Toshiba SD3960 or Philips DVP-642?

[tee jay]

Which one is better in terms of playing different disc formats, less problem in playing dvd-r or dvd-rw and quality of the player? By the way, I don't remember the model but there's a new JVC that also plays DivX. Any opinion on that?

[compiler]

Is the Toshiba SD3960 NTSC and PAL convertible, free region, VCR and DVD recorder friendly? Those are the criteria (plus multi play formats) to compare and pick up the best one.

[lordsmurf]

I have a Toshiba 2800 as my main player. It can only do NTSC and R1 ... but it's far better than all my other players. The Cyberhome 300 is next to it, for anything else I may want to play. I do, afterall, mostly play discs from R1 USA NTSC. I wanted the best player for it.

[tee jay]

Is the Toshiba SD3960 NTSC and PAL convertible, free region, VCR and DVD recorder friendly? Those are the criteria (plus multi play formats) to compare and pick up the best one.

Hmm.. VCR and DVD recorder friendly, now that's what I want. Do you happen to know any player that does that? I have a pioneer recorder and would like to back up my VHS and DVD but my Sima video stabilizer will only work on a VCR to VCR. I've read some info in this forum regarding the Philips being region free hackable but have not seen any that mention players (at least the newer models) as being dvd recorder friendly. Any ideas?

[lordsmurf]

Any that turn off MV.

[CBC]

The Philips is more flexible, format-wise (can even play DivX, I believe), tho' not sure about Region hacks or PAL to NTSC playability. Some other Philips' can play PAL, but only on PAL sets. The Tosh can playCD/DVD/ mp3 & VCD - that is about it. Actually it's better known as a great low cost CD player, according to some of the audiojunkies over in www.audioasylum. Has decent build quality for it's pricepoint, good transport mechanism & can be easily & cheaply modded. Front LCD is kind of hard to read (the earlier model, SD-3950, has a larger one)

[Floydscruffy]

I have a Toshiba sd 3960 xu NTSC region 1 it doesnt do anything of what you are asking, it plays "backups" dvd-r perfectly , it doesnt do pal to ntsc conversion, it only play NTSC, also it plays VCD version 2.0 with playback control and plays SVCD only using the VCD heather trick. Although it has some trouble with authored DVDs, and havent pinpointed out the problem exactly, apparently I´ve found the ulead DVD workshop is so far the only authoring software thatworks fine with it, although I have only tried with most freeware DVD authoring software