What do you techknowledgeable people suggest as a good reliable brand? I know there are some for around a hundred, what's the best and do any of them have "progressive scan" - and is progressive scan even what I think it is?

If I understand correctly, porgressive scan reads the data about five seconds in advance of play to avoid those momentary freezes when a disc changes layers, or something like that. Incorrect?

I'd like that very much. (Damn, those two Japanese kids just came to mind. What's wrong with bootblacking?)

What about region-free players - any in that approximate price range with pro-scan? Apex? There are quite a few discs from other regions I've wanted.

I'd really suggest getting some magazines, or something. Your description of progressive scanning is way off. That being said you can get a nice Panasonic or Sony progressive scan DVD player for well under a hundred at Walmart, in the US, in Canada you'll pay closer to 200. OTOH, if your TV's interlaced you could save a bit and forget the progressive scan DVD, unless you're planning on getting a new progressive scan/hi-def TV within the next couple of years. :)

Same as big-dog. If you're not planning to get a HI-DEF TV next year, forget the progressive scan. And the DVD format is always evolving so today's DVD players will be obsolete in 1-2 years when the Blue Ray (Sony) or any other format will be THE new thing. Plus I would add avoid paying a lot for a DVD player. They have a very limited life span. So if you paid a lot of $$ for one, you will cry if it dies on you 1.5 years after but if you paid 50$ who cares. Put it in the garbage and buy another one. DVD standalone are cheaply built as if they were built to break fast. I bough a Malata 393 for 45$ CDN. It plays everything I burn plus you can hack it for region free. 2 minor problems with it: remote is cheap and there's no ON-OFF LED. Other than that, I'm satisfied with it.

Steph

I've never had any problem with my Sony's. The little woman bought a Samsung for herself, and has had nothing but trouble with it. Won't play most discs without sticking, stopping, or even not recognizing some discs as playable.

You can get several models from Sony, complete with progressive scan, for well under $100. Some are sale priced from $69-$89.

Well, I'm pretty sure I heard about players reading several seconds ahead to avoid those freezes, so I just assumed "progressive scan" stood for that. If that's not it, I don't care about progressive scan - unless it's something good?? I just want the feature that plays smoothly without the brief pauses, if it's available on a cheap player.

As for HDTV and the next wave of tech, that's years off for me until it comes down in price. I'm not up on hacking, either, so a player that's already region free would be nice...not required, just desirable.

I don't even know what interlaced or progressive scan means!

Just a regular tv, and a dvd player needed that's cheap but plays well for the price. For me that means it plays smoothly over chapter changes/level changes, clean play on slow forward/reverse (my mother's player is jerky on those, she says), clean freeze, and a decent zoom function.

A few comments...which are mostly in line with what others have said.

Don't worry about progressive scan. Very few TV's will actually be able to make use of it. And, yeah, your description of progressive scan is way off. It relates to the way the image is "assembled" on the TV screen.

Also, don't put too much stock in region free players. Yes, they can definitely come in handy. But you must keep in mind that once you start buying DVDs from other regions, you will be "locked in" to purchasing region free players in the future if you want to maintain your collection. The can cause two problems. One, it will cut down on your choices. Secondly, as technology is evolving, we will see more players using things like DVI inputs (already used by some high end models) which will make viewing material from other regions almost impossible. Certainly buy one if you want...just remember that your collection of R2 discs is likely to get harder, not easier, to play in the future.

One thing with which I wil disagree on is don't worry about BluRay or anything else. We just had another long thread about it so I won't repeat myself. DVD as we know it will be the dominant format for many, many years to come.

But I will agree with the idea of a CHEAP player! The most expensive piece of video equipment I own is my TV set. The CHEAPEST piece of video equipment I own is the $49.99CDN Nova DVD player hooked up to that set. The Nova handles layer changes better than my $300.00 Pioneer so the Pioneer was relegated to back up duty. If Nova was available in the U.S., I would recommend it (I don't know if it is). I will say that I also own one of those Malata 393's and it's worked just fine. The worst thing about these cheap players is lousy remotes.

It is true that DVD players in general seem to have surprsingly short lifespans. My experience (and the experience of many here) is that almost everything starts to glitch at least a little bit after about 1.5 years. After 2.5 years, you're probably on borrowed time. Price or brand don't seem to be major factors...my expensive Hitachi crapped out after 1.5 years yet the Malata still works fine after almost the same length of time.

