Can someone please give me their opinions as to who makes the best DVD player for reading CD-R's and VCD's? Thanks

-- Cale Ferguson (5150@onramp.net), May 17, 2000

Answers

If I were You I would buy Pansaonic DVD Player any model Pioneer525 or higher number. This brand reads any VCDs whether it is CD-R or CD- RW. If you buy Panasonic or Sony they won't read CD-Rs. I am making my own VCDs. I am unable to play my VCDs in Panasonic or Sony DVD Players.

-- Krishna Puttaparthi (PSPV@flash.net), May 17, 2000.

The Pioneer 302C or the Pioneer DV 525. They both play everything you put into them. I have both and I am very happy with them. The 302C is a three disc changer and has dolby 5.1 decoder built in. I have not been able to get any other brand to work and I use silver CDr's.

-- Doug Harding (dharding@mdcc.edu), May 17, 2000.

I have the Pioneer 525 and the Raite 715 and I've had the opportunity to use the Apex DVD player.

I would have to recommend the Raite 715 over the Pioneer 525 if you serious about playing VCDs. In particular, the things I like are multi times (2x, 4x, 8x) fast forward and rewind. The Pioneer only fast forwards at one speed and doesn't do it as smoothly. Also the Raite can play any Region DVD (I've tested this with Farscape Region 2 DVDs that they sell in the UK but not in the US), it can defeat Macrovision, and play MP3s. Also, you can update the firmware on the Raite by CD-R. Really cool.

Some people have complained about the picture quality but I haven't seen any problems. I play my VCDs on a 36" Wega calibrated with Video Essentials. With the Raite I feel like it was made to play VCDs, where as with the Pioneer it seems like they just hacked in the feature.

These are just my opinions. Do some research yourself. If you want to go cheap the Konka KD1800U might be a good choice, my brother bought one for $139. The Pioneer 525 and Raite 715 run about $229.

Here's some helpful links: http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/%7Erobilad/Raite.html http://www.geek.com/hwswrev/conel/rav715/rav715_1.htm http://www.sparta.lu.se/~bjorn/av715/ http://hardware.mp3.com/hardware/individual/home/2383.html http://www.etown.com/categories/product_review.jhtml? bodyinclude=product_review&productID=2226http://electronics.cnet.com/c gi/crunch/pdetail2.asp?ptable=DVD_Players&PID=1000177 http://www.geek.com/hwswrev/conel/apex600a/apex600a.htm

-- Michael S. Gilmore (mgilmore@san.rr.com), May 17, 2000.