Page 1 of WISH YOU`D SPENT MORE MONEY ON A BETTER MACHINE?

Do any of you regret buying the cheap or mid-price DVD player you bought and wish you`d splashed out on a better, faster, sexier, generally grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrhhhhhhhvrrrrrrrrroooooooomier machine?

I`ve got a Cyberhome 512, which has been fine throughout. However, I`ve moved things around so that the hifi is going to another room, and I have a separate amp & speakers for HT, so the Cyberhome is now performing as a CD player in the HT room - not so good. But my philosophy when I bought was "keep it for 2 years then demote to 2nd player and get a good `un when you`ve got a decent set of DVDs to watch", and I`ll stick to that.

I got a Schneider 855 which cost £99 which does all what I wanted it to - Watch multi region DVD`s. I didn`t have a DVD player before so the quality I`m watching is way beyond what my VHS Video produced.

With the money saved, I can build up a DVD collection and when I eventualy upgrade my TV to widescreen, hifi system to DTS then the DVD player may get upgraded. But by then new standards would probably be out and we start the catch up process all over again.

It`d be nice - but money priorities lie elsewhere. ;)

Likewise with my Acoustic Solutions 551. It plays everything I throw at it and the picture/sound are perfectly acceptable. No doubt if I saw a high end player in action I might be tempted, but it would be hard to justify. My daughter uses it most. I`ve still to watch all the stuff I got over Xmas. I`ve got a 3 year warranty on the player. If it dies after that I`ll have had good value.

Current plan is to get a proper surround system when we finish building our new house (some time this year). I`m considering a Marantz 4200 with Mission FS2s. I may get a separate system for music in a different room.

Steve

Nope!

I`m quite happy with my Samsung 709, which I bought for £250 about three years ago. It was probably the cheapest player you could get at the time, but I haven`t had any hassle with it (apart from the inevitable firmware upgrade to play The Matrix). It`ll probably do me for a few more years yet, at which point DVD recorders will no doubt have become affordable.

At one point I actually considered buying a Pioneer DVL-919 for £800 - I`m seriously glad that I didn`t! Talk about more money than sense!

Mike

Well, I bought the Scan 2500. But with the few faults it had I sent it back and went for the tosh 210 multi region. No regrets about it - remote works great and so does the zoom function.

given the reviews I have read about the Tosh both before and since I bought it - not to mention the fact I like it myself - I don`t think I`ll want to change it for a better system for a while. It does not have 5.1 decoder, but the sales man talked me into the Marantz 4200 and I would recomend it also.

I spent a lot more than I had planned to spend but don`t think I`ll need to change for a while.

Turan

PS just don`t have any money for food, so please send donation of food to ..... :-)

I`ve always thought would it be worth upgrading DVD/Speakers etc..., `cos I bought pretty much entry level(Cheap) stuff.

But, I went to the Sound and Vision show in Bristol on the weekend and was amazed to see some really expensive kit (plasmas / £1000 DVD players etc..., 2000 Speakers) putting out results that didn`t seem that much better than the stuff most of us seem to have. It was quite re-assuring really.

I`m sure the circumstances of the show didn`t flatter the expensive gear, but I was expecting some of the equipment to really shine, and it didn`t.

Certainly there was some brilliant stuff there that was head and shoulders above anything I`d seen, but that is in another price zone altogether.

I personally couldn`t justify to myself the prices for relative performance increases.

That`s my view anyway.

Schneider 855 does me great and for £99 who can complain :)
altho my mums robbed it now :(

no worries cause im using the tv out on me pc now... tis just as good, plus its a great Divx player

Encore DV450 has been an absolute trooper for £175 (that was cheap in them days) and still going strong, and running firmware from a US player that enables me to hook up a hard drive, extra DVD-ROM drive, Compact Flash reader, or whatever ?!

If I hadn`t have bought the Encore, I never would have launched Area 450 nor met the wonderful independent troop of Sampo fans from as far and wide as Australia, Brazil, China, Canada, France, New Zealand, USA, Germany, Taiwan, India, etc. etc - a whole new world, where people dare to try different things.

To anyone owning a budget player, get yerself a website started and watch the world come to you - a real eye-opener !

nope, not at all. the Dansai i got for £99 from tesco at the start of the year has been fantastic. when we got it, we had no expectations of what it could do, and comparing it to friends machines that cost far more, yet offer no better picture or sound quality. And it is remote hackable and RCE isnt a problem. remote is nice.

that was untill we moved the player upstairs into my room, and out ofmy parents lounge, ment that it is now hooked upto my 14" TV via a aerial cable from the video, because of a lack of scat sockects on the TV hence a loss in picture quality. sound is taken care of via my 4 speaker stereo, via a phono cable.

at the moment im saving for a bigger TV and then maybe a amp. but no. im happy with the budget player i have.