HELP: What DVD should I get?

[joe_pt]

Hello All!

I know this is a generic question but I would like your opinion. I want to buy a new standalone DVD player but I don't know what to get. I do know what basic I features I would like:

- Play all regions (I live in Portugal but have several DVDs from US and Brasil)
- Play DVD+R and DVD-R
- Nice display
- Cheap Price (max. 150 eur)
- An overall good DVD so that I don't have to go to the warranty in 3 months

As you can see I am not very demanding.

I read an earlier thread about the Philips 642 but a lot of the people who posted reviews said they were asking for assistance within 6 months and Philips only gives 90-day warranty so I got scared.

Finally my brother has a Toshiba SD-230E (they give 5-year warranty) but its not multi-region (unless I hack it) and its pricy but it seems to be an excellent DVD reader.

What is your opinion?
What DVD reader should I get?

Please share your opinions

Thanks for this great forum
joe_pt

[RottenFoxBreath]

you live in europe,so 12 months is the standard warranty period.they could try that 90 day crap but thats just for the US.we get 12 months as a standard,statutory right.
the philips is ok,not great.i would just shop around,new ones come out quite frequently,and as the new seasons stocks are likely to come in soon,it may be an idea to hang off to see if older ones get cheaper,or newer ones are better.lol.
as for toshiba offering the 5 year thing,i highly doubt it,i just had to push them into honoring a 2 year pan euro warranty for my tv.-they bitched about the 12 month thing.
sounds like your brother actually purchased an extended warranty from the store,and not toshiba.

[joe_pt]

I guess the best thing is to shop around. Anyway I was looking through a lot of threads in this forum and it looks like the Toshiba 4900 is pretty good. At least most people are satisfied with it. Just got to figure out if its available here and the price.

thanks

[midnightsun]

I would say the Pioneer DV-470. It's not multiregion but can be hacked to make it so. Plays back PAL and NTSC, mpeg4 (divx,xvid etc even in the ogm container with vorbis audio), mpeg-iso, dvd-mp3, dvd-wr's in VR mode etc. It also plays DVD-Audio and SACD if you flash it with a Piooner DV-575 firmware (browse around for details). Only thing is that it only has stereo analog output as opposed to the 575 which has 6ch analog output (they both have optical/coaxial output though). Its price should be around 115-130€ (I saw it in a store here in Italy-selling for 119€- and many online vendors have it at around the same price, possibly lower).

The 575 sells at about 40-50€ more in case you're interested.