can you guys recommend a DVD player

[rookie1010]

Hello,

I would like to buy a DVD player. can you guys recommend one.

i want to hang on to this DVD player for the next 2 years and want to use it with my LCD HD TV which i am planning to buy sometime later this year.

my wish list is
1. something in the 100 British pound range
2. handles 720p (is that what a regular DVD can/should handle)
3. supports DivX/Xvid, avi, jpegs
4. multi-region
5. supports bookmarking (would be nice)
6. some hard disk space (would be nice)

you guys think DVD recording is needed?
i don't think multi-disc is needed, what do you guys think?

i think with this feature list, i need to invest twice the amount of money, if i am, can you guys tell me which feature is not really needed.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

DVDs are 480i in the US
You can get a progressive scan player that will output 480p or you can get an upconverting player that can output 720p/1080i/1080p

HD-DVD players support discs that are higher res. Maybe you should think about saving up for an HD-DVD player rather than getting a regular DVD player.

Oppo makes some of the best inexpensive DVD players
http://www.oppodigital.com/
I'm not sure if these are multi-region players though

You could also use your computer as a player if that's convenient. With some good software and setup, you can get results as good or even better than these players.

What are you planning on doing with the harddrive space? Generally that's not something you're going to find on a DVD player. If you want to do some recording, that would be another motivation towards using a computer to do this.

 

[rookie1010]

thanks for the reply,

is a 480p more expensive than a 480i?

i guess 720p/1080i/1080p are all HD-DVD players?

i was planning to use the hard disk on the DVD player as a storage for shows that i miss while i am away from home. or store some music or perhaps some use case i have not thought about it yet.

what i want is a DVD player which will last me for 2 years and then the HD-DVD/Blu-ray battle would have been sorted out or there would be cheap players which would play both formats.
i am planning to buy an HD LCD TV in the coming months and i did not want the DVD player to be a bottle neck.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Pretty much all DVD players are 480p now. The more expensive ones (and even some cheap ones) do upconversion to 720p/1080i/1080p.

The advantage of having the player upconvert is that if your TV isn't so great at it, you can have the player give it a nice HD signal that it wouldn't need to mess with as much.

To record shows, you wouldn't have your DVD player do that. A DVR or something similar would be used to do that.

I find DVDs themselves to be the bottleneck in performance sometimes. A decent amount of them look pretty sh!tty. A DVD player isn't going to make a crappy looking DVD that much better.

 

[rookie1010]

thanks for the reply,

you mean to say that the TV can also upconvert 480p/i signals to 1080i/p

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: rookie1010
thanks for the reply,

you mean to say that the TV can also upconvert 480p/i signals to 1080i/p

The TV is going to be displaying whatever it gets as an input as the resolution of the panel.

If it gets a 480i/480p signal, it's going to scale it to fit the resolution of the panel it uses (1280x720 / 1366x768 / 1920x1080 / 1024x1024 / whatever you end up getting). Some displays are good at this, other are not so good.

If your display is bad at going from 480i/480p to its own resolution, then getting an upconverting player can make a big difference.

 

[rookie1010]

thanks for the reply,

so if i get say an x series from sony, then i dont really need an upconverting dvd player, correct?

if a dvd player upconverts, does that mean it can upconvert all the way to 1080p?

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: rookie1010
thanks for the reply,

so if i get say an x series from sony, then i dont really need an upconverting dvd player, correct?

if a dvd player upconverts, does that mean it can upconvert all the way to 1080p?

Don't know how good those are at scaling.

No, some only do certain resolutions with 1080p upconversion being the most recent addition.

 

[shortylickens]

Dont get too excited about upconverting.
Its not the same thing as having an original signal at a higher resolution. It just fills up your HD television a little better is all.

For example - here is an image at 640x480: http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/shortylickens/640.jpg
Here is the same image upscaled to 1024x768 and 1280x960: http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/shortylickens/1024.jpg , http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/shortylickens/1280noAA.jpg
Here is the same thing but with Anti-aliasing: http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/shortylickens/1024AA.jpg , http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/shortylickens/1280AA.jpg
HERE is the original image at 1280x960: http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/shortylickens/1280original.jpg

Thats why I dont get a boner over cell phone cameras that take 1600x1200 pics.
More often than not the camera operates at 800x600 and the software on the phone just enlarges it.
Same with many consumer-level digital cameras. They might advertise 10 mega-pixel pics, but the sensor actually built into the camera only works at 3 MP.
If your DVD player does a quality job of increasing the resolution then it might make a small difference.

As for ME personally, even on a quality Philips 32 inch HDTV normal DVD's look great, and I cant tell the difference between that and blu-ray.
I'd need to see it on a hundred inch display before I could notice, and I'd rather spend that money on home improvements instead.

 

[rookie1010]

thanks for the replies,

hey shortylickens, thanks for the pics, puts things in perspective, i cant see the difference between the pics, perhaps the bugget screens of 40 inches woudl show the difference.
cant see any difference with anti- aliasing.

so the 10 megapixel cameras have only 3 megapixel sensors, is there any way you confirm if the 6 megapixel camera (pretty standard) i buy actually has a 6 megapixel sensor

 

[shortylickens]

NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!
CHEAP cameras that advertise a high megapixel count generally have sensors that are much lower.

I dont really know what to look for on the box that tells the truth. Maybe YoYo knows.

Am suprised you cant tell the difference between quality anti-aliasing and none at all. Most people can. You can probably get a normal DVD and not miss anything.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

What kind of cameras are you talking about? Example?

 

[gus6464]

I have a toshiba upconverting dvd player that plays divx, xvid as well. Actually theres really nothing it cant play from what ive thrown at it. The best part was that it cost me 50 bucks a year ago at best buy. Just go to your local best buy or circuit city or frys and check out toshiba ones that do divx and upconversion. Any cheap one will do.

PS If you want region free and hard drive the price goes up substantially. How many DVDs from other regions do you have? I sometimes buy some dvds from amazon uk and I just rerip em to region free.

 

[rookie1010]

thanks for the reply,

i came across the Yamada DVDMi220X (DivX) DVD Player.
it costs around 70 (including postage) in the uk.
plays all dvd/cd, multiregion, has hdmi, upconverts to 1080i

what do you think of it?

 

[gus6464]

yamaha is a pretty good brand when it comes to home theater receivers so I am guessing their dvd players would be of the same quality.

 

[Sdiver2489]

Originally posted by: gus6464
yamaha is a pretty good brand when it comes to home theater receivers so I am guessing their dvd players would be of the same quality.

The brand isn't yamaha...they don't make DVD players.

I have heard nothing about Yamada brand DVD players so I would stay far away...

 

[rookie1010]

thanks for the replies,

i have used a yamada in the past. they were the only ones which played avi's, mpegs, divxs and offered region free operation.

the traditional ones (sony,panasonic) for reasons known to all did not play avi,mpegs and had no multiregion support.

 

[Slogun]

Originally posted by: rookie1010
thanks for the replies,

i have used a yamada in the past. they were the only ones which played avi's, mpegs, divxs and offered region free operation.

the traditional ones (sony,panasonic) for reasons known to all did not play avi,mpegs and had no multiregion support.

I, also, have never heard of yamada.
Sounds like you've answered your own question though.
Good luck.

 

[rookie1010]

thanks dude,

i have gone ahead and ordered the yamada.