Kellnos
03-25-2006, 10:58 PM
Alrighty, I am leaning heavily towards getting a new DVD player via shopping at Amazon.com, as I have a gift certificate for there and the site is selling firefly for 28 bucks. Anywho, I am trying to pick the best DVD player I can given my limited budget, and I have narrowed it down to two models, either the Toshiba SD-5980 (I have a Toshiba TV), or the Samsung 850. Both are HDMI capable (the main feature I am looking for), and both are currently 129.99 on Amazon. I would greatly appreciate suggestions on which one would be the better buy.
Allin4greeN
03-26-2006, 10:18 AM
Kellnos:
The players you've identified are essentially the same. They both use a Zoran Vaddis 778 and Vaddis HD Extreme for deinterlacing/scaling and are manufactured by another party. You might want to check out the Secrets Benchmark DVD Shootout (http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/cgi-bin/shootout.cgi), for more info. and direct comparisons of various players.
The price you've indicated, $129.99, seems very high to me. I've recently read about people paying $60 or $70, for one of these models. I'd suggest looking around some more, to get the best deal.
If you're willing to spend a few bucks more, check out the OPPO (http://www.oppodigital.com/). This player has received a lot of very good feedback.
Incidentally, I have the Sammy 850. It's been rock solid since I bought it, about a year ago. PQ from the 850 is very good, and in my set-up I have not witnessed any artifacts or errors from a lack of motion-adaptive processing. I tend to watch only film-based material, however.
