e-DVD.org

About DVD's
DVDs have become the most popular playing media and it's no surprise
Superior picture, sound quality and affordable prices have sent classical VCRs back to history.

But, before you buy a DVD player, you should consider the following: 

Connection and Picture Quality 
The video signal from your DVD player can get to your TV using either "composite video", "S-Video", "component video" or "RGB" formats. Composite video is the lowest quality, RGB is the best. 

Aspect Ratio

Most movies are presented with a 16:9 "aspect ratio", which is different from the 4:3 ratio of a standard TV screen.

All DVD players will let you watch the movies in 16:9, with a blank strip along the top and bottom. This is called "letterbox" format. Some also have a "pan and scan" feature that lets you watch them on the full screen, but with the sides of the image trimmed, but only if the disc allows it.

Sound
If you plan to simply hook up your DVD player to a TV, the sound will only be as good as your TV speakers. Even with expensive TVs, that's usually pretty poor.

Some DVD players come with a subwoofer outlet socket. Adding a subwoofer will improve the bass sound, but it's much better to connect the player to a stereo system. The digital audio signal can get to the receiver either by copper wires (coaxial digital output) or a fibre optic cable (optical digital output). Either way, most systems will sound great to most people, when connected to a good sound system.

The full potential of DVD can only be appreciated using the player's home theatre surround-sound capability. For this, you will need a Dolby Digital (AC3) and/or DTS (Digital Theatre Systems) receiver and five or six speakers. Also either the player or receiver must have a built-in decoder for the digital audio signal.

A headphone socket is offered on some models, but it won't be necessary if your TV (or surround sound amp) already has one. A microphone input opens the door to the wonderful world of karaoke.

DRC or Dynamic Range Control
A feature on many DVD players that lets you alter the balance of loud and soft sounds. Most valuable if you find the music too loud for the dialogue.

Parental Control
There are at least three ways the player will let you restrict access. One is a simple "child lock" on the whole machine, that requires a code number (pin) to undo.

Another, usually called "parental control", checks the (US) rating on the DVD - if it's restricted, a pin is required. You set trigger levels on an eight-point scale on your unit to stop discs being played.
Then there's the "disc lock" approach, which allows you to rate and store the rating for up to 50 of your own discs.

Compatibility

Playing CDs
DVD players aren't just restricted to playing digital versatile discs. They can also play audio CDs (including recordable/rewritable CDs), which is more than can be said for many dedicated CD players. What's even more impressive, almost all new models can play MP3s!

With a generous variety of audio outputs and the right equipment, a DVD player is a viable option for using with a stereo as well as a TV. The menu options tend to revolve around DVD playback, but CD features such as resume, shuffle and repeat are becoming more common.

Playing recordable DVDs
If you have a digital camcorder and a DVD burner, there's a good chance your DVD player will be able to play your digital home movies. There are five different formats: DVD-R, +R, -RW, +RW and -RAM.

Unfortunately, although most new DVD players can cope with one or more of these formats, their packaging (and even instruction manuals) don't always make it clear. Ask in the shop.

JPEG viewer
Some players allow you to view single image files copied to a CD, DVD or even a memory card.

DVD zones

New movies are released to cinemas in different countries at different times. DVD versions of movies are zoned in an attempt to prevent them being played in any country before the movie has had its cinema release there. So, all digital versatile discs and most of the machines that play them are zoned for a particular region: New Zealand and Australia are in Zone 4. Europe is Zone 2. The US is Zone 1.