DescentBB

I'm looking to buy a CD player because the video stores are going away from VHS. I don't have any money to spend right now, but my son gave me a $50 gift certificate to Amazon so I went looking. They have a lot of units available for around that price, but the list of features is mind boggling. I'm thinking to the future I might get a DVD burner so I can download movies, so what am I looking for? I saw somewhat in chat the other day talking about +r and -r and don't have a clue what that's all about. I know I'm low ball, nit picking here. I just don't want to get stuck with a machine that will only play off-the-shelf, OEM disks.

You're looking for a "DVD" player, correct?

$50 won't get you much. It might get you a decent non-progressive scan player, but I consider progressive scan essential, for matching up with your next (HD) TV. And believe me, you will probably buy a new TV within the next 2-5 years.

You don't need to worry so much about +R and -R compatibility unless your PC has a DVD burner, in which case you want a player that'll play the discs you burn. The formats have their pros and cons, try Cdrlabs.com for more info.

That's about where my knowledge ends, I'm sure everyone else will chip in about inputs/outputs and all the other features you should be considering...

Deadmeat wrote:I'm looking to buy a CD player because the video stores are going away from VHS. I don't have any money to spend right now, but my son gave me a $50 gift certificate to Amazon so I went looking. They have a lot of units available for around that price, but the list of features is mind boggling.

I'd shoot for a player that will play MPG (video file), pictures, and mp3s. If you can get a player that does the above, it'll be pretty much compatible with most DVD disk formats out there. Stay away from VCR/DVD combo units. They're utter garbage, guaranteed to fail with in a year or two at the most. As far as brands to stay away from, steer clear of RCA and Philips. They use some of the cheapest components available (Particularly in the power supplies for the units or drive motors), so it won't last worth a damn.

As far as connections go, most of them have composite (RCA cables for video and audio), S-Video (video only), and component (RCA cables again, but only for video this time) video connections on the back. Unless you plan on buying a big screen TV in the future, don't concern yourself with progressive scan.

I'm thinking to the future I might get a DVD burner so I can download movies, so what am I looking for? I saw somewhat in chat the other day talking about +r and -r and don't have a clue what that's all about. I know I'm low ball, nit picking here. I just don't want to get stuck with a machine that will only play off-the-shelf, OEM disks.

Ok, your typical store-bought DVDs have two layers that data is stored on. This allows them approximately 8.5GB of storage for movies and whatever extras they want to include. For a good while, the MPAA made a big deal over piracy when DVD burners were about to be released. (They did the same thing over the VCR, made it out to be the end of the movie industry, etc.) So, as a compromise, DVD recordable media was released as single-layer only which limited them to approximately 4.7GB of data. However, this also sparked a standards war. Three formats were available for use at this point. DVD-RAM (which nobody uses, and is quite rare), DVD-R (which used to be the most compatible with set-top players), and DVD+R (which was the most compatible with regular DVD-ROM drives in PCs. Some manufacturers picked +R/RW while others went for -R/RW. This went on for a couple of years until a couple manufacturers got a clue and released dual format burners which could both read and write to DVD-RAM/+R/-R. However, they only wrote to single-layer media. (All DVD burners can read store-bought dual-layer media, btw.) This posed a problem since quite a few people wanted to be able to back-up store-bought movies. This didn't set well with customers, for obvious reasons. It wasn't until relatively recently that dual layer burners got released. However, it still took several months for the dual-layer media (which you could burn a 1:1 copy of any store-bought media to a burnable disk) to show up.

This is probably a little more info than you needed, but you get the idea.

DM you gotta ask yourself what you want:

Do you want playback which is comparable/compatible w/ HDTV (ie: progressive scan fancy pants DVD Player that probably won't play offbeat formats and is non-region hackable)

Or do you want to download/burn movies? (ie: "ghetto" Cyberhome brand or similar DVD player that will play PAL, NTSC, VCD, SVCD, MP3, JPG & etc discs.)

