DVD Player

Bishop149 · Post by **Bishop149** » Fri, 14. Jul 17, 12:22

I want to buy a simple but decent DVD player and I'm finding it way harder than I expected to find one. Even the basic models come with a whole host of features I just don't bloody want.
Any help or suggestions appreciated.

What I want
- Plays DVD's
- Plays BluRay's (I don't have any but I might start getting them)
- Good 1080p upscaling
- Good build quality.
- Ability to plug in USB devices and play video content off them would be nice.

What I don't want
- Any kind of "smart" capacity, Apps etc, probably the most important point I'll expand on later.
- Related to the above, internet connectivity really isn't needed.
- Anything 4k related, I don't have and likely will never buy a 4k TV.
- Same with 3D, useless gimmick I have no interest in.

So "smart" TV etc. I'm not enamoured.
They seem to just be bad computers with all the problems of bad computers; Slow, relatively frequent freezes and crashes, often very poorly optimised software. I really don't want another device with these issues, that even CAN crash, whatever happened to the days of specialised reliable hardware for ONE job that it was really good at. That's what I want.

I know the other features I want are considered relatively basic and a correspondingly basic or cheap "smart" capacity fills me with dread, seeing as how even the expensive ones are not very good.

birdtable · Post by **birdtable** » Fri, 14. Jul 17, 12:56

Depending on budget .. The best Blu Ray player I ever used was the on the original PS3 .... No newer players came close, although I never tested the ones over a couple of hundred .. a good used original PS3 ...

Post by **UniTrader** » Fri, 14. Jul 17, 12:58

i think it may be too smart for you but what about a Raspi and a usb DVD Drive?

Skism · Post by **Skism** » Fri, 14. Jul 17, 13:07

https://www.amazon.co.uk/LG-BP250-Up-sc ... ay+players

How about this ^

Its a DVD and Blue ray player with 1080p upscaling though Im not sure how many USB it has - it has them but does not indicate how many

Bishop149 · Post by **Bishop149** » Fri, 14. Jul 17, 13:23

Skism wrote:https://www.amazon.co.uk/LG-BP250-Up-sc ... ay+players

How about this ^

Its a DVD and Blue ray player with 1080p upscaling though Im not sure how many USB it has - it has them but does not indicate how many

Yeah, cheers.
I just found that one as well, I think I'm going to go with that, £50 you can't really go wrong.
The other options I was looking at were:
http://www.techradar.com/reviews/audio- ... 951/review
http://www.techradar.com/reviews/audio- ... 295/review

Both OP but not much more expensive. I focused on those with a faster performance.

Redvers Ganderpoke · Post by **Redvers Ganderpoke** » Fri, 14. Jul 17, 13:46

Bishop149 wrote: - Plays BluRay's (I don't have any but I might start getting them)
-.

I've stopped buying Blu ray disks as I find that they are more of a faff than the smart features that you are so afraid of. I've had several discs that have refused to play even after after updating the firmware on the player. The player's smart features are the most used (after DVD).

matthewfarmery · Post by **matthewfarmery** » Fri, 14. Jul 17, 14:23

I don't really see the point of blueray disks in general, I do have some blueray films, but really can't really see much of a difference on my TV between a standard DVD vs blueray film.

The only time blueray has been useful is for a manga, as the blueray version holds more episodes, otherwise the quality remains the same.

Otherwise I don't really bother with blueray films as a whole, and agree they are just faff.

felter · Post by **felter** » Fri, 14. Jul 17, 16:39

Bishop149 wrote:Yeah, cheers.
I just found that one as well, I think I'm going to go with that, £50 you can't really go wrong.
The other options I was looking at were:
http://www.techradar.com/reviews/audio- ... 951/review
http://www.techradar.com/reviews/audio- ... 295/review

Both OP but not much more expensive. I focused on those with a faster performance.

Is it just me and my computer but does anyone else just keep getting greyed out boxes where the pictures should be on Techrader.

Seems like a lot of blu-ray players are having problems playing blu-ray disks nowadays, as it looks like a lot of the more modern so called anti piracy features won't let them be played, doesn't really make sense to me.

birdtable · Post by **birdtable** » Fri, 14. Jul 17, 16:52

Have to agree, just not worth the expense or faff,, will rent and stream and maybe if the film is very good I might purchase ... also might buy a whole tv series but then only used.

