I want to start watching DVDs again. What’s my best option?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Time was that I watched DVDs on either my PS2 or laptop. Now one is quite old and obsolete and the other doesn’t have an optical drive anymore. I also have DVDs, some of which I haven’t watched yet.

What among my range of options would probably be best for me? I have an (older) Apple TV box, and of course the laptop. I’ve also halfway considered looking for a VHS/DVD-RW machine, but now that I think about it, I’m not sure I have enough tapes I really want to transfer that bad to make it worthwhile…

2

When Mrs R wanted a little TV to watch while she was sewing, we got a smallish one that had a built-in DVD player.Here, this is it.

And when I needed to watch a couple PAL DVDs, I bought this region-free DVD player, which was only about $40.

3

I’ve seen those (the small portables). Thing is, they’re just expensive enough that getting an optical drive for my laptop would only be about $20 more, which is one reason I was wondering what the best option was.

4

You can get a good Sony Blu-Ray player for $60 new, that way you can play both DVD’s and Blu-Rays, and also have HDMI support right out of the box (the cheaper DVD players now don’t have HDMI outputs apparently)

5

When I wanted a region-free DVD player, I first checked a website for models where the code to make it region free was already known and then bought a cheap Philips player (one with an HDMI output) from Target.

I also have a Bluray player and can watch DVDs there, just not the UK region ones.

Another option for the OP is a DVD player for the notebook computer that connects via a USB cable. Those are about $20-25.

6

I’ve got a DVD player that links up to my large-screen TV.

7

Different brands but I went basically the same combination. Both combined was about $150 for me and allows me to basically take the movies anywhere.

8

You didn’t say where you want to watch them. I have a Blu-Ray player like Asuka for my dumb TV, which is smart enough to get NetFlix and YouTube among other things. But that doesn’t work if you want it portable.
I also have an old VCR, which I haven’t used in years.

9

We upgraded to the 4K players. The first one was a little finicky, but they seem more reliable now.

I would say what kind of machine you need depends on which kind of DVDs you have, and how/where you want to use it.

10

I still use my Toshiba DVD-VHS recorder player to catch up on my vast collection of DVDs I’ve been collecting for a decades, and some of my last VHSs most of which are still watchable. I canceled my DirecTv a year ago.

11

I don’t understand why you wouldn’t just get a DVD player. That’s literally what they’re designed to do… play DVDs. Just hook it up to whatever your PS2 is running from. (Doesn’t the PS2 already play DVDs anyway?)

Maybe just take the opportunity to get a used PS3, if you like games anyway?

12

The PS2 is very old. So old that it can’t connect to my TV without an adapter.

And I was wondering if other options, such as an external drive for my laptop combined with my AppleTV, would be better than a dedicated DVD player.

13

A ripped DVD is compressed to about 1.5 GB in my experience. So if you get a 4TB external HD thats probably almost 2500 films.

However you need a good software interface to view your movies. I don’t know if DVD quality is sufficient for you, but if you want higher quality they can run in the 10-20GB per film range.

14

The best option is to rip and convert all your (unencrypted, I’m sure) DVDs to h.264 files and stream them from your laptop to your Apple TV. The catch is, you would need a DVD player for that. But once the DVDs are ripped, you’ll never have to do all the yucky manual labor using a DVD player entails. Waiting for sliding trays? Physically touching your media? Ugh, so 90s.