Having ALL kinds of stories about ALL kinds of brands, I've concluded that getting a DVD player is almost a crap shoot! For everybody that loves one brand, somebody else hates it. I've had FOUR different brands. All served there purpose. But, right now, I can't say that I would recommend one brand over any other.

One observation about progressive scan DVD Players, my JVC progressive scan player is much, much more sensitive about what it will play. My cheap Apex bedroom DVD player will happily play anything I put in it, but the progressive scan player is very finnicky about DVD-R's and homemade CD's, though it will too will play most of 'em.

And I second the comments about keeping it cheap. They do seem to have a 2 year lifespan, whether they cost $299 or $39.99.

I have a four year old Sony 5 disc carousel player. Works flawlessly and shows no sign of giving up.

Huzz

I have 4 Sony players, the oldest is 6 yeasrs and works like new. You cannot avoid the layer change pause. Some cheap players will have extended pauses when accessing the files because they have crummy software and are having trouble finding them. Any player that has problems with DVDR and CDR has poor or out of date compatability software. Get a Sony.

And I know its really not the same thing, but I also have a Sony 5 disc carousel CD player that I bought in 1991.

Its THIRTEEN YEARS OLD and still works like new.

Huzz

Jeff, lemme tellya how I shop for electronics. I go to a website - say, in this case, www.jandr.com - and click on the DVD player link. From the selections that come up, I look at what price range I want to pay, balance it with what features I want, MAYBE consider brand, and click "add to cart." I'm usually done in 5 minutes.

That's the usual extent of my research, and I really have never had any problems. I know I'm probably unusual in this, but there ya go.

I like to rant about the old fart next to me at work. When he buys something, he spends 6 weeks researching thru Consumer Reports, trade magazine reviews, phone calls to dealers and manufacturers (all from work), asking our opinions, and sharing every damn detail of the whole adventure with us until we want to kill him. Then he buys the item (after thoroughly researching prices thru ads and more phone calls to dealers). Adter he recieves the item, 50% of the time decides he doesn't like it! He then spends days on the phone yelling at the store he got it from and the maufacturer ("let me talk to your supervisor! It's people like me who pay your salary!") trying to return the damn thing. I've seen him do this with everything from a digital camera to, honest to god, a chisel.

Maybe it's just me, but I think my technique seems to work better :D.

just a note abut cheap dvd players: i bought one of those no-nameo 39.95 wonders, got it home and it wouldnt place anything but the intro track. took it back, exchanged it for another of the same make and model, same deal. took it back, got another brand and model in the same price range, same thing again. took that back got one for about 80 bucks by a well known manufacturer and it works fine.. so yeah go for cheap, but beware the bottom of the barrel....

Okay, stay inexpensive. Pro-scan isn't what I thought it was, and I don't need it. Regular tv, so no worries over new tech. Got it.

See what kind of software it has, check.

No-names can be good, but you get what you pay for. Roger that.

Region-free - not a good idea. Figures. There are so many titles not available here, or titles that get the better disc treatment overseas.

John, if it don't play, I promise not to whine about it here! Thanks for the link, I'll check it out. I don't like to buy online, so I'm limited to what I find in stores - in case there's a problem, ya know, it's easier to deal with in person. But that'sll help tell me what to look for.

i've had a panasonic player for 6 years now. It has played every dvd I've put in it with absolutely no problems. I haven't tried any self burned dvd yet though.

i've had a panasonic player for 6 years now. It has played every dvd I've put in it with absolutely no problems. I haven't tried any self burned dvd yet though.
That's where the fun starts. When you start burning movies.... oups sorry making backups from your own collection (bulls**t), what was I saying, oh yeh that's when you will realise that the DVD standard is a fleaky medium. I'm sure they did it on purpose. It probably comes from the fact that there's so many company making DVD blanks and burners that a tiny thing will make your disk kapout. Even in the same DVD disks brand name, sometimes they have a different media type (to know the media type you have to burn one and see so imagine if you bought a spindle of 100 and your burner will not burn with that media type...) And that's where you will learn that your 150 -200$ standalone player will not play DVD-R, or DVD+R or whatever but a cheapy will gob anything. I've burned around 60 movies (from my own collection naturally....) and scrapped only 2. But to do so, I was lucky that a guy I know had done all the goofs before me so I learned quick what to do and things to avoid. If you go at www.dvdhelp.com (http://www.dvdhelp.com) , look in the Player compability and check the DVd player that you want to buy. From there, you will see that it's not all the standalone that will play everything. And most of the time, the big name brand will only be ablke play only a few media (DVR+R for example). But it's very simple if you only play genuine DVD's. Then the only thing you have to worry about is relability and cost.
Steph

When you say "there's so many company making DVD blanks and burners that a tiny thing will make your disk kapout", you don't mean ruin the disc being copied do you? Tell me now, 'cuz my niece wants to copy some of my movies!

