy an Oppo 981HD.
Short Report 
2007-09-02
We've only had this unit a few weeks, but it's performed beautifully so far. As for long-term durability and reliability, time will tell.
Panaonic DVD-S53S is a winner 2007-08-31
I was looking for a DVD player to my movies and picture shows that I have on CD-R discs and this did the job. Picture and sound quality are great and it has all the bells and whistles.
Does what it says and great deal 2008-02-11
Plays everything ive thrown at it so far. Quality is nice. The remote is user friendly. Only thing is that I cant seem to change my display from 480p to 720p or 1080i.. my 32" westinghouse lcd can display up 1080i resolution too.. Other than that great player
Panasonic DVD Player S53S 2008-01-02
Player was delivered in a timely manner. The player is everything they said it was. I have purchased many Panasonic products in the past and have yet to be disappointed.
It plays MP3's on DVD's, I don't care about video 2007-12-28
This is Panasonic's only DVD player that can play MP3's on DVD's. All the others (and all the units I happened to see from other manufacturers) play MP3's only on CD-R/RW's. Being Panasonic, it also plays DVD-RAM's which I want because I use DVD-RAM's on my PC a lot (most people just don't seem to understand why DVD-RAMs are so useful). The low price is nice but honestly I would pay twice that or more for the audio playing capabilities.
Fine product but do not expect a miracle 
2007-10-15
I bought this DVD player to feed some HD signal to my newly purchased HDTV since I was not ready to spend close to $500 for a bluray player even though it looked pretty clear bluray would not be on the losing side of the format war (maybe universal players win in the end).
The set-up of the S53S is pretty complicated and made worse by the fact that they give you many choices but do not tell you what they are supposed to do in the manual. I had two DVD players already, one standalone and the other built-in the home theater system. Both have progressive scan (convert 480i standard signal to 480P). Because my HDMI cables arrived a couple of days after the S53S, using component cables, I first compared the 480P images from my old players with the S53S. The S53S is much worse. After I received the HDMI cable and 30 minutes of "tuning", it was still a little hard to convince myself that the 1080P image from S53S was really better than the 480P from my old players. The last straw was when I discovered my home theater (also a panasonic) had an HDMI output, and once I connected it, I was amazed to realize that my home theater was capable of doing 1080i conversion already and there was definitely no difference between the 1080P from the S53S and the 1080i from the home theater. I eneded up returning the product.
Bottom line is, take a hard look at what you already have and maybe enable the 480P (or higher) before purchasing. If there is no DVD player that does any up-conversion, this is a good unit to own. Otherwise, you should bear in mind that the up-converted signal is still nowhere near real HD signal. Also, get the HDMI cable. It is less than 10 bucks if you browse Amazon for market place sellers. I do not understand why some people suggest to get a "gold plated" one. HDMI cable is used to transfer digital AV signals and for digital product, the product either works (passes all the "1" and "0"s correctly) or simply does not work (messes up the "1" and "0"s), there is no such thing as noise, degradation, etc any more.
Okay player, don't expect a miracle 2007-09-16
I bought this DVD player at Circuit City earlier this yr for about a $100. I hooked it up to a 47" Vizio LCD (which by the way has an awesome picture) using a HDMI cable. After fine tuning this product, I was very, very, very diasppointed. The picture was very "grainy" (lots of pixels). I have a $35 DVD player that only utilizes an s-video cable that produces a much more crisp picture. Be warned, the picture stinks.
