# Should I buy a cheap DVD player?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-buy-a-cheap-dvd-player/266743>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [September 29, 2004, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-buy-a-cheap-dvd-player/266743 "2004-09-29T22:39:43Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Scoundrel\_Swanswater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dfb087/32.png) [@Scoundrel\_Swanswater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scoundrel_Swanswater)\
**Post date:** [October 1, 2004, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-buy-a-cheap-dvd-player/266743/21 "2004-10-01T11:46:17Z")

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If money is the biggest factor just go for it.  
Some of them are better than others.  
I have a 500 Euro DVD player and am extremely pleased with it.  
The picture quality is really noticeably better.

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**Author:** ![Dante](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dante/32/9673_2.png) [@Dante](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dante)\
**Post date:** [October 1, 2004, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-buy-a-cheap-dvd-player/266743/22 "2004-10-01T14:00:29Z")

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> [@Mr2001](#):
>
> Many players can play MPG files from a DVD or CD. A handful can play DivX/XviD AVIs, but I haven’t found a good one that’s available in the US yet.

I use the Philips DVP642/37. I specifically went over to the States to get one (actually bought four of them, friends wanted some). Target has them for $69.99.

It will play a straight .avi file, right from a CD-R, in DivX or XviD format. There’s a couple of encodes that don’t work, but 95% of them seem to. There’s also a region free hack.

By far the most highest recommendation I can make.

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**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\
**Post date:** [October 1, 2004, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-buy-a-cheap-dvd-player/266743/23 "2004-10-01T14:32:59Z")

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All I know is that I got a Sony DVD player years ago. It worked fine for a few years before I noticed a “glitch” (freezing and blocky picture artifacts) that would occur an hour or so into a movie (always in a similar spot). I ignored it for a while thinking it was just a bad disk. After awhile it seemed to be happening on EVERY disk to the point where it was unwatchable. I tried everything - cleaning it, taking it out of the AV case so it wouldn’t overhear, smacking it. Nothing worked.

Eventually I just chucked it in the garbage and now we watch movies on my girlfriends $50 DVD player from Walmart with no problems.

Actually there is one problem. Sometimes it takes a while to read the disk but once it is in there’s no problems.

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