advice on purchasing new dvd-player for the family?

[hkhooj]

i am a student and thus cant afford anything beyond a computer as far as "Home Theatre". The parents on the other hand are now upgrading their setup (quite meager) to something new. Their Home Theatre needs are quite small really, just something decent looking which can do well at dinner parties (music), nothing like throwing a super bowl sunday party in HD or watching the star wars trilogy with a setup rivaling a premier cinema.

Thanks to the forums/reviews on this site i managed to push them into buying an Athena Micra 6 HTIB and a Pioneer VSX-815-K reciever (if left to their own devices, they would have purchased one with a lot of brochures/flyers from Costco or BestBuy or some other local retailer... going off of what brand made the best impression on them these last 10 years through television commercials, ads, etc.)

now comes the issue of dvd players! im 21, and it is possible to let the people who raised me, fed me, and protected me to go out there into BestBuy or whatever store and be preyed upon by ignorant salesmen... but id feel guilty if they dropped 200$ on something that wasnt truly worth 200$. :/

Needs:

*Decent surround sound features?
-what little i know about DTS, Dolby Digital, ProLogic, etc, i learned from this site, and even then i was soaking up a third of what was written (ChemEng major not ElectricalEng major!) so i guess i dont have a firm grasp on what is essential and what is not essential.

*no hdtv, so such features arent very important, and they will not be buying one soon, if at all.

*DVD+DL (or DVD-DL, whichever, + preferred)

*DivX/Xvid capable
-Question on DivXHD and XviDHD: are these formats meant for HD TV's? or just higher bitrate divx/xvid formats? still unclear.

*MP3 CD/mp3-DVD
-not sure if theyll NEED a dvd-mp3 capability though, can old people find 4000 songs? j/k

***SACD/DVD-A question:

is this a feature even worth getting? SACD/DVD-A is a format that must be released BY the distributor/label right? So the cd tracks come in this newer format that only few players can read? Its not as if this is a new format like PictureCD's or AudioCD's, in which I (using some home software) burn a specific disc type to be used for a certain playback functional?

and since the majority (98.743%) of all their music is foreign (persian labels in Los Angeles, or direct from Iran) i dont see them offering such things(?).


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I guess ultimately, the most important thing is this: what player out there has basic functions like MP3-CD/DVD+DL/etc, and can play ANYTHING you throw at it, especially mpeg4 (xvid/divx formats) as well as PAL dvd's/svcd/vcd's.

Through my reading, company web sites dont quite list the extent of compatibility in regards to MPEG4 playback, or brands of discs (ridata, tdk, etc, some not working while others work.. etc), which unfortunately is my #1 concern.

Advice from personal experiences or knowledge? Price range MAX is 200-250 (must be black), but honestly since theres no HDTV involved, i doubt ill need anything really spendy right? just a gem that can play anything thrown at it, built reasonably well.

Any help is appreciated, and my thanks in advance, whether you reply or not, reading this far gets you my praise.

-H

 

[Nick250]

What you are looking for can be had for $150 ish from sony, panasonic, pioneer etc. Just shop around for the best deal. I personally have had a basic Panasonic for 4 years and no troubles.

 

[w.e-coyote]

Phew, quite a few questions out there! Let me give my two cent's worth in this discussion.

*Decent surround sound features?
-what little i know about DTS, Dolby Digital, ProLogic, etc, i learned from this site, and even then i was soaking up a third of what was written (ChemEng major not ElectricalEng major!) so i guess i dont have a firm grasp on what is essential and what is not essential.​

My guess would be that you will plug the Digital Output cable (coax I would presume) to the Pioneer receiver. In that case the reciever will do all the audio processing for you and the DVD drive is just the optical pick-up unit. I would not worry about this too much as a DVD-player feature.

*no hdtv, so such features arent very important, and they will not be buying one soon, if at all.​

Don't worry about this either. DVD's are 480i and then upconverted to whatever resolution you like either in the DVD player (typically very poor quality upconversion), the receiver (can be decent, don't know about the Pioneer set you have), or the TV (usually your best bet). You will only see HD on DVD format come out with Blu or HD-DVD; sometime next year.

*DVD+DL (or DVD-DL, whichever, + preferred)​

Don't know the compatibility of stand-alone DVD players with this format yet. Seems it's still very much in the PC-sphere. Do make sure the player plays DVD+R/RW and DVD-R/RW though. DVD-RAM is not really relevant IMHO.

*DivX/Xvid capable
-Question on DivXHD and XviDHD: are these formats meant for HD TV's? or just higher bitrate divx/xvid formats? still unclear.​

Pass. Need to look into this.

*MP3 CD/mp3-DVD
-not sure if theyll NEED a dvd-mp3 capability though, can old people find 4000 songs? j/k​

Guess you'll be challenged to find a DVD-player that doesn't do MP3...

***SACD/DVD-A question:
is this a feature even worth getting? SACD/DVD-A is a format that must be released BY the distributor/label right? So the cd tracks come in this newer format that only few players can read? Its not as if this is a new format like PictureCD's or AudioCD's, in which I (using some home software) burn a specific disc type to be used for a certain playback functional?​

SACD playability is a very good feature to have if you're into music. It provides a real step-up from the receiver doing a questimate of the same surround sound experience. By the way, if you want to use SACD you will need to connect the player to the receiver using the six RCA plugs (L, R, C, Sw, Rs, Ls). If you only use the digital coax, you won't hear a thing in SACD mode (copy protection issue of SACD). As far as I know there are no PC tools to mess around with SACD.

My recommendation would actually be to go with a European player since it will be able to handle both PAL and NTSC in/ouput. Consideration: Philips DVD720SA?

 

[westcott]

Try this link

this site should provide you with all the information to make an educated decision for the video portion.

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/cgi-bin/shootout.cgi?function=search&articles=all

I would take a listen to the prospective component if possible if you are an audiophile.