Take Two: The Second Generation of Cheap Home DVD Players

By Jonathan Berohn

I’m a firm believer in the old adage that there are fewer things more fun than buying new audio/video/computer…ok just about any kind electronics stuff. But I’m also a firm believer in the other adage that nothing is quite as annoying as that new electronics component that gives out right after the warranty. So I’m sure you can imagine my delight when I came from a night out with the wife to find out that our 14 month-old DVD player had died.

Out with the Old

At, first, as my father happened to be babysitting, I figured either he or the kids had simply screwed something up, but sure enough, our supposedly trustworthy Panasonic DVD-RV31 had stopped reading discs. Needless to say I wasn’t pleased. I was even less pleased when I turned to the Internet for some ideas and help. From what I read from other disappointed owners, it would seem that this is a fairly common failing among Panasonic DVD players. I did stumble across a self-remedy (take the case off and press down on the plastic spindle) but this only helped for about an hour—then back to the same problem. It was time to face the fact that the player was dead.

So—as I’m sure you imagined—I rushed right out and bought another Panasonic. Heh, well…not quite. Ok—so I rushed right out and bought anything but a Panasonic. But I did rush right out. Oh—the cost to repair the old player, by the way, would have been more than what I paid for the new one. Anyway, I discovered that the array of players out there now is even greater than what I waded through last time (and we see how all that turned out). You can buy players for as little as $29 these days, but I’d tend to avoid those. A couple friends of ours have gone through 2 of these already, and it’s still hit and miss as to whether it will read any particular disc.

In with the New

That doesn’t mean you have to pay over $100 still to get a good DVD player. In fact, I found one that basically replicates every feature of my old Panasonic for $59.99—and it comes with a decent reputation. The player I chose was a Toshiba SD-3950SU. Even at this price, you get full playback options, including DVDs, CDs, Video CDs, CD-R’s, MP3s, and Jpegs (still digital images). You also get a full range of special effects to choose from, including sound and picture enhancement and picture zoom.

The only thing you might really want (if you have the system for it) is the new digital out option. I don’t have the system for it, so it wasn’t an issue for me. The next step up has it for $69.99. Most importantly, though—you get a good playback and solid features for a price that won’t break the bank if it dies after a year (a reputation Toshiba does NOT have, by the way).