what is the best dvd player

[scott]

are the wal-mart bought (sanyo, sony, etc.)players built the same as the more expensive models? and what would one look for for a home theater? right now i'm using a 30 dollar no name(until i finish my home)and it works great on the t.v.

[Darren]

You won't get much info from that question as it is quite subjective. Buy yourself a good $150 - $200 progressive scan player from Denon, Toshiba, Panasonic or the like and you'll be good to go. Later decide on HD-DVD or BlueRay.

[scott]

thanks darren. is there a place i can learn about the latter two? and good luck with the cobra build, i would give up almost everything i own for one of those kits.

[Sonnie]

We have a little discussion on the HD players in the High Definition forum.

I personally own the Toshiba HD-DVD player and love it. I think those are down to about $350 now. This is a fine unit even on SD DVDs.

If you don't wanna spend that much and wanna do a little more than Darren suggested, the Oppo players are pretty popular and rated well.

[adogand6kids]

Scott,

It may surprise you to know that there is not a direct correlation between what you spend on a DVD player and how well it funtions. When people talk about the function of a DVD player, they usually divide things up into audio functions and video functions. From an audio standpoint, usually the Wal-Mart players are using lower quality components. Also, the higher priced, higher quality players will give you the option of playing audio discs other than CD's (SACD and DVD-A) that have high resolution, multichannel audio tracks that a standard DVD player cannot decode. I have never found a decent, objective comparison of the audio performance of various DVD players.

From the video side, things are different. The best place you can look to compare the video quality of a variety of players is the "Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity" web site www.hometheaterhifi.com. Click on the link near the bottom of the page marked "DVD Benchmark". Its all the info you will ever want on video performance. Here you will be surprised to see that the top performing DVD player is the $150.00 Oppo player - which just slightly out scored the $3500.00 Denon flagship player. Another objective site that uses a slightly different testing strategy is the "Audioholics" website (www.audioholics.com). From the homepage, click on the icon labeled "professional product reviews". Then from that page click the link labeled "check out the DVD player comparison chart".

So, if you are not joining the high-def video crowd in the next year or so, buy the Oppo player. If you are thinking of going high-def sometime in the near future, look at the Toshiba player (more affordable than any blu-ray player and scores better on the DVD performance tests).

[Darren]

scott wrote:

thanks darren. is there a place i can learn about the latter two? and good luck with the cobra build, i would give up almost everything i own for one of those kits.

The latter two meaning HD-DVD and Blueray? You can learn quite a bit here actually. Do some looking around in the DVD forums etc... Personally I refuse to buy either because doing so will seal the fate of that format. The DVD format war is far from over and I don't want to stockpile thousands of dollars of one format DVD only to find that format lost the war. Standard DVD picture quality is extremely good and personally, I don't think it is worth the extra $$ the new formats charge at this time for the small improvement. When the HD or Blueray formats have settled their battle and the software is reasonably priced I'll switch.

[nova]

I bet the Denon 5910 is still the best DVD player around,...though it does come with a rather large price tag. As for the best on a smaller budget I'd have to say the Oppo 971H (as long as you can use the DVI output). Otherwise, it seems most any of the Denon's are pretty good, as well as many of the Panasonic models.