What is the best Multi-region EVERYTHING player

Im basically looking for the best dvd player that can play anything, and where you can plug a external hd on and watch from there too. I would like to have one thta could play avi/divx off a cd-r.. if thats possible? i would also like it to be under $120 because im poor. thanks in advance!!

It appears you are asking about a standalone player. Then this would be better in our DVD Player forum. Moving you.

ok thankyou

if you are looking for quality buy the Oppo.if you looking for low quality buy the Philips

OPPO DV-970HD
http://www.oppodigital.com/dv970hd/dv970hd.html

amazon.com $149 shipping free

Originally Posted by Variable

Im basically looking for the best dvd player that can play anything, and where you can plug a external hd on and watch from there too.

NOTHING but a PC plays everything. I'm not aware of any players that allow you to plug in an external HD. Such players, if they even exist, won't be in your price range for sure.

Originally Posted by Variable

I would like to have one thta could play avi/divx off a cd-r.. if thats possible? i would also like it to be under $120 because im poor. thanks in advance!!

There are many players capable of playing Divx/Xvid off a CD-R, but no 100% guarantees to play everything. QPel and MMC with warp points greater than 1 (Xvid's default MMC uses 3) are gigantic problems for standalone players that support Divx/Xvid. If you, like many people, download videos, for all you know someone may have encoded a file with too high a bit rate, too large a resolution, or some kind of audio that your standalone won't support. There are no guarantees.

Philips makes some cheap DVD player that play most discs. The Oppo is probably a better player though, but you get what you pay for so you should expect that. Even the Oppo won't play "everything".

Originally Posted by MJA

if you are looking for quality buy the Oppo.if you looking for low quality buy the Philips

OPPO DV-970HD
http://www.oppodigital.com/dv970hd/dv970hd.html

amazon.com $149 shipping free

That Oppo player looks interesting. Are they considered a quality manufacturer? It seems like this player plays PAL discs, true? I live in the U.S., would be nice to have a quality DVD player that plays PAL discs, for the very few that I have.

Philips DVP-5960 (~US$70) has a USB1.1 port and can play files off a FAT formatted disks and thumb drives. 8.3 filenames only via USB. And limited bitrate.

It can be made region free with a few button presses. Converts PAL to NTSC, NTSC to PAL. Plays Divx/Xvid.

It's an HD upscaling player but cannot play HD material. There are hacked firmwares available which allow long filenames from DVD, bigger SRT font sizes, etc.

A new model, the DVP-5982, will be out soon.

About.com's review says that this player can only convert pal to NTSC if the disc was ripped with no region. Is this before the hack?

Originally Posted by esumsea

About.com's review says that this player can only convert pal to NTSC if the disc was ripped with no region. Is this before the hack?

Yes. After the region free hack it plays PAL DVDs on NTSC TVs just fine. I have no problems with commercial UK (region 2) PAL DVDs for example.

Thanks Jagabo. Is the Pal conversion rough on this unit. I never heard ofit before but it seems pretty popular here. Does Oppo keep updating their machines?

Originally Posted by esumsea

Thanks Jagabo. Is the Pal conversion rough on this unit. I never heard ofit before but it seems pretty popular here. Does Oppo keep updating their machines?

I have an Oppo 970 and yes they do update,Oppo's can also be made region free with a simple remote hack.
The 970 also has a USB 1.1 port and accepts media cards,it also supports Divx.

What do you think of the Pal conversion, Movie Geek? Is there a format or type of disc you have had problems playing with this unit?
Regards,
Mario

Originally Posted by esumsea

Thanks Jagabo. Is the Pal conversion rough on this unit. I never heard ofit before but it seems pretty popular here.

PAL converted to NTSC plays pretty cleanly on the Philips DVP-5960. Motion is very smooth. It appears to perform a bilinear resize, not the best but adequate.

The 5960 isn't perfect. It has several little quirks. Nothing that's a show stopper but little things like:

You can't power on the unit by pressing the Open Tray button. You have press the power button then wait about 7 seconds before pressing the Tray Open button.

It has a resume feature (ie, it remembers where you stopped playing a DVD and can restart from there the next time you turn on the unit) but you have to press the Play button at just the right time after powering up. There's no resume function when playing Divx/Xvid files.

It has no long filename support. It displays about 14 characters of Divx filenames from DVD. It displays 8.3 filenames from USB devices. There are firmware mods that allow for longer filenames from DVDs, but not from USB. 8.3 filenames aren't a problem if your copying one file to a USB thumbdrive to watch it. But if you hook up a hard drive with several hundred videos it's hard to identify what's what.

Note a new model has recently become available, the DVP-5982. As far as I can tell, it's the same as the 5960 but has 1080p output (rather than 1080i) and it's black instead of silver.

Jagabo, doesn't this (the philips) have the same chip as 970/971?

I believe the Philips 5960 has the same chipset as the Oppo 970 (Mediatek 1389 and 1392), but not the 971.

This is the one:

http://www.hkflix.com/hardware/xq/asp/pid.1/qx/details.htm

They're becoming rather hard to find, but HKFlix does get them in every couple of months or so. Definitely worth the wait and the search.

Originally Posted by Mitchum22

This is the one:

http://www.hkflix.com/hardware/xq/asp/pid.1/qx/details.htm

No mention of Divx/Xvid.

Or DVDDL+R. Seems interesting though. Anybody hear anything about this Mediamatics chip or have any experience with this player?
Let me know.
THanks!
Mario

Just got off the phone with Oppo. Bad news, they say that unless you have an HDMI or DVI input (I don't, I have Yprpb) the Pal to NTSC conversion is not very good. They way it would be slightly fuzzy and choppy. Looking for something that would give me a smooth playback.

Philps 5960 has Component and HDMI and Composite outputs. However only via the HDMI does it upscale. It does look good via component as 4:3 and not 16:9

Went with the DV-696v-s because it has the 16MB pal to NTSC chip and plays aboslutely everything. It does not have Karaokee but who cares! :P

esumsea, I don't know who you talked to at OPPO but they are mistaken. The PAL to NTSC conversion on my 970 is excellent using the composite connection.

I dunno if it was me you were referring to in being confused (not that I am insulted in anyway). I admit I am a noob but there is no confusing this:
"High power built-in 16MB video converter allows playback of PAL movies on a NTSC TV or NTSC movies on a PAL TV. Basically this DVD player will play any region DVD movie on any TV in the world! "
This is what sold me on the 696v-s. Also it was the assurances of the vendor that the pal playback would be smooth. Oppo simply told me that there was fuzziness and some studdering. I have never tried these units so I had to go with what he said. I did seem like an interesting unit, but if their Pal to NTSC is not going to be reported as great, then I had to go the other way. I will report back my experience with the 696v-s.

Thanks for you comments. They are trully appreciated!

Regards,
Mario