Our DVD player, an old Panasonic A160 from 1999, is dying. It has always had a habit of intermittently refusing to play discs for no apparent reason, but it is now rejecting more discs than it is willing to play. And the usual trick of eject/reinsert no longer works. Very annoying, and using the PS2 as a fallback player is less than satisfactory.
So, any suggestions for a replacement? Our requirements are modest:
- It must be multi-region, with built-in NTSC to PAL conversion. (Our TV doesn't handle NTSC signals)
- Quieter than a PS2. (Shouldn't be hard)
- Cheap (sub-£100).
We don't care about surround sound and home cinema hookups right now. Our living room isn't set up for extensive speaker setups, and that's not going to change any time soon. We don't care about fancy features like zoom, picture-in-picture, or bookmarking. Amazon has several players in the price range I am thinking of (£30-£40). Does anyone know if they're any good? (Although at that price, it's pretty hard to go wrong.)
Riri
Martin,my DVD player also died exactly a year ago and my search criteria have always been the same as yours. I was very surprised to find exactly what I needed at the price of 70$ CAD (50$ US). A Philips 727 DVD Player, progressive scan, zone free. Perfect sound and image and 1 year later works as new.
I have many DVDs from France that I play everyday and the built in conversion works like a charm. I think they came out with other models since then, but here is for example a detailed description :
http://www.welectronics.com/dvd/pioneer/PHILIPS724DVD.SHTML
Don't be lured by the price, I am sure you can find it at half price. Best users's choice apparently!