[barmy_army008]

I'm basically looking for the cheapest DVD player I can get. Thirty pounds is probably how much I want to pay, seeing as thats the price you can get them for these days.

I'm not too fussed about features - all it needs to do is play DVD's really.

I know that Argos do an Alba for £30, and theres a Yamada for that price on Amazon. I'm just wondering if you guys know of any others, or own either of the ones i've mentioned? I'm quite attracted to the Yamada, because its very comact, but there is something about it being multi-region, which i'm not too sure about (could someone explain please? Obviously I understand that it can play DVD's from other countries, but in the reviews people seem to be having trouble changing the settings or something).

Any help much appreciated.

[pmcmillan]

Sainbury's have models for £30, as do Asda. My girlfriend has an Asda one, and the only problems we found is that it doesn't send the widescreen signal to the TV via the Scart and it stutters on NTSC (US) based discs.

Don't know how the Sainsbury's ones perform.

Phil

[jra]

Quote:

Originally Posted by barmy_army008

I'm basically looking for the cheapest DVD player I can get. Thirty pounds is probably how much I want to pay, seeing as thats the price you can get them for these days.

I'm not too fussed about features - all it needs to do is play DVD's really.

I know that Argos do an Alba for £30, and theres a Yamada for that price on Amazon. I'm just wondering if you guys know of any others, or own either of the ones i've mentioned? I'm quite attracted to the Yamada, because its very comact, but there is something about it being multi-region, which i'm not too sure about (could someone explain please? Obviously I understand that it can play DVD's from other countries, but in the reviews people seem to be having trouble changing the settings or something).

Any help much appreciated.

A friend of mine got a £30 Alba as a freebie with an insurance policy.

I was watching DVDs on it recently and the picture quality was fine on a 24" widescreen TV. I just plugged in a SCART lead from DVD player to TV, pressed play and hey presto, DVD in widescreen. Easy.

Judging by the instruction manual, it had all the features you would ever need, really.

I can't remember if it was multi region or had NTSC playback.

[jcx]

The Yamaha will probably give you better quality than the Alba and may last a little longer too. You have to press a few buttons to make it multi-region which is described on the Amazon reviews, it shouldn't be any problem. But for the sake of £5 I would probably go for the Yakumo or Daytek instead.

[barmy_army008]

Yeah I think I may go for the Yamada. Not payng that extra £5 for a better one may seem a bit cheap of me but seeing as I just want one so that I don't have to sit at the computer for hours on end watching them, I think that the cheapest option should be good enough for my needs.

One other thing - does anyone have any experience of used items from Dabs.com? I've found something which is lacking a manual but cheaper than i've seen elsewhere, and I was just wondering if anyone else had bought used from them?

[GDB2freeview]

Note that they are Yamada not the highly acclaimed Yamaha.

That's not to say the Yamada is a bad machine, I have two DVDSlim 5520s, but having seen the £30 Pacific from ASDA I would reccomend this over the £30 Yamada, although I have no experience of the £30 Yamada, it may be the best thing since sliced bread. The Pacific plays just about everything you can throw at it and is overall an excellent machine in my opinion. I don't play NTSC or discs outside of Region 2 though so I don't know how it performs in that respect.

I would say avoid the cheap Albas, they are rebranded Mico players (ever heard of them?!?!) and offer poor value for money IMO compared to most other players.

Hope this helps

Gdb

[jcx]

Quote:

Originally Posted by GDB2freeview

Note that they are Yamada not the highly acclaimed Yamaha.

Yep, sorry if I confused anyone, my spell check changed to Yamaha. Sneaky marketing by Yamada, eh?

The Pacifics are good, on second thoughts I might go for one of those. I didn't know they where £30 now.

[FraserGJ]

I got a Cyberhome CH400 from WHSmiths - £50

It plays anything (JPEG, VCD, SVCD, MP3 disc right down to raw MPEGs on a cd)

Goes multiregion via a remote hack easily too

[GDB2freeview]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jcx

Yep, sorry if I confused anyone, my spell check changed to Yamaha. Sneaky marketing by Yamada, eh?

