Best Cheapie DVD Players

[oldfart13]

I'm looking for some Christmas presents and want to pick up some cheapie players for friends. Unfortunately, the list here is incomplete on many newer players that are available to me like the RCA DRC300i or the Daenyx DV-3111B (which I have bought but may return). Both have USB ports but the Daenyx is incapable of playing avis through the port without slow-downs and freezing. I don't want to have to keep buying and returning units but that's the only option I seem to have as most places do not have room to have every player hooked up. Anyone got any thoughts on sub $80 units that work well, play most formats and have USB ports? It doesn't matter if they up convert or not. Oh yes, the popular Philips units are not available where I am other than the 3140 and 3980 at Wal-Mart. Those will not work with discs produced with my Daytek DVD recorders, freezing at each edit point on discs. Weirdly enough, the old Philips 642 I had (which finally died some months ago) would play those discs perfectly as will the Daenyx which is also a Daewoo product.

[gguerra3]

I bought a phillips (refurb) divx upconverting with hdmi for $30 including shipping and am quite happy with it. no usb ports however. I dont have the model right now. I burn my avi's on DVD-RW and keep using it over and over. Phillips outlet store usually has good deals.

[oldfart13]

No such place here in Canada. I picked up an RCA 286 today. Unfortunately, the other model, the 285 has a bad rep on this board, so it's likely I'll take this one back as well as the Daenyx if they under perform. The good thing about taking them back to Can. Tire (where I bought it) is the 90 day return policy....

[oldfart13]

And that seems to be that. After a fruitless search, I have found exactly that one RCA deck and it's pretty poor at that being that it is made mostly out of plastic. From Wal-Mart Canada, there are no newer Philips decks. Sears Canada no longer sells Philips DVD players, Superstore has Toshiba decks that are at least a year old and some newer product also by Daewoo. Zellers seems to have given up on players. That leaves me with....hmmmm....no one left in the city that sells players other than The Brick and I don't think they have Philips either. Nope, Daewoo/TEC players but not one of them has USB 2.0 inputs. Futureshop has only Insignia and maybe Daytek/Daewoo/Tec other than name brand stuff (so no region code defeats/hacks) so that pretty well leaves me out in the cold. Bad for Christmas presents this year...

[edDV]

No online sources up there?

[Marvingj]

Try this with free shipping
http://www.overstock.com/Electronics/DVD-Players/12942/subcat.html

[oldfart13]

Shipped from USA? $83CAD + unknown amount of shipping + unknown amount for duty and taxes? For a refurb? Forget that nonsense...

No, Canada is way behind on Internet sales vs. the USA (like about 5 years). Wal-Mart Canada doesn't even allow you to get items from their online catalog in Canada whereas in the USA I can order and ship it. And the stock is different between the companies. About the only places I can order items from would be Tiger Direct and Best Buy (1300 km in either direction from where I am) and I get killed on the shipping charges. B&M's I prefer because I can easily get my money back if I'm not satisfied within an hour. But the stock on home electronics has been getting lower and lower with each successive year.

[edDV]

Sounds to me like a huge business opportunity.

[oldfart13]

You'd think, but in the past year alone we have lost at least 2 electronics specialty stores and one furniture store that carried many home electronics products. With the big downturn in high paying jobs in this area over the past decade, it's a wonder we have anything left at all. Being isolated sure doesn't help business startups nor having a dwindling, aging population...

[edDV]

You'd think, but in the past year alone we have lost at least 2 electronics specialty stores and one furniture store that carried many home electronics products. With the big downturn in high paying jobs in this area over the past decade, it's a wonder we have anything left at all. Being isolated sure doesn't help business startups nor having a dwindling, aging population...

I was thinking on-line (maybe for the younger new generation). Amazon started with books. This business could start with home AV equipment featuring early adoption of cutting edge models not available in local brick store inventory.

[oldfart13]

Add another store to my list. This one was one of the oldest video specialty stores in this area. I remember buying VHS equipment from them back in the 1980's. They switched over to an all High End format six months ago but I was informed today that they closed their doors last Friday. Now you can't get high(er) end equipment in this area either. Going to be real fun shipping those high end plasma TVs or projectors to this neck of the woods. I think this all started a few years back with the demise of the Sony store in town. Since then, more and more electronics outfits have folded. At any rate, it's not getting me the DVD players I want for Christmas presents...

[oldfart13]

I took the RCA 286 back after some tests. I tried 5 discs of various files and movies. It would not play any of them: AVIs with subtitles, Mpegs burned onto a DVD, DVD from my Daytek recorder would only display the title screen, bought discs would only play the FBI warning then stop at the title menu. In short, nothing worked! The worst experience I've had testing these players to date! I can't believe RCA's quality control is so bad....

[victoriabears]

http://www.bestbuy.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&sku_id=0926INGFS10100854&catid=25175

although I recall you cannot buy on line?

Cannot praise this dvd player enough and they will ship direct to your present recipients.

They also have the 3140 for $50.

[edDV]

I recently bought a Philips DVP5992. They have added WMV playback to the list. I too am pleased.

[oldfart13]

DVP5992 not available. I don't see them listed on Canadian websites....

In the old days I would have someone in The Peg (Winnipeg) buy one and ship it but with the very high increaed shipping costs it's now almost 1/2 of the cost of the item! I guess if I want one that bad....

[oldfart13]

Confirmed....$60CAD + tax + $25CAD shipping....no savings there....

[oldfart13]

The 3140 is available from Wal-Mart Canada HOWEVER it has a big drawback as it will freeze on discs made with my Daytek DVD recorders. This happens at every edit point that was made on the HDD and then burned to disc. That renders this unit unusable for me. Oddly enough that doesn't happen with the older 642 units. They must have changed something internally...

[victoriabears]

The dayteks , or at least my DVP30's, do odd things with recordings, and seem to need finalising on dvd+R discs.

You should not be having those problems, tried finalising?

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4180847&CatId=1701

is best I can find, $1.99 shipping !

[craigarta]

Well the only other option might be Future Shop.
But I only see the commercials on the CBC channel from Vancouver

But they do have this
http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&sku_id=0665000FS10086189&catid=

[mstone321]

I'm not a huge fan of XS-Cargo in general, but you might want to have a look if there is one close to you.

http://www.shopxscargo.com/

Matt

[oldfart13]

Since I'm only using +R Verbatims, yes each disc is finalized. Perhaps you meant finalizing +RWs? I didn't think those needed finalizing. They work great in everything BUT the 3140. I had one but sold it to a friend after it exhibited it's usual freezing behaviour. The other cheapie Daewoo players don't freeze at the edit points but the ones with USB are 1.1 only and won't play avis through the port. That's why I was looking all over town for a newer Philips to test my discs on but couldn't find any. The Sony also has no USB and you won't find hacks with that unit to change the region encoding. Bang! There goes playback of my Region 2 disc collection...

[victoriabears]

On my daytek you have to fialise the +R's as well

[MidnightWatcher]

Get the Philips 5990/37 from NCIX.com -- they have it on sale this week for CA$54.99 -- does xvid/divx/wmv/mp3/jpg and has USB 2.0.