Advise for buying a new standalone dvd player

[Delta007bhd]

Hi all,

I have a MAGNUM DVD PLAYER 2004 which is my third player and I would like to upgrade to a newer and better one. The reason why I want to ditch my current player is because almost half of my self made dvd's didn't work. Some didn't load at all, others started hanging after an hour or half an hour. And it doesn't seem to read DVDRW, although the manual says it does. Tried different brands, different burn speeds, different software,etc, and this for the last 2 years. They all work well on my pc though.

In google newsgroups they recommended me the philips dvp5960 but I went to an electronics store today and they said philips have lots of problems. Panasonic is better according to market studies and so on(we talked for about half an hour).

What's important to me is reliability. If I insert a self made disc, I want it to play from start till finish. I looked videohelp.com reviews too but I don't know what to think anymore, the one says this, the other says that in the reviews, and then there's the google forums where they say that...

The player should have these features:
PAL, CD-R/RW, DVD+/-R, DVD+/-RW, VCD, SVCD, DivX, CD-MP3.
Also welcome but not strictly necessary:
PAL/NTSC so that I can play american dvd's too (I'm in Europe >PAL) and a 5.1 RCA output for my surround set.

If you would like to know which software I use, here it is(although I do not want to start a software discussion here):
DVDshrink
DVD Decrypter
AnyDVD
Alcohol120%
WinAvi
ConvertXtoDVD
AVS Video Tools(only the video converter)
Nero 6 (esp Nero Burning ROM)


Thanks in advance for your help!

[classfour]

Unless Panasonic has started installing better drive motors in their loaders: I would not consider them. Playback is good video, sometimes compatibility, sometimes not on most discs.

I'd look at Pioneer. Otherwise, stick to a cheap player and toss it when it dies.

[Delta007bhd]

thanks, but the player I currently have IS a cheap model so why buy another cheap model that probably will have the same problems, or even other problems.

OK so first I was advised a philips, then a panasonic and now pioneer. Why pioneer? Do you work for them or do you have one that works perfectly and what type is it so I can look it up?

[Paul_G]

I recommend the cheapest unknown brand dvd player you can find, they play everything without fuss while the popular expensive known brands clearly have restrictions in their bios/rom etc to stop playing certain discs (especially burned media).

[FulciLives]

Get the Philips DVP-5140 if you have a non-HDTV. If you have a HDTV with HDMI then you can get the Philips DVP-5960 which offers up-conversion via HDMI. However some HDTV's do a better job with the internal scaler meaning that the DVP-5960 may be "overkill" for you (as any HDTV with a quality scaler will work fine using the component video outputs of the DVP-5140).

The electronics guy that said Philips is no good is ... simply put ... rather clueless.

However Philips is not the only option ...

If you have a HDTV with HDMI and want to go "all out" then get the Oppo Digital DV-981HD which is one of the very best up-conversion DVD players around as it uses the Faroudja DCDi chipset (but only when using HDMI output). The Faroudja DCDi chipset is rarely used due to high cost but it is probably the only chipset that can beat the up-conversion, deinterlacing and 3:2 Pulldown built-in on a HDTV.

The Oppo Digital website ---> http://www.oppodigital.com/

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[Delta007bhd]

Thanks all. As I could have guessed, it's not easy to find a player that is reliable at all times, or maybe even there isn't such a player.

2 solutions as I see it:
either I bring my dvd/cds of which I know they don't play on my standalone to the shop and test them in their players

or, I stick to my current player and live with the misery.

problem solved.

Thanks!

[Krispy Kritter]

I second the Oppo 971 if you have DVI/HDMI on your TV. Excellent player. Plays everything I've tried so far, PAL or NTSC, originals or copies on various media, even divx.