DVD Players

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After years of nursing a croaky VCR, I have made the decision finally to buy a DVD player. Hooray for me! Apart from not knowing what the best makes of player are, I'm not sure whether I would need 5.1 speakers, simply stereo, or whatever. Not being lazy - I am up for doing a bit of research of my own - but it occured to me that many of the posters here, already familiar with the technology, might have some recommendations for someone who has a modest budget. For practical reasons, I plan to have a DVD / VCR combined within the same housing, but besides this, would it be better to buy the speakers for my system separately ... as separates, so to speak?

― Ken China, Saturday, 11 October 2003 15:08 (twenty-two years ago)

One thing right off the bat is that if you buy a DVD/VCR combination is that you may need to also buy a receiver separately if you want to get 5.1 sound out of your new component, because typically DVD players don't come with the decoder and amplifier right on board when you buy them by themselves. If your new DVD player has 6 output audio channels you can hook those directly into the inputs of a computer-style 5.1 speaker system, or you can look for a speaker system that comes with an optical or co-axial input...but those speaker sets tend to be more expensive. (The Logitech Z-680 is such a set.)

Bottom line: if you want the 5.1 setup, you're going to have to spend money one way or the other.

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Saturday, 11 October 2003 16:59 (twenty-two years ago)

I was wondering exactly the same thing-I am buying the Sony progressive scan combo thingummy today. Thanks, Sean.

― adaml (adaml), Saturday, 11 October 2003 17:17 (twenty-two years ago)

Another thing to keep in mind if you're buying one of the combo DVD/VCR combinations is that with many of those the audio outputs may be different for the DVD and VCR components.

This might mean you won't have digital audio outputs with the VCR or television components, which means hooking up your audio to the same set of speakers you use for your DVD won't be so straightforward...at the very least you'll need two sets of cables: one digital, for your speaker set, and one analogue, for the rest. Alternately it means using analogue outputs for your DVD, which will probably kill off your 5.1 dreams.

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Saturday, 11 October 2003 17:30 (twenty-two years ago)

Thanks very much, Sean. You've been really helpful. I'm planning to look through a few consumer mags in my lunch hour tomorrow!

― Ken China, Sunday, 12 October 2003 18:58 (twenty-two years ago)

I distrust combo things in general, aside from space considerations, units are so cheap these days you might as well buy two units because if anything busts on one of them then you're out two machines while it gets fixed.

I just bought a progressive scan Philips 727, which does PAL to NTSC conversion, is region free, plays MP3 cds as well as VCDs and all sorts of other crap, and only cost $80 through Amazon. It has a shitty display screen but other than that I love it and highly recommend it.

― anthony kyle monday (akmonday), Sunday, 12 October 2003 19:31 (twenty-two years ago)

Who here notices a difference with progressive scan? If so, do you have a fancy TV?

― s1utsky (slutsky), Monday, 13 October 2003 04:32 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm of the understanding that progressive scan works with a digital tv, but I'm not actually sure.

(Hey kyle, now I can lend you the second series of Twin Peaks! What does "Pal to NTSC conversion" mean? That it's region free? What about for Japanese stuff, etc.??)

― adaml (adaml), Monday, 13 October 2003 04:41 (twenty-two years ago)

(I haven't bought mine yet, should I go for this Phillips thingy?)

― adaml (adaml), Monday, 13 October 2003 04:42 (twenty-two years ago)

It sure sounds good to me!

― s1utsky (slutsky), Monday, 13 October 2003 04:45 (twenty-two years ago)

Ok, well it says here that this plays DVD+Rs but not DVD-Rs. Now, as someone who might well be burning their own DVDs, should I be worrying about this?

― adaml (adaml), Monday, 13 October 2003 05:10 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah. That's weird--DVD-Rs are the most universally recognized format among the burn-your-own set. And if you're gonna be using a Superdrive, that's the media you'll be using.

― s1utsky (slutsky), Monday, 13 October 2003 05:18 (twenty-two years ago)

that is the suck, I didn't realize that. I don't have a dvd writer though and am only vaguely aware of what the difference between these is, apparenly no philips players will play them? why are there even different dvdr standards? I'm sure there's a techincal reason I am too dumb to understand. Well, aside from that it works great.

