This is from a mail I sent to a friend asking for my advice on DVD players. Most of it is applicable for people buying DVD players outside India.
Code-free : This is an absolute must. All DVDs available in India in DVD libraries are all Code 1(NTSC) DVDs and so, the player must be code-free to be able to play these DVDs. Generally, if you buy a DVD player outside India, you will get only players compatible with the local code and code-free costs extra.
Along with code-free, check whether NTSC output is available. What this means is the player will output an NTSC signal when playing NTSC DVDs. There are some players which convert the NTSC signal from the DVD to a PAL signal. Though this may seem like an advantage, this usually means that the picture size is reduced considerably.
Built-in Dolby Digital/DTS decoder : This is not an advantage. Even if the decoder is built in, to be able to get digital sound, you will still need to connect the player to an external decoder and from there to the speakers.
However, if this is not a feature of the player, and you still want digital sound, then check if the player has a digital out. This is necessary to connect to a decoder.
- If you’re buying a decoder also, DTS decoding is not really necessary because the number of DVDs which have DTS soundtracks are very less. DTS occupies lot of space on the disc and so, there aren’t many discs with DTS soundtracks.
However, Dolby Digital is the default format for soundtrack on a DVD.
- If you’re not planning to connect your player to an audio system or home theater, then you can ignore point 3.