My DVD player has died.
I need a very easy to use replacement, with reliability key.
No fancy features.
Preferably cheap as chips.
Any suggestions please.
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Might be worth paying a little extra for a blueray plater so you're future proofed.
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Choose the same make as your TV - makes it twice as easy to find a controller.
How about secondhand?
I have just bought a top end Sony 2 years old from EBay for £15. HDMI and DVD writer.
Out of 200 odd purchas4s on EBay I have only ever had minor problems on 2 - both with traders - one offered an immediate refund for non delivery, the other, we agreed to differ but for a £10 punt iut was worth the gamble.
cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150532007787
but watch shipping charges it often only makes sense if you can collect.
Last edited by: pmh on Fri 10 Dec 10 at 08:56
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Unless you've got, or are intending to get, a 42" plus screen Blurays' advantages over a decent upscaling DVD player are negligable. Plus I don't actually see Bluray as being 'futureproof'. Especially anything available at the moment that's cheap - the load time (anything up to 2 minutes!) is offputting enough compared to a standard DVD player.
PS3 is still regarded as one of the best Bluray available and I got rid of it in the end because Bluray disks were far more expensive, with little real visual advantage and the standard DVDs' weren't upscaled as well as on samsung.
So, to answer OP, buy a Samsung upscaler off ebay for a few pounds. Had mine ? 4 years now without a hitch, and the quality is there on the screen to see.
Last edited by: Everest Pete on Fri 10 Dec 10 at 09:36
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...Blurays' advantages over a decent upscaling DVD player are negligable...
I saw a blu-ray James Bond film and thought it quite good, but I've not seen the same film upscaled.
To drift the thread a little, I thought the short burst of HD tv I saw was inferior to blu-ray.
I've no reason to doubt EP, so my conclusion is HD tv is a waste of space.
3D anyone?
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HDTV is far from a waste of space.
I also dispute that blue ray is inferior to upscaled DVD. It dependednt on the source material.
And you don't need a 42inch tv to appreciate it either.
I hardly think that the experience on a games console is one to be held up as a definitive comparison study.
Ask anyone who has one of the recent sony BD players.
Last edited by: Zero on Fri 10 Dec 10 at 10:30
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...HDTV is far from a waste of space...
A couple of people have told me they've been far from impressed with live HD Sky football.
One guy, who's in his 60s but reckons his eyesight is still pretty good, said he could hardly tell the difference.
I read EP's comments to mean blu-ray is little better than upscaled DVD.
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Well I could tell the difference on this years world cup, and so could everyone else who came round.
As per blueray better than upscaled, as I said it depends on the source material. It needs to have been shot or produced with HD at source.
As per Blue ray being expensive, yes outrageous price.
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...Well I could tell the difference on this years world cup...
That would have been BBC or ITV wouldn't it?
Presumably using a signal sourced from a South African broadcaster.
Different set-up to a Premier League game on Sky, so it could lead to a different viewing experience.
Dunno what the films are like on Sky HD.
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>> That would have been BBC or ITV wouldn't it?
>>
>> Presumably using a signal sourced from a South African broadcaster.
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>> Different set-up to a Premier League game on Sky, so it could lead to a
>> different viewing experience.
Yup BBC and ITV.
some of the stuff broadcast on Freeview or Freesat however is of such a low bit rate as to be a waste of bits and bytes.
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Until last week I was of the opinion that HDTV was a waste of time (for us) as we can't really tell the difference between that and SD from the sofa.
But for various reasons we found ourselves this week watching a programme from a MUCH closer position, and bingo, the difference was immediate.
I knew the screen we had was too small for the room, but there's the dilemma. We would need a TV that's much bigger than we would countenance in the room to see HD (it's only television for goodness sake, not the dominating feature for us).
And we're not prepared as a rule to sit four feet from the screen.
So for us, HD is nothing to get excited about, and I can't even be bothered to go hunting for the HD equivalent of a programme any more if it's already on the screen in SD.
It's one area where in fact, size does matter.
As far as DVD goes, we have a Philips with progressive scan on a component output and that is a very good picture (for a DVD).
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>>I hardly think that the experience on a games console is one to be held up as a definitive comparison study.
The thing is, many of the reviews I've read (and I can only go by this) use the PS3 as the benchmark for affordable Bluray player performance. If that is the best or near best unless you pay big bucks then my view stands that it's not a great enough advance to what I get from the Samsung.
As for HD tv, IF it has been filmed HD and broadcast to a high quality then yes it is noticably better than standard TV. What annoys me though is the variable sound levels - HD usually being much quieter (and perversely often not quite as good quality?) to the same standard definition broadcast. I assume this is to do with pre digital takeover bandwidth issues etc.
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>> >>I hardly think that the experience on a games console is one to be held
>> up as a definitive comparison study.
>>
>> The thing is, many of the reviews I've read (and I can only go by
>> this) use the PS3 as the benchmark for affordable Bluray player performance. If that is
>> the best or near best unless you pay big bucks then my view stands that
>> it's not a great enough advance to what I get from the Samsung.
>>
I've often wondered what is to be gained by having a more expensive player when the signal path is pure digital. There will be no subtle differences between players, either the bitstream can be read correctly and passed to the display or not. OK if there is upscaling involved then the scenario is very different, but with a pure HD signal flow I don't see why there should be any differences.
Ok I don't doubt that there are countless HiFi reviewers claiming a more expensive player gives 'deeper blacks' or some such twaddle, but those folks have always lived in a different world where the laws of physics and information theory don't apply.
