DVD player get!
Our old DVD player had developed an odd case of signal distortion - if there was too much white/bright color on the screen (over 75% - think of the Construct from The Matrix, or the system failsafe from the end of season 2 of Lost), the signal would start distorting so badly that our HDTV would lose the signal. Sometimes it would get the signal back shortly, and sometimes, it would even switch to PAL (576i, rather than NTSC's 480i). This made watching DVDs a crapshoot, since there was always a chance that the signal would go to hell. There was some strange interactions going on between our DVD player and our source selector, and with the DVD player being roughly 5 years old,
the_z and I figured it was time to upgrade.
At first, we were just looking at basic DVD players, and there was a nice Sony model for $60 that looked like it had everything we wanted. (There was a cheaper Toshiba, but reviews of it showed that after about an hour or so in any given movie, audio and video start going out of sync). However, we turned around, and hidden among the HD-DVD and Blu-ray players were some HD upscaling DVD players. We ended up going with a Philips model that was only $10 more than the Sony we originally wanted, and I think we succeeded wonderfully. It's got more than we need - HDMI out when we don't have a TV with an HDMI port - but that's good; if we upgrade TVs, we can take advantage of that. The downside is that it doesn't upscale on component video, only HDMI (but it'll scale the image up to 1080p there), but oh, the upside - not only does it have great picture quality, support progressive scan, play all DVD formats (and VCD), and do the whole MP3 and JPG disc thing too, but it'll also read MP3s and JPGs off of a USB flash drive. That's not the best part, though.
It plays DiVX video files! All the anime we've downloaded via BitTorrent can now be watched on our TV without having to lug in my computer. Video quality is good, too - much sharper than watching it from the computer to the TV over S-Video. Sadly, it doesn't do WMV, OGM, or Matroska (MKV) files, but I can find a way to convert those (hopefully, with the subtitles intact, too), and then we can watch anything.
With any luck, maybe we can have a return to Anime Nights at our house. :)
Also, picked up Afro Samurai on DVD (complete with the special Best Buy keychain, which is pimptastic), and the packaging is absolutely beautiful. I look forward to watching the complete and uncut AS on our new toy.
the_z and I figured it was time to upgrade.
At first, we were just looking at basic DVD players, and there was a nice Sony model for $60 that looked like it had everything we wanted. (There was a cheaper Toshiba, but reviews of it showed that after about an hour or so in any given movie, audio and video start going out of sync). However, we turned around, and hidden among the HD-DVD and Blu-ray players were some HD upscaling DVD players. We ended up going with a Philips model that was only $10 more than the Sony we originally wanted, and I think we succeeded wonderfully. It's got more than we need - HDMI out when we don't have a TV with an HDMI port - but that's good; if we upgrade TVs, we can take advantage of that. The downside is that it doesn't upscale on component video, only HDMI (but it'll scale the image up to 1080p there), but oh, the upside - not only does it have great picture quality, support progressive scan, play all DVD formats (and VCD), and do the whole MP3 and JPG disc thing too, but it'll also read MP3s and JPGs off of a USB flash drive. That's not the best part, though.
It plays DiVX video files! All the anime we've downloaded via BitTorrent can now be watched on our TV without having to lug in my computer. Video quality is good, too - much sharper than watching it from the computer to the TV over S-Video. Sadly, it doesn't do WMV, OGM, or Matroska (MKV) files, but I can find a way to convert those (hopefully, with the subtitles intact, too), and then we can watch anything.
With any luck, maybe we can have a return to Anime Nights at our house. :)
Also, picked up Afro Samurai on DVD (complete with the special Best Buy keychain, which is pimptastic), and the packaging is absolutely beautiful. I look forward to watching the complete and uncut AS on our new toy.