Advice Needed For A New DVD Player

[moviebuff2]

Hi everyone

I am looking for a replacement for my Terapin DVD player. I already have a Philips DVP642. Man! isn't this a picky machine! Many DVDs I made from my AVI files would play just fine with the Terapin but not with the Philips. The picky machine will either skip or show broken images, although it will play the AVI files without any problems

I am looking for something cheap (to discard within a few years) that will play home-made DVDs without troubles. I paid $30 for the Terapin and looking for something in this price range.

Thanks

[Bob W]

Well with that budget I wouldn't expect any player to last two years. Anyway all I can suggest is go to wally world or k-mart and see what they have to offer. Also Target has some cheap DVD players.

[moviebuff2]

Thanks.

But that's why I wrote "to be discarded within a few years".

Anyway, I opened my Terapin and noticed that the DVD drive inside is a shinwa shd-2502N. Perhaps, someone would know where I may find the replacement for this shinwa? I searched on Google and Yahoo, nothing came up.

[Krispy Kritter]

Most electronics nowadays are considered disposable. It would most likely cost you more to get the replacement parts than a new standalone would cost. If that is what you really want to do, then your best bet would be to go to a repair center and see if they can order the part for you, but at the cost of the standalone in the first place, it isn't worth your time, effort and money.

[moviebuff2]

I have tried a few other brands of cheap ($30 range) DVD players. They were all crap! Cyberhome, Polaroid, Coby, etc. That's why I was hoping to be able to find that shinwa (at a low cost, of course, say $10 :P ) for my Terapin. At least, I know that the shinwa plays all my home-made DVDs flawlessly.

[SoCalMK]

Get a good video card, a PC remote and output your computer to your television; last you for years.

[oldfart13]

Curtis DVD1084. Cost me $52CAD does DivX and Xvid. Has USB ports for external devices. Much faster read than the Apex AD-1500 it replaces. The region hack took less than 10 seconds to accomplish. Not a bad little deck at all...

[moviebuff2]

Thanks. Where can I find this Curtis? Searches on Google and Yahoo! did not come up with anything but discussions from this forum. I now realize how popular our forum is.

[moviebuff2]

SoCalMK,

Thanks, but don't you think a good video card would cost me hundreds of dollars? I saw many of them with their price tag ranging from $199 all the way to $699. With that amount I may just get for myself a really good standalone DVD player.

[moviebuff2]

oldfart13,

Please help understand this. According to this link, you seemed to have problems with Curtis 1084. No?


https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=294515

See my other thread for what I have found that I could and could not do with this unit:

https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=292867&highlight=

Also tried a USB 2.0 drive interface kit, a NexStar NST-350UF and put a 13 Gig drive in it and the Curtis also fails to recognize it though Win XP found it right away and installed drivers for it even though it was plugged into a USB 1.1 connector. Both Lexar jumpdrives I have cannot be used onthe Curtis as it fails to recognize them. Please post results with equipment that works with this player.

[oldfart13]

Only on the USB external devices. So far I have been unable to get them to work. The menu pops up briefly but then disappears. Others have said that they got theirs to work so I am still investigating. The Xvid and DivX works fine though, even those discs with QPEL and GMC encoding work fine which is something that the Philips 642 won't touch. So far, I'm quite happy with the new deck...