hi everyone,

just wanted to ask which dvd players are good (not necessarily the best) and what kind of cost can i expect to pay? also, are most dvd players nowadays region free?? what's the deal with various region dvd's?? i was thinking hoping to pay around $200-300. sorry, the reason that i'm asking is that i haven't been in america for awhile. been working abroad and haven't had much time to do much of anything, besides work. thanks for you help in advance.

For your budget you should stick with the better known brands, usually Toshiba or SONY, but any of the name brands tend to be respected around here. Most anything will be a region 1 player. The regions were developed to allow releases at different times.

Toshiba makes a good relativley inexpensive player. Some of the model numbers (old and new) are 2109, 1600, 5109 I believe 6200. The later are progressive scan units. People like the Toshiba units for the few disk problems in regards to playback of movies. The Panasonic players are also well regarded with people around here for their quick menu switching ability. Pioneer has a few good units as well. Buyer beware the Pioneer 434 is not a true progressive scan. It just incorporates a line doubler. for more on that you might want to do a search on the sight.

For the record I have a older Toshiba 2109. Had it for two years and am very satisfied with the unit.

thanks for your help guys. i was thinking that i'd probably stick with a sony model, because they actually have sony service center's here so if something went wrong, i could probably get it fixed.

when it comes to region distinct players is there anything that i could do to to get it to play dvd's from other regions? and how do they determine region's? for example, i'm in korea right now, what region is korea considered to be in? the reason i ask is that dvd players are still pretty expensive here, although dvd's seem to be around the same price, $15-$25 depending on the title, with some more expensive ones as well. and i'm wondering if i buy a dvd's here, can i play them in my dvd player?

thanks for any help you guys can give...