My Toshiba died. I need help picking a new DVD player (1 Viewer)

[Brian Bowles]

I have a Toshiba 2109 that is dying. I need to get a new DVD player but doe not know what to get. I have heard that the Panasonic RP-56 is a great player. I have also heard that the Panasonic RA-60 is a new model. From what I have read the RP-56 has progressive scan. The RA-60 has DVD audio. Is there a difference in picture quality or other features? I only have a JVC 27" television but I am hoping to get a big screen next Christmas. Although my wife wants a new car............ I realize that the RP-91 has it all. I just can not afford that. I just got an Onkyo 595 and a SVS 20-39. Can you guys help me? How good is SVS audio and are there a lot of cd's out there that play it?

 

[Brian Bowles]

Bump for me.

 

[David Biggs]

Hi Brian, I looked at the RP-56 last week and was very impressed. But, since your only inputting to a regular TV, the progressive scan feature doesn't do you any good. If it was me, I'd just grab a cheaper player(Sony 400 maybe?) and save the coin. By the time you get the Widescreen, progressive scan DVD players should be a better deal and you'll be able to take advantage of the higher resoulution it will offer.

 

[John Geelan]

The Toshiba 4700 has DVD-Audio and DVD-Video. Reasonably priced at BestBuy.

JohnG

 

[Jed M]

Also, the 4700 (which I got for Christmas) plays MP3s without a hitch for me. Im not sure if Toshiba fixed the problem with their new batch of DVD players or if I am just lucky. This was a problem most people had on this forum but it wasnt a deciding factor for me so I bought it anyway and to my suprise the MP3 player did in fact work on every disc I threw at it. I used two computers, an HP and a built from scratch computer to burn my cd's and they both worked. I also used PNY, Sony, and some no name brand CD R, 80 minutes and they all worked as well. Im not sure if this is the right place for this but I thought it should be mentioned. With that said, I would love the 4700 even if it didnt do MP3. Great picture and great price.

 

[Brian Bowles]

I guess anything is better than the toshiba 2109 that I have. Anyone else?

 

[Eric S M]

Brian,



I just purchased a Panasonic RP56 for ~$230 from Best Buy. Good progressive picture and has the Sage/Faroudja deinterlacer chip generally built into more expensive players. You can read about it and other players (including the RP91) at the hometheaterhifi link below.







Of course, as David said, this may be overkill with your current TV and you'll have better options a year from now. However, a really inexpensive player will probably run you about $100 and you might end up replacing it next year anyway.



I don't know how important DVD-Audio is to you. If it is, then the RP56 is not the way to go. I'm not really interested in it, so I don't foresee replacing the RP56 anytime soon.



I've played with the MP3 function a little bit. Seems to work ok on 128kbps tracks, but the sound drops out periodically on higher sample rate encodings. This could be a difference between PNY and Memorex CDRs that I was using, but I didn't investigate further. Overall, MP3 sound is at least as good or better than on the PC.



-Eric