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>> www.amazon.co.uk/Sony-DVPSR90B-MIDI-DVD-Player/dp/B001J2Z4XQ/ref=sr_1_3?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1291934812&sr=1-3
>>
>> A sony for thirty quid.
>>
From previous experience Sony are probably the least likely players to be region free hackable though:-/
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why bother? hack the media on a pc and rewrite it region free,
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Thanks for all your replies. One girl child has emigrated so we are 'baby sitting' the newish samsung LCD TV. In my simplistic mind it makes sense to get the same brand DVD so I shall buy a Samsung upgrader (had never heard of such a thing until this post) so the girls can then watch their favourite Xmas DVDs...White Xmas, Its a W Life, Meet me in St Louis etc etc.
Seen one on Play.com which gets good reviews so will confirm with SWMBO prior to ordering.
Thanks again.
LL
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I bought a "Umax" DVD player on the interweb about 18 months ago. HDMI and SCART outputs, optical digital out for surround systems, could be made region free in seconds, and cost me £26 including delivery.
Still doing sterling service, and a very decent picture on our 40" Samsung LCD TV
I don't think Blu-Ray is future proof. The future is electronic media. The idea of having to store, insert and remove physical media such as a disc to play a film or a piece of music is already looking old fashioned.
I built a media centre PC for the lounge out of an old 3GHz Pentium 4 PC I had kicking around. Cost me about £200, plus the old box, and could have done it cheaper if I didn't want to stream my Sky+ box into it.
I have been progressively ripping my DVD film collection to ISO (image files), and playing the images back directly off the drive using Daemon Tools Lite and MediaPortal (both free). All the menus / special features etc work as with the disc, and both picture and sound quality are as good as the original disc.
With hard drive space now running at about £40 per terabyte, storage is just not an issue any more. Network storage (NAS) and RAID controllers and boxes are similarly down to very sensible money for anyone concerned about sharing across multiple rooms or backing up their data.
All I do is switch the PC on, navigate through an intuitive menu system using a TV style IR remote control, choose my film (complete with cover art and synopsis/actor list downloaded directly from IMDB), and hit play. No faffing with discs.
This is the future.
Last edited by: DP on Fri 10 Dec 10 at 12:00
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This is the future.
I only disagree slightly,why have all the storage in a noisy warm machine on your premises? Streaming works well for 'tv' quality at current broadband speeds- once everybody has the next generation (20 or 200 Mbit/s) HD streaming will become a practical proposition. One can happily use Spotify or similar for music, store your photos on line, now - tomorrow video.
Practical Cloud Computing c/o Google is getting closer.
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>> All I do is switch the PC on, navigate through an intuitive menu system using a TV style IR remote control, choose my film (complete with cover art and synopsis/actor list downloaded directly from IMDB), and hit play. No faffing with discs.
This is the future.
I agree totally. Although for now, Bluray seems to me to be the most efficient method of shipping about HD movies, but it will definitely change in time.
The PS3 is ace for this, bluray player, HDD built in for films or music you copy on to it, will stream off the main PC upstairs, iPlayer or youtube works very well / fast / easy, the latest thing is love film, you can stream their collection of films to the PS3 on demand and it's included in your love film subscription (cheaper than Sky Movies).
For an off the shelf system at circa £200, the PS3 is hard to beat.
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When you can get a really good high quality Blue Ray player at 139 quid, the PS3 does not quite stack up as it used to, but if you want to play games as well, it does stack up as sound sense.
I too agree blueray is not the place to be as media centre or internet streaming will quickly take over, however if you buy the right type of Blue ray player that has network streaming capability you are covered on all fronts.
NO need to build or buy a media centre/server pc, your main home pc covers the job nicely.
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A few comments:
HD is not about screen size rather screen resolution.
Upscaled DVD is good though Blueray is better when played on an HD TV.
PS3 is a great Blueray player though it might not upscale DVDs as well as dedicated players.
We have a PS3 plus a Yamaha DVD player and a Sony DVD/PVR both of which upscale well, havent tried DVDs in the Sony Blueray player.
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Thanks for all your help. Even those that were so technical i didn't understand them!
Finally ordered a Toshiba SD390 Upscaling from Amazon. Good reviews from various sites.
£45 inc P & P.
Not the most amazing piece of kit but ok for watching old DVD's.
LL
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Final thoughts.
Received the Toshiba SD390, and Linx HDMI CAB0001 full HD1080 compatible lead. What a fantastic picture. Friends rate it almost as good as HD & Blu Ray/ And all for £55.00
Thanks again for all advice offered here.
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>> full HD1080 compatible lead>>
Despite some vendors selling HDMI leads for £100 plus the fact is that an HDMI lead is an HDMI lead, they have to built to a spec. There are diferrent versions, i.e. v1.2, v1.3, though they are generation rather than quality related and are backwards compatible.
The only possible benefit is gold plated contacts and HDMI leads with gold plated contacts can be had for under a fiver.
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yer, an HDMI cable is digital. Digital is Digital
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>> yer, an HDMI cable is digital. Digital is Digital
>>
Well yes, any HDMI cable that works to spec. (HDMIv1.3b or whatever) will give exactly the same picture as any other cable that meets the spec., whether the cable costs 2 quid or 200 quid. HiFi reviewers will of course claim otherwise, I'm never sure if they're on drugs or kickbacks.
However HDMI signals use a very high data rate and there is no error correction on the payload, so it is quite possible to make a cable so crap it doesn't work properly, irrespective of price.
The tricky bit is working out which 5 quid cable is made to spec. and which is a crap 49p cable with a big mark up.
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DVD player . Recommendations please - Zero
