You’ve seen them at work, you’ve been impressed countless times with the sheer clarity of the image (when compared to the trusted and cheaper cousin, the VCD player or even the best hi-fi VCR), the superb life-like sound of 5.1 audio, the brilliant... hey hold on! We’ve gone way too far. ’Coz the DVD player will take care of only one part of the whole home theater experience - the playing!
Does that sound odd? Consider this: a home theater needs, apart from the DVD player, a TV, a decoder for multi-channel audio, good inter-connect cables, great speakers, and a room that can bring out the best in all of them. What you see is more dependent on the TV than the player. What you hear is more a matter of how good your decoder is, the cables, the speakers and the acoustics of the room they are in. Drat! I sound like a spoilsport, don’t I?
Well, before you give up on me, let me just tell you... what it means is that you have to be all the more careful when choosing your player. If you are not planning on a full-fledged home theater, then you need to look at many more things than just the player. But if you are planning to just hook up the player to your existing TV, then the choosing can be quite simple:
Now, before you peep into the box, you need to check how well your TV will keep up with the player. Check your TV for these:
S-video input: By far the better way to see pictures on your TV than your regular A/V cable - delivers a truer picture, better color and balance and better clarity. (You can still use the ’video input’ - the yellow jack- for the input, but once you’ve seen the difference, you’d definitely want the S-video!)
Stereo audio input jacks: You want stereo, right? That means, you TV should take left and right channels separately. Otherwise, when the car whizzes from left to right, the audio will just stay in the middle! Really spoils the fun.
(If you don’t have these on your TV, it would really be useful to consider changing it to one that has these.)
Ok, that’s done. Let’s get to the player.
Your player should have these:
S-video and stereo audio out (Obviously!) :-)
The ability to play multiple formats (VCD, ACD, CDR, CDRW, MP3 etc.). This will be useful - you can use one play for all - or you’ll end up having to use different players for different formats! (My home theater’s player doesn’t play anything other than DVDs, original VCDs and original ACDs! That means I don’t get to play my copied ACDs and VCDs ’coz they’re usually CDRs!)
And...,
In case you plan to invest in a decoder separately for 5.1 audio and stuff, check to see if your player is compatible with dolby 5.1, DTS etc. (Remember, to get DTS sound, you need a DTS decoder. Most decoders are dolby 5.1. Personally, I prefer DTS - simply better!) Most DVDs are dolby 5.1; the DTS ones are fewer.
Multi-region playback. Don’t worry if it doesn’t have this - players in India aren’t generally supposed to be region-free, they’re all coded for region 5. And DVDs available in India are region 5 or region-free, so no problem there. (In any case, most region 1 DVDs - those that our NRI cousins from the US bring - can be played here. Not all though - Columbia-Tristar, for example, wouldn’t play.)
The other things are more or less standard - the remote, headphone jack, on-screen displays (in multiple languages too - as if you’d suddenly want to read the display in chinese or something!), and convenient controls. Check to see if the remote is ’full-function’ though - you don’t want to be getting up every now and then to go to the player to change some setting!
Note: Check to see if you can manipulate the audio output from the player. This will be useful if you play to use just your TV for the audio. You should be able to choose the 2-channel output (or you may lose out on some audio if it plays 5.1 all the time) - best for TV. Most DVDs have the option of 2 (or more) audio tracks. ’Dolby Surround’ actually requires only 2 channels like your TV and will give you a better feel than plain stereo.
Another thing, when you are at the store choosing a player, try playing it using a TV that is closest to your TV model. The output will vary from TV to TV if you look closely enough. Later, you shouldn’t end up blaming the player for the shortcomings of your TV!
Has that made life easier? Somewhat at least? I know there’s more to be said, but hey, you can always mail me!
Happy choosing! And happy viewing!
:-)