My personal preference is the second at the moment. As things stand, you spend a few hundred dollars on a nice DVD player and then find you can't play a lot of burned movie formats on it.

My recommendation is: Cyberhome CH-DVD 300 Available online at Amazon.com for approx $40.00 USD, or available @ Wal-Mart & similar for $35-$40.00. They had them in stock @ Wal-Mart in Oxnard, CA as late as Dec 24th

Add a few bucks DM.

For $64.94 @ Amazon you can get this Philips that will play everything out there. + - RW etc. And it will play Divx encoded AVI clips/movies from your PC you may have downloaded too. Even if you burn them to a CD-R disc, or DVD disc. It also has Highdefinition outputs on it and is progressive scan.

Features:

* Plays DVD-Video, video CD, audio CD, JPEG image CD, and CDs loaded with MP3, MPEG-4, or DivX 3.11/4.x/5.x files
* Progressive-scan output for seamless, flicker-free images on HD-ready TVs; SmartPicture and 4x video upsampling enhance all outputs
* Optical and coaxial digital-audio terminals pass Dolby Digital and DTS surround signals
* PAL-to-NTSC format conversion--great for viewing non-region-encoded European discs
* Measures 17.1 x 1.7 x 9.3 inches (W x H x D)

Nice upgrade Stress!

I wouldn't mind a DIVX-capable player meself, it'd sure cut my DL times

How about a player that ignores user prohibited action scripting?

Thanx, guys, for the the input. MD, your explanation cleared up a lot of things. I know you don't like Philips, but after looking at comparable units, I'm going to go with Stress's recomendation and buy that one. When you can only buy at the low end, sometimes you have to take what you pay for.

x2 on the Phillips...i have one and it's great!

I've actually tried that player that WA linked to and its a damn good one. I was really suprised too, given it was only $34 at Sams Club. (WAS going to be a gift for my niece and nephiew) The picture quality was the same as my 3 year old Daewoo (which is pretty good), and it has even better mpeg video (re: mpg) than the Polaroid player I used to test my DVD-R copies of Gargoyles that I made for archival purposes.

Still, its your choice man. I just hope that it lasts longer than any Philips or RCA product I've come across.

You have a Daewoo product and you're complaining about RCA & Philips?

I'll never buy another Daewoo product ever again. Had a Daewoo TV 32", loved the damn thing. Games and everything looked awesome on it. Only lasted me 3 years. Something burned out inside and it was overheating and the picture would just go out.

Wanted to have it repaired but the bill would have been about as much as buying a new TV so I told the repair ppl to blow me and that I'd just buy a new tv. Still makes me mad thinking about it. Went almost a year without a TV after that incident. The next one I ended up getting was smaller due to budget reasons. I miss it, wish it had lasted longer. Cheap ass things.

Sometimes you get what you pay for though.

Tyranny wrote:You have a Daewoo product and you're complaining about RCA & Philips?

I'll never buy another Daewoo product ever again. Had a Daewoo TV 32", loved the damn thing. Games and everything looked awesome on it. Only lasted me 3 years. Something burned out inside and it was overheating and the picture would just go out.

Wanted to have it repaired but the bill would have been about as much as buying a new TV so I told the repair ppl to blow me and that I'd just buy a new tv. Still makes me mad thinking about it. Went almost a year without a TV after that incident. The next one I ended up getting was smaller due to budget reasons. I miss it, wish it had lasted longer. Cheap *** things.

Sometimes you get what you pay for though.

Actually, that DVD player has been running strong since the very day it powered up. It hasn't given me a single bit of trouble over the several years I've been using it. The sucker came out when mp3 playing capability just started to become common (which it does). It even plays SVCDs, which was VERY rare back then. Your TV probably got zapped by a large power spike, which would explain the effects you got.

This thread has run it's course already guys.

nevemind

<<skimmer

Avder... any brand name DVD players do that?