Shopping for a DVD player

[moerl]

I'm trying to find a DVD player... and it's harder than I thought it would be. There are so many of them out there.. and I guess the reason it's a bit hard to find one for me is because I'm looking for a region-free DVD player so we can play our European DVDs as well as US ones, plus one that that has good picture and audio quality. We have an HD Sony TV and that's also a hurdle.. trying to find a player that will meet the above criteria and also go along nicely with our HDTV. There probably are differences between DVD players that aren't designed for use with HDTV's and those that are. That's what I'm trying to find.

Recommendations, links, suggestions, anything is welcome! Oh yeah.. price-wise, we'd like to stay under 200 dollars if possible, if not possible, I'm setting a max of $250.

Thanks

[jpfx]

get the cheapest one you can find made in china.
they're virtually all region free and play well enough, but not so that having an HDTV will do you a scrap of good.
anyway at ~$30 it's no real loss.
I have a philips DP642 which has divx built in and that was about ~$60 and arguably a little more robust.
http://www.videohelp.com/ is the place to look for this sort of stuff.

[mouser]

i would generally agree with jpfx, they are very cheap now, regularly < $70, and all seem to work quite well.
and you can throw it out in a year and buy another at that price.

in fact i have same exact model as jpfx, and it playes quite well.
however, one thing i dont like a lot is no controls on the machine itself to go back and forward chapters, etc.(!!)

my advice: go to this site: http://www.videohelp.com/dvdplayers
check some checkboxes for features you want, and then pick the one with best reviews < $100

[moerl]

get the cheapest one you can find made in china.
they're virtually all region free and play well enough, but not so that having an HDTV will do you a scrap of good.
anyway at ~$30 it's no real loss.
I have a philips DP642 which has divx built in and that was about ~$60 and arguably a little more robust.
http://www.videohelp.com/ is the place to look for this sort of stuff.

-jpfx (October 21, 2005, 05:42 PM)

Ironically, I had just registered at videohelp.com before posting this thread! I wanted to ask the same question there but then learned that you have to wait one day after registering before you can post.. so I thought of DonationCoder and came and asked here

[moerl]

Wow.. this comes as quite a surprise, being that I planned on spending something close to 200 bucks on this thing, and more, if necessary, up to 250. I'm splitting the cost with my apartment mate so take any amount and halve it.. that's what I'll pay.

I looked at that search before but got lost in it.. it doesn't have a checkbox for "region free" so it's kind of useless to me.

[Carol Haynes]

Sorry ignore - I misread your message and didn't realise you are in the US (I have deleted the message I typed)

I just looked at your TV spec - it doesn't mention PAL support at all ... If you haven't got a PAL compat TV you won't be able to watch European DVDs ...even with an MR DVD

MR still produces the original output it just removes region control.

Your right it isn't that easy to find multiregion stuff in the US market. Finding PAL support isn't always that easy, but I didn't realise HDTV would also cause a big issue (we haven't really discovered that in the UK yet - give us another 20 years!)

I would have say avoid the cheapest you can find and go for an established brand. I bought a cheap MR DVD from Logix ... who you might ask, but that's the point a lot of these companies don't exist for very long, and consequenly there is no support or firmware updates to deal with bugs. I have also found the video and sound quality are not too good in some of the cheap brands, and audio/video sync can be an issue. IMHO it is worth spending a few more $$$ to get something that works properly and has good video and sound quality.

[Nighted]

Check out Audio Review for people that have bought and rated products. That's where I go before buying any new audio equipment or video for that matter.

It's an excellent site.

[jpfx]

with a philips DP642, to change to region free:
switch on and open disc drawer
enter 7 8 9 OK 0

Plays PAL perfectly afterwards.

That's that, I believe the last 0 is the region. If you screw up your DVD it's not my fault.
More blurb here: http://www.videohelp...lect=Philips+DVP+642

[Carol Haynes]

Plays PAL perfectly afterwards.

Only if your TV supports PAL

In Europe most TVs are dual format using PAL primarily, but supporting NTSC too.

Most US/Canada TVs only support NTSC. I presume the manufacturers assume that North America has the cheapest and best choice of DVDs and Videos so you don't need to buy European stuff ...

I know that's why I buy a lot of DVDs from the US !!

[jpfx]

Plays PAL perfectly afterwards.

Only if your TV supports PAL

No.
One of the menu options is what sort of TV you have, if it's set for NTSC, then the picture the DVD player puts out is NTSC.