Can you tell I'm tech-handicapped?

I've never needed that, or made backups, so it's not something I've run into.

And my player is now officially dead. It had been freezing up every few months, and then playing fine again after a few days unplugged. No more, this time I needed to unscrew it and take it apart just to get my movie back.

I bought a floor-model JVC for about $80. It was one of their top of the line versions with all the DTS decoding, TOS-link out, and progressive scan stuff. But for $80?

I threw on the extended warranty, which I never buy, so if it goes belly up within 3 years I can replace it, for free, with a newer model. $110 in the end.

Not bad. . .

I don't suppose its something as simple as dust and dirt in the mechanism and around the laser? Would a proper cleaning suffice? If you smoke or there are smokers in the house or visitors who smoke at your place then that could contribute to dirt accumulation and erratic performance. Maybe a local (AND REPUTABLE) shop could give claan it for you without charging so much that it would be more cost-effective to buy a new machine.

Huzz

My previous DVD player, a Sony, just quit on me one day. Total cost to JUST EVALUATE THE PROBLEM - $110. Seriously. For that price I bought the new one above.

All of the DVD player companies have worked it out so that they're now a disposable commodity. Just go buy a new one.

I've burned(backedup) with nero, dvd shrink, dvd decrypter, xcopy, panasonic and magnavox standalones in both both dvd-r and dvd+r. ALL have played perfectly in all the Sony players. The trick is to learn what brands of blanks are quality and which are crap and which players have good compatibility software to accomidate all the different ripping and burning programs.

I have the $35 cyberhome dvd player from radio shack. They also sell it at best buys. What I like about it is that it plays dvds that have been burned by dvd recorders.

Go to walmart and buy one. If you don't like it take it back. They have a slack return policy. I once returned something I didn't use, and the woman ahead was returning clothes her kids used for several months because 'they wore out too fast'. The store took them.

First, my favorite brand is Apex.
I've got 3 of them in the house. All different models (purchased at different times). All cost $50 or less. They have played everything I have thrown at them (with one exception. 1 player will not play one set of burned discs I have, but they were screwy when I got them anyway. I can watch them on the other 2 players, and FF at 2x, but any time I go above 2x or try to RW, they jump back to the begining of the disc.)
They play CD, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD+R, they even play PAL DVDs (region is not the only thing you have to watch for. A lot of the higher priced units don't have PAL converters, so even if you get a region free disc, if it is encoded in PAL, it won't play in your player. )
About the only thing I have found they don't like is VCD menues. But with VCD dying out thanks to DVD-R, it's really a non-issue.

As to what they are talking about with brand disc and such.
Note: this is all second or third hand knowledge since I don't have a DVD burner yet, but know many who do.
I guess there can be issues related to
A - brand of disc
B - Burner used
C - burning software used
D - player playing the disc

Some players are finicky about what brands they will play. Same with burners and what brands they will burn. Also, some players don't like the way some software encodes the stuff on the disc.
So sometimes it can be a crap shoot on if you can view a burned disc.

I myself haven't had any trouble with viewing any burned discs I have.

Get a Koss model 365 DVD player from Sears for $49.99.
Buy the $7.50 replacement plan.
If the player goes out, just bring in the receipt, the manual and the player and they give you a brand new one!
No hoping it goes out in the 90 days that most give you on the labor. No spending $15 bucks shipping it back to the manufacturer.

I went through one Apex and am on my second JVC in two years.
They can all go out of alignment, no matter how much money you spend. They can be dropped or jostled during shipment and come misaligned fresh out of the box. Even if shipped perfectly, gravity, time and vibration can eventually mess up any of them, so they either start skipping as you go further into the movie, or just don't read or recognize the disk at all.

As long as you keep the receipt, manual and remote, if you go through three DVD players in the 2 years, you get three new DVD players for about 15% of the original one's price(one time fee).

The Koss 365 is progressive scan, Region Free and plays lots of formats.

Ran into the first problem with my player. Tried to watch Assault on Precinct 13 last night, the first chapter after the credits pixelates and jerks badly. Played fine on my old machine, played fine today on a relative's machine. I take it this is one of those frustrating compatability issues?