Bishop149 · Post by **Bishop149** » Fri, 14. Jul 17, 17:48

UniTrader wrote:i think it may be too smart for you but what about a Raspi and a usb DVD Drive?

Actually feeding in to this is the fact my current computer build (which has my TV as it's secondary monitor) doesn't have a CD/DVD drive.
When I was building it I counted on the fingers of one hand how many times I'd used one in the last 36 months and chalked it up as a waste of a 5.25" bay.

But yes, your solution is beyond my current skill set.

Interesting feedback on BluRays, maybe I won't bother with them then.

Morkonan · Post by **Morkonan** » Fri, 14. Jul 17, 23:48

If cost is an issue, I'd simply buy a Blue Ray capable DVD drive for my computer and then stream it to the TV. ( I have two consoles that have DVD capability as well, so I wouldn't have to do that. One of them is a nice DVD/VHS player.

I don't like not having backwards compatibility.)

I have some separate DVD players, but neither are Blue Ray capable and I am looking for a decent one as well. IMO, the difference isn't significant unless one has a 1080p or 4k television. Even then, for myself, I don't care just so long as what I'm watching doesn't look like pixelated potatoe people at war with animated inkblots...

burger1 · Post by **burger1** » Sat, 15. Jul 17, 01:08

Morkonan wrote:If cost is an issue, I'd simply buy a Blue Ray capable DVD drive for my computer and then stream it to the TV. ( I have two consoles that have DVD capability as well, so I wouldn't have to do that. One of them is a nice DVD/VHS player. :) I don't like not having backwards compatibility.)

I have some separate DVD players, but neither are Blue Ray capable and I am looking for a decent one as well. IMO, the difference isn't significant unless one has a 1080p or 4k television. Even then, for myself, I don't care just so long as what I'm watching doesn't look like pixelated potatoe people at war with animated inkblots...

Pretty much. As long as the computer playing the dvd/blueray is hooked up directly (no wireless stuff) then it should work fine. I tried dvd wireless and it didn't work really well and I had to wait.

Bluerays might have a longer loading time by default? I don't own a blueray player but I think waiting for load times is normal? A normal computer dvd player is cheap and a pc is more powerful and adaptive than a dvd player. I think people have media format problems and problems playing media smoothly with usb ports also. I was looking at dvd players a couple years ago.

http://mentalfloss.com/article/70239/wh ... discs-play

A raspberry pi might be expensive depending on what extra stuff you have laying around. It also might not work well for other things like netflix, tv station streaming or 1080p upscaling. I think they have quad core 1.2 ghz cpus and 1 gig ram.

https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/view ... 2&start=25

jack775544 · Post by **jack775544** » Sat, 15. Jul 17, 03:25

Bishop149 wrote:So "smart" TV etc. I'm not enamoured.
They seem to just be bad computers with all the problems of bad computers; Slow, relatively frequent freezes and crashes, often very poorly optimised software. I really don't want another device with these issues, that even CAN crash, whatever happened to the days of specialised reliable hardware for ONE job that it was really good at. That's what I want.

Also If you want another reason to not get a smart appliance this a very amusing read https://www.netsparker.com/blog/web-sec ... injection/

Jericho · Post by **Jericho** » Mon, 17. Jul 17, 08:55

I remember the first time I tried to play a blu-ray on my computer.

"I have a bluray drive, what more do I need?"

Oh how I laughed at my own naivety!!!

First I didn't have the correct software (Note, I said software, not codec), so I had to buy a media player capeable of decoding. Then when that was installed (and PC rebooted of course), I'm then told that I have the wrong video cable, and need something different.

Sigh.

I just watched it on the PS3 instead.

Post by **Alan Phipps** » Mon, 17. Jul 17, 13:49

@ Jericho: I have a fully-updated BluRay player application for my PC with the right permissions and codecs etc. I also have an internal BluRay R/W drive and the right drivers. I only view genuine BDs with the correct region code.

So, 50% of the time on loading a BD my Win10 tells me that I don't have the correct permissions/hardware/software (perm any selections or combinations) to play this type of media - and then the application goes on to play it quite successfully anyway. Go figure.

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