PAL to NTSC conversion: apparently most players that convert screw with the aspect ratio when they do it, this has corrections that take care of it.

― anthony kyle monday (akmonday), Monday, 13 October 2003 06:15 (twenty-two years ago)

Tangentially, I can recommend the Yamada DVD player that Amazon are selling for £40 quid at the moment. Multi-region, plays mp3 and photo cds - and you can get free delivery.

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Monday, 13 October 2003 07:13 (twenty-two years ago)

Anthony, are you sure that your player only plays DVD+Rs? I'd be surprised if that was actually the case.

― s1utsky (slutsky), Monday, 13 October 2003 14:30 (twenty-two years ago)

get one that supports the widest range of formats. there are two types of recordable DVD: DVD+R/RW and DVD-R/RW; some players don't support both. Also look for DivX, VCD and SVCD support, these can be burnt on cd from your computer and also for MP3 CDRs so you can play cds of mp3 through your hifi without your computer.

― Ed (dali), Monday, 13 October 2003 14:35 (twenty-two years ago)

sory, slight xpost

more and more players support DVD±R/RW but many older models support one, the other or neither.

― Ed (dali), Monday, 13 October 2003 14:36 (twenty-two years ago)

DVD-R (Pioneer, Panasonic, etc) and DVD+R (Philips, HP, Dell, Sony, Ricoh, etc) both exist because there are two consortiums involved, in much the same way that VHS and Beta were separate standards, or the fact that you can buy CompactFlash or SecureDigital memory. Companies just LOVE standards, that's why there's so many competing standards.

Ed's right, find a player that has ± support and it'll play nearly anything....rather than +R or -R winning this standards war, it'll be the combo drives that read or write both.

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Monday, 13 October 2003 19:18 (twenty-two years ago)

i swapped out the drive on my dvd player last weekend so it works properly now for the first time yay

― ron (ron), Monday, 13 October 2003 22:58 (twenty-two years ago)

one year passes...

Can anyone recommend me a DVD playing program for my computer (WinXP), one that displays chapter and time (unlike the version of PowerDVD that I have)?

― Leeeter van den Hoogenband (Leee), Tuesday, 2 November 2004 04:00 (twenty-one years ago)

VLC?

― Girolamo Savonarola, Tuesday, 2 November 2004 05:56 (twenty-one years ago)

five years pass...

trying to watch buffy season one on upscaling dvd player set to 720p over hdmi on hd monitor but the picture, and especially the blacks, is very grainy/artifacty

how to fix?

― I think ur a probotector (cozen), Thursday, 21 January 2010 16:27 (fifteen years ago)

Might be the quality of the source material, especially if the blacks seem a bit off. That said, watching it on an HD monitor will definitely highlight the artifacts and flaws even more (same as watching an SD broadcast on an HD TV - can get pretty ugly). Is the DVD release relatively recent? I know earlier DVDs had less polish simply because people have come to expect good picture quality now.

― throwbookatface (skygreenleopard), Thursday, 21 January 2010 18:58 (fifteen years ago)

Second that - I just dug out the UK dvd boxset for this and it looks adequate at best with the same settings on my HDTV. It's a pretty old show I guess, in standard def, and not a brilliant transfer. I noticed that getting my player to output it to the display in 4:3 rather than trying to stretch it to 16:9 helped a bit.

― Bill A, Thursday, 21 January 2010 21:57 (fifteen years ago)

eleven years pass...

i've been recycling old What Hi-Fi awards magazines and it's been fascinating seeing how things changed from year to year. 2000 seems to be the last of the crt tvs (or the first given that i'm going backwards). and the kids all seemed to be mad for dvd-recorders for a couple of years in the middle there.

and then, i was watching worzel gummidge, and the farmer's family has one of these by the tv, a rare vhs / dvd combo

https://www.philips.co.uk/c-p/DVP3345V_17/direct-dubbing-progressive-scan

tv set dressers choose the oddest things.

― koogs, Tuesday, 28 December 2021 20:26 (three years ago)

lol, we have one of those smack in the middle of our TV peripherals. I always forget it's there. Probably because we have no real use for it.

― Rep. Cobra Commander (R-TX) (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 28 December 2021 21:53 (three years ago)

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