any suggestions on which one to pick up?

 

Hi Charlie:

Which player will depend on the quality of your tv. The better the TV, you will need a better player. If you plan to upgrade your TV in the near future, buy a better DVD player.

The best player you can get at this point is a "progressive scan" DVD player. Toshiba has a couple, I believe the 6200 and the SD 9100. To get the best picture with progressive scan, the TV will need component inputs and you will get a picture that displays about 500 lines of resolution. The 9100 is very expensive and the 6200 is under $500. Shop around and you will probably score in the $300 plus area.

Once you get used to DVDs, you won't watch tape anymore. Blockbuster and Hollywood video rent DVDs.

My best advice is pay a little more and get a good player and it will serve you for several years. It will also be operational with any new set you buy in the future. Of course, in electronics, any thing you buy will be outmoded in a month or two, as technology is moving that fast.

If you have anymore questions, you can email me at

Bancorp@msn.com

Best wishes

Laird Lazelle

 

I ended up with one of the Apex DVD players. It was first to the market - that I know of - which played MP3's and you could also bypass region codes. Cool features, but sometimes the sound cuts out on _most_ DVD's like the A/C kicks in and glitches your speakers or something. It was only $169.00 quite some time ago.

Some DVD's it doesn't even recognize at all. The Patriot & Toy Story 2, I have to play those on my computer DVD player. I've had a Hitachi and currently a Toshiba DVD player in the computer now. Also, played around with many decoder cards. But alas, working with Win2k and dual proc's, software DVD doesn't glitch as much as it used to on inefficiently running Win98.

Pay a few bucks extra for the DVD player. Look on ebay for the one you want. Some guys post really great deals out there. Look in the store first, and ask questions, get opinions.

/my two cents.

 

Charlie, check out C|Net's DVD Buying Adviser. Seems like they have some good info.
http://home.cnet.com/consumerelectronics/0...398-8-3629007-1

 

I might be way of base on this but I was watching one of those Consumer Reports specials on DVD players last week and they said that the differences between a $600 system and a $200 system were so undetectable that you should just keep the money and spend it somewhere else. All the ones the recommended were in the $175 to $250 range stating that most had even the same features as the high end models. I forget which was was rated the best but I remember it was a Toshiba.

 

Pioneer Elite DV-09 or DV-05.

 

My eyes and ears can't tell the differences.
I'd buy the cheapest one with a cool remote.

 

I've decided to pass on a DVD player for now. After all, where would you mount the screen, behind that little door? Plus watching movies while driving is pretty unsafe

 

It definitely depends on what you are going to view it on. If you are using a direct view setup (i.e. TV) that is less than 40" than you probably will not see the benefits of a progressive player. If you have front-projection (i.e. CRT/DLP/D-ILA/LCD projector) than it will depend on the projector of which some will demand progressive for a good picture while others have a superb internal scaler (non CRT of course).

Most progressive players cost quite a bit more than non-progressive so you really need to look at both with your TV or projector. If you cannot readily see a difference than save the money and get a non-progressive player. Also, progressive can only be played through component, so don't make the mistake of demoing both under S-Video.

Best of luck.

 

For what its worth JVC has by far the best menu system out there. I just bought my sister a toshiba DVD for christmas and thought the menu system was a joke.