what's the best DVD player in the $100 range?

[j0e]

hi, sorry if this question is answered somewhere but i couldn't find a clear answer anywhere online.

I just want a basic DVD player with as many of these features as possible:

- 1080i upsampling
- hdmi output
- plays as many formats as possible (divx, vidx, etc.)

other than that, i don't even know what the difference is between the different players. but i went to a best buy this weekend and they had about 20 dvd players for $30 to $130 that all seemed to have the same features. it was bewildering and frustrating. and then i spent a few hours online today (while i was supposed to be working lol) to try to research it but again i can never find a clear A-to-B comparison between a few models much less the dozens of different models available.

I realize there is no "best" because it's subjective but i'd be happy with the dvd player that has the widest format support if there's no clear single best choice.

So what DVD player should I buy?

Thanks in advance.

[yoda313]

Check out philips for divx support. It seems to be reasonably popular on this website. I believe they have newer models that do upscaling though i don't know what price ranges they have. You might also consider looking for one that has a usb connection option. Then you can connect a powered usb drive up to it and stream from a harddrive. THough I've never done it personally so I can't give specific advice.

[j0e]

we have an older philips, maybe 3-4 years old, plays divx files but chokes on a lot of stuff. now it seems like everyone has a divx player but if philips is the best that makes it easy. now i just have to figure out what the difference is between the 10 or so identical looking philips players

seriously when i go to the philips site and compare players they all seem exactly the same. maybe it's just me lol

[jagabo]

Amonst Philips the 5960 is probably your best bet. The newer model, the 5982, has 1080p and may play a little better off the USB port. But there are lots of firmware modes for the 5960 for longer filenames, packed bitframe support, etc.

The Philips models have some quirks though. Read through the many threads here to learn more. From what I've seen, all Divx/DVD players have quirks.

At least one person prefers the RCA DRC285:
https://forum.videohelp.com/topic331716.html#1743357
A few posts later he mentions some of the things he preferred.