The Pacifics are good, on second thoughts I might go for one of those. I didn't know they where £30 now.

It certainly is sneaky marketing.

The ASDA Pacific range starts at £30 for a smart looking silver player and £40 for the model above. The only main differences are that the more expensive one comes with a colour box as opposed to the mono printed £30 and it has a front display wheras the cheaper one does not.

Note that the ASDA ones don't have Dolby Digital decoders in them, only coaxial out. The Albas certainly don't have Dolby Digital decoders in them, and I doubt the Yamada does neither. This is no problem as long as you just want to play DVDs through your TV speakers, or if you have a separate Dolby Digital decoder either in the form of an Amplifier or built into speakers.

Hope this helps

[BexTech]

The Alba 45s Argos sell are (well every one I've got for people) are multi-region out of the box.

As for NTSC discs stuttering, this is an inherrent problem with NTSC DVDs, and maybe more noticable if you set the DVD player to transcode to PAL.

[barmy_army008]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jcx

The Yamaha will probably give you better quality than the Alba and may last a little longer too. You have to press a few buttons to make it multi-region which is described on the Amazon reviews, it shouldn't be any problem. But for the sake of £5 I would probably go for the Yakumo or Daytek instead.

After a bit of thought, I decided that I would spend that little bit extra, and I went for the Yakumo. The reviews seem positive all round, and I think I would prefer a more reliable machine. Thanks!

Just a question about the setup of it all. I have a Freeview box, which has 2 SCART connections; one is attached to the TV, and the other is labeled VCR. I presume I plug the DVD into the VCR socket, and run it via the STB?

[BexTech]

Should do, but may need to check whether it passes through RGB and not just composite.

[jcx]

Good choice, you can play NSTC and everything on that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by barmy_army008

After a bit of thought, I decided that I would spend that little bit extra, and I went for the Yakumo. The reviews seem positive all round, and I think I would prefer a more reliable machine. Thanks!

Just a question about the setup of it all. I have a Freeview box, which has 2 SCART connections; one is attached to the TV, and the other is labeled VCR. I presume I plug the DVD into the VCR socket, and run it via the STB?[/quote]
I don't personally have a Freeview box (no coverage) but I would say that VCR is also an output (to your VCR), so you will have to plug your DVD directly into your TV, video etc. Someone correct me if I am wrong.

[FraserGJ]

Quote:

Originally Posted by BexTech

As for NTSC discs stuttering, this is an inherrent problem with NTSC DVDs, and maybe more noticable if you set the DVD player to transcode to PAL.

Thats because some players chop 5 frames of the 30fps for NTSC to get to PAL which is 25frames

I don't have an NTSC to test it though - there must a multiregion test disc image somewhere - I'll take a look

[GDB2freeview]

It would work if you put the DVD player into the VCR SCART of the Freeview box but if your Freeview box does not loop through RGB (not many do) you may notice a poor picture.

[BexTech]

Quote:

Originally Posted by FraserGJ

Thats because some players chop 5 frames of the 30fps for NTSC to get to PAL which is 25frames

I don't have an NTSC to test it though - there must a multiregion test disc image somewhere - I'll take a look

But even playing the disc with player set to NTSC, and infact even if you are in the USA, you will notice a slight stutter every so often.

This is due to the conversion needed for films to NTSC discs, a conversion from 24 frames per second to 29.97 frames per second.

It needs to duplicate some frames, and in doing so causes a slight stutter every so often.

This does not happen to PAL, beacuse no conversion of frame rate is done, just each frame replicated on the disc, but the player plays back at 25 frames per second not 24, so the film plays slighlty faster, which is why PAL films run shorter than NTSC films.

[jaz101]

have you tried the technicka 108 from tesco £30
i have 2 of them,not one bit of trouble from them.PLAYS EVERYTHING FROM MP3 ,VCD,DVD R,DVD R/W AND ITS REMOTE HACKABLE FOR MULTI REGION PLAYBACK
also has a switching button for pal.ntsc playback