which DVD player?

pigeonpie

I need to buy a new DVD player. I need the best and simplest to use (def no techies in this house) at around £100 if possible. Certainly not much more than that, which rules out DVD recorders.

Is blu ray the way to go? I have a panasonic HD ready TV (older: scart to Sky+ box at present: from 2006) if that makes any difference. I would also like the DVD player to be multi region (or at least regions 1 and 2) if possible as have some US DVDs. Because I have Sky, don't need Freeview.

Amazon has a few possibilities around £100 but wondered if anyone had any definite recommendations or otherwise? thanks

macman

If at some time you are going to start buying Blu-Ray disks, then you need to get a Blu-Ray player. No-one else can really answer that question for you... if you just want a DVD player, then you can get a perfectly good quality brand for less than £100. I would buy Panasonic or Sony.
Does your TV have an HDMI input? If not, forget hooking up a Blu Ray player.

pigeonpie

sorry I am clueless - what does an HDMI input look like? All I know is it says HD ready....I will have to find the manual for the model no as I cannot see it anywhere on the TV itself.
I am also concerned that blu ray players seem to require that you hook them up via ethernet to your home internet connection. I am not on an unlimited download connection and our maximum speed is only 3mbps on average, which I assume may be a problem?

If I go bog standard DVD, I would be looking for cheap and cheerful and multi zone like the one that has just broken on me, which cost £30 from amazon and lasted 4 years

Found model: Panasonic TX32L XD52 and has a sticker says HDMI so presume it would be compatible

tronator

pigeonpie wrote: »

sorry I am clueless - what does an HDMI input look like?

http://www.google.co.uk/images?q=HDMI

macman

Blu-Ray players do not require an ethernet connection to operate.

JasX

Recently picked up this one for my father, very good quality for the price and does quite well on 'upscaling' ordinary DVDs to high definition if you have an HDTV.

Gets good reviews (see link) and for £25 can't really complain too much
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/168915

If you really want to start buying and getting into Bluray disks you can spend more on that route but if not there is no real need to rush in that direction, both disks and players will get cheaper over time and if you do go down that route in future your £25 DVD player might prove useful for relegating to a 2nd room?

pigeonpie

thanks JasX, that sounds just the ticket at the moment! Do I have to buy a HDMI cable or does it come in the box?

the Blu ray players like the Sony on amazon are around £100-120 and suggest you have to connect via ethernet to upload updates, or get iPlayer, Youtube etc. I want to be able to watch my existing non blu ray DVDs (regions 1 and 2) but also to be able to hire blu ray DVDs of certain movies from lovefilm.

JasX

Can't confirm on the HDMI cable I'm afraid -had the box delivered to parents house and dad had raided it and set himself up before I got a look in.

with the £100-£120 players:

unsuprisingly youtube and iplayer you won't get access to without an ethernet connection and they use high amounts of bandwidth.

As far as box updates go they're a good thing. Basically your bluray player will work out of the box for all current bluray disks however as the bluray standard evolves/changes eventually your box won't be able to play newer bluray disks as it is still working to the older bluray standard version. However with an updatable box at this point you can connect it to the internet for an update and if sony etc have their act together you'll update your box to the latest standard and it'll work with the newer disks, i expect this to happen infrequently (1-2 times per year at absolute most) and firmware upgrades like that tend to be a couple of hundred KB or <5 MB at most.