DVD players?

[kenshin-dono]

I think i need to get a new DVD player. All my other HT gear is new, but the DVD player is ancient, like 10 years or older i think. All it has is 1 component out and no HDMI. It has a 480 progressive scan that actually seems to make the picture worse than just leaving it 480i and letting my TV upscale to 1080p. And worst of all ive noticed that lately for some reason its not displaying stuff right. I.e. a widescreen movie will only show up in 4:3 on my tv and if i force the TV to show it in widescreen its stretched. If i check the source on tv its being sent as 4:3 not 16:9.. not sure if the players breaking down

still though, even with the tv upscaling, the picture is sub par, with variable lvls of noise and a meh picture. I watched Kikis delivery service with my niece and was surprised how cruddy it looked. afterwords i put the thing in my PS3 out of curiosity and it looked MUCH better. Very good actually. There was no noise and the picture was very crisp. The thing is i dont want to use my ps3 as a DVD player. I use it for gaming and blu rays and i wanted a separate DVD player

I still have quite a few regular movies on DVD although my blu ray collections growing, and i have a lot of anime on DVD (some still on old VHS lol) So i want to get a new DVD player for my anime collection.

The thing is i dont really know much about them. I know the PS3 made it look fantastic, so there should be some DVD players that can make it look that good too right? I'm amusing they have DVD players that upscale to 1080p now? Are there any that work as good or better than PS3? It also needs to be able to do 1080p over component, not just HDMI.  Im gonna try to do some research but not really sure where to start. Anyone have any sugestions where to look for good info? Also, any sugestions on brands, or specific players? How much does a good one cost?

any sugestions or opinions would be much apreciated.

*edit* on the brand front, i had an even older toshiba DVD player that i gave to my folks that STILL WORKS. And pretty damn well. That things a tank, so im impressed with them. Do they make a good upconverting DVD player these days? this one i have now thats crapping out is a Pioneer

[fohfoh]

IMO, I'd consider an HTPC over an DVD player. You can easily get a pc or laptop to hook up that will play everything up to 1080p fine. Plus, you can also do other random stuff like play youtube on tv, or stream movies, or power point presentations....

But if you're hell bent on a dedicated system for DVDs...

You could consider the PS3. (300 bucks)

Or if not that a blu-ray player. (150 bucks)

As for brands... I don't know. Quality these days are quite shakey even for trusted brands. You basically buy something and expect it to die. No matter what brand. (It's just who's going to die "firstest")

[kenshin-dono]

Tnx, but I have my laptop already hooked up for that for lpaying stuff i have on my HD and whatnot. I Also of course have a ps3 as mentioned in the post which did make it look really good. I dont want to play games, BD AND DVD's on my ps3 though. Id be using the thing all the time =P I wanted to replace this DVD player with an upconverting DVD player to replace it.

i did some general browsing and most DVD players that upscale dont seem to do so over component, also im not sure how good the upscaling is. this is going to be a bigger pain than i thought. Id almost just get naother BD player but then id feel kinda dumb having a BD player for just DVD's

I do wonder why this current one is outputting some widescreen movies as 4:3 to my TV though. It must just be crapping out

anyone else able to give me some answers?

[fohfoh]

Could it be that the format wasn't really out or supported at the time? If you're able to... maybe a driver flashing fix might be possible.

In all honesty. Unless you want a dedicated player (By which I don't understand why the PS3 isn't suitable, even if it's "on all the time") I really don't see why you need to buy another DVD player. You might as well go and look for one built 5 years ago being sold for like 15 bucks and hook it up for use for a few years.

AFAIK one of the better blu ray players out there is made by Sony. But I'm not sure which one. It's "what I hear". Pioneer is supposed to be pretty good. Last 10 years alone is no easy feat. Question, did you ever consider opening the thing and cleaning it up, lubing fixing if necessary? Might be some dirt that got in there. I recall that's what killed my VCR many, many years ago.

[billlanam]

If you only need a DVD player, then the cheapest Sony that has the connections that you want will work perfectly.

[morrefule]

I wouldnt' go DVD, unless you don't have an HD TV.  Go Blu-Ray.  You can get a good one now for around $150 or a really good one for $200. 

Personal preferences for the higher priced units - LG BD390, Sony BDP-S560, and Samsung BD-P3600

Personal preferences on more budget friendly units - Sony BDP-S360, Samsung BD-P1600, and Pioneer BDP-120

That is if you decide not to go with the king of all the PS3.  Which will be very hard to find soon, they had a problem with thier Hard Drives in a few of the new units, so many retailers will not be getting restocked till Mid January.

[Kuroshima]

Hehe I bought a crap toshiba bluray player over black Friday weekend for 90 usd. It gets the job done and looks and sounds fine.

On the DVD player front, just 1). find one that has dedicated hardware upscaling (that doesn't suck)
2). Supports your region code (or multiple region codes for that matter)
3). Has the preferred features (optical, coaxial, dts, component, hdmi etc)

aren't the settings for picture format on your tv? Not on your player. It is detected automatically generally...
I don't remember... Haven't use a DVD player in a while ... I have my computer hooked up as my monitor.

[kenshin-dono]

ya the player is set to 16:9 and the tv autodetects usually but even manually adjusting it doesn't change anything, it just plays some movies in screwed up ratio's, i dont know why. It really bugs me

blea, i did a bunch of looking around and theres like NO dvd players that play 1080p through component. All upscaling ones only do it over HDMI, the point was i wanted to keep it on a seperate set of inputs than my HDMI inputs/presets.

no point in getting another BD player, i already got a PS3 which is the best one out there right now. I guess i'll just keep using this old thing for some stuff and my BD player for ones that play weird or that i want to look better.

I guess the onlyr eason they dont do component over 1080p is stupid copyright worries or something *sigh*

outa curiosity what problems did they have with the HD's of the newer units? I dont like the look on those. The sleek touch buttons on the original were way cooler