Best bang for the buck DVD (1 Viewer)

[Nathan J]

Ok, I am upgrading various parts of my home theater, and one of them happens to be my DVD player. Previosly, I had a Panansonic, and for the most part, I was happy with it, except that it seemed to "sway" a little.....like the picture would get slightly brighter, and then sort of fade to slightly darker, most easily noticed if the movie being watched was a night time scene...but anyway, I am getting a new one, and one feature it MUST have is the ability to pla MP3's, and have optical and coax Digital outs. So my question is, what other features are a "must have"? Like Progressive scan? etc? I really dont want to spend very much, probably no more than $140, but I see that Circuit City has a ton of players below that price.
So if you have any ideas, throw them at me, or if you know of a good player, post the link to it.
Thanks.

 

[Nathan J]

Oh, also, is there any DVD players that let you fast forward really fast to certain part of an MP3 song? You know like on a computer, you can move the little bar to anywhere you want it, but in my car cd player, when you fast forward it, it actually goes slower than a regular cd....main reason I ask is because I have quite a few long ( like 80 minutes- 120 minutes straight) of techno and trance mixes, and there is no breaks in between them, so I need to be able to get to any part of that MP3, instead of having to listen to an hours worth just to hear one song halfway through the mix.

 

[Nathan J]

Ok, so 91 people looked at this and not one person knows of any DVD players around $150 or less?
Come on people, I need help here please.:frowning:

 

[ThomasL]

What tv do you have? You don't need progressive scan if your tv is not capable of handling a 480p signal which all NTSC analog sets are not.

Also, the problem you describe with the screen getting lighter and then darker may be your tv and not your dvd player per se. If your tv can't hold black level well across various picture intensities, it could be the cause of this problem. It's also best to calibrate your set's settings with Avia or VE.

As for players, I just bought a Toshiba SD2800 which is regularly $130 and it does support MP3s but I would say based on reading the manual that it is limited support - 8 character filename limit for starters. I think most of these players' MP3 feature sets are going to be a disappointment to someone who is used to using Winamp or other PC-based MP3 player/tool. I believe the new Panasonics support MP3 as well - model RV32K, I think. If I were you, I'd go to Circuit City/Best Buy'0s web page, take a look at the ones that support MP3 in your price range, and then go download their manuals and see what they actually support/i.e. what MP3 feature set do they have.

good luck,


--tom