I also ran into jerkiness at every chapter change on my disc for Dark Star. That one's from a cheapie label. Aside from that, every other disc I've played in the last two months have played smoothly.

I take it this is one of those frustrating compatability issues?


Probably. DVD players can be amazingly cantankerous things. One of the things I've learned is that 90% of the problems that I THOUGHT were disc related turn out to be player related.

Since I've accumulated a few players over the years, I've discovered that virtually EVERY disc will play just fine in at least one machine...and a surprising number will display some minor glitch in at least one machine!

I've been using this new Samsung Hd841 for about 10 days now and it's full of suprises! On the downside, it glitches more than what I'm used to. It's never locked up or skipped but every once in awhile there is an unexplainable pause for a second of two (and I don't mean the layer change). On the other hand, it can take a movie that used to pixellate on my old Pioneer and play it perfectly. And the ocassional disc seems to throw the DVI output out of whack and I end up watching the component input instead. All sorts of weird goings on.

The new player has one characteristic that fascinate me. It's absolutely dead silent. You can press your ear to the player right where the DVD is and it's as quiet as a brick on a feather pillow. Since noisey players are one of my pet peeves, I'm willing (for now) to overlook the other issues :).

The problem is the compatability software of the player. DVD players have software installed to account for variances in the programs used to author and burn dvds. If a disc won't play, but will play in another machine, the compatability software isn't up to snuff or outdated. This also causes the NO DISC or CAN'T READ DISC problem.

Another problem stems from the quality of the electronic components that are used in the manufacture of the different brands of players.

Electronic components have an acceptable range of operating tolerances (voltage, heat, etc.) that qualifies them as quality products. As individual components are tested for these tolerances, they are placed in specific "quality grades", depending on how they test out. Components that operate well within these acceptable tolerances are labeled as "A-grade" components. Ones that are close, but may vary outside of these tolerances, are labeled as "B-grade", and so on.

Manufacturers like Sony and Matsushita (Panasonic, Quasar, etc.) and other, higher-end manufacturers, usually select and purchase the A-grade components at a premium price for their products. Other, "department store-quality" manufacturers like Samsung, Goldstar, etc., select the lower, B and C-grade components at a greatly reduced price.

This is why there are often many more glitches with the lower brands of players, due to the lesser-quality components often operating outside of their "ideal" range. This also accounts for the substantially lower prices that they can be had for. Even players that are offered with major high-end features from these brands are still made with substandard components, and will still exhibit faulty playback.

This info comes from an electronics engineer friend of mine who thoroughly explained the situation to me years ago.

I started having problems with my JVC seven-disc changer when I got the Star Wars trilogy discs. Never had a bit of trouble with it before, But as soon as I put those discs into the player, I started having problems with discs "freezing." If it were just one of them, I would suspect the discs themselves, but all four of them? Nah.

So those are going in the Playstation 2 at the moment. I wish I had the PS2 DVD remote, but the game controllers get the job done.

Qapla'

SSB

Chuck you said your Koss 365 is region free. Have you tried playing a region 2 pal format and if so does it work?

First, my favorite brand is Apex.
I've got 3 of them in the house. All different models (purchased at different times). All cost $50 or less. They have played everything I have thrown at them (with one exception. 1 player will not play one set of burned discs I have, but they were screwy when I got them anyway. I can watch them on the other 2 players, and FF at 2x, but any time I go above 2x or try to RW, they jump back to the begining of the disc.)
They play CD, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD+R, they even play PAL DVDs (region is not the only thing you have to watch for. A lot of the higher priced units don't have PAL converters, so even if you get a region free disc, if it is encoded in PAL, it won't play in your player. )
About the only thing I have found they don't like is VCD menues. But with VCD dying out thanks to DVD-R, it's really a non-issue.

As to what they are talking about with brand disc and such.
Note: this is all second or third hand knowledge since I don't have a DVD burner yet, but know many who do.
I guess there can be issues related to
A - brand of disc
B - Burner used
C - burning software used
D - player playing the disc

Some players are finicky about what brands they will play. Same with burners and what brands they will burn. Also, some players don't like the way some software encodes the stuff on the disc.
So sometimes it can be a crap shoot on if you can view a burned disc.

I myself haven't had any trouble with viewing any burned discs I have.
TAY--

Do you remember what is the model number of the PAL-compatible APEX? I would be most interested in tracking down one of those babies!