While most DVD-video players offer superb picture and sound quality--including outstanding playback of music CDs--there are many important differences in features and overall performance. This guide will look at the relevant issues to help you locate the best player for your system. By having all of the facts at your fingertips, you can be sure of buying a DVD player that best meets your needs and budgetary constraints.

User Interface
Regardless of price and brand, a DVD player should be almost effortless to use. The front-panel controls should be clearly labelled and neatly presented. The remote should be ergonomically pleasing; the buttons should be well-marked and easy to distinguish in the dark. The better remote controls should also be backlit. More expensive players will offer "jog/shuttle" controls on their remotes, which let you move around the disc more easily.

Player set-up and configuration using the on-screen display should be easy to figure out. You should also note how quickly and easily the player navigates the menus and features programmed on discs. The manufacturer's manual should be provided in plain language, free of jargon and stilted translations.

Video Performance
When examining a DVD player's performance, it's important to look at the overall picture quality and pertinent features. Picture-quality differences tend to be subtle on all but the largest screens, but players do show variations in colour balance, brightness, portrayal of black level, colour saturation, and other visual parameters.

Do be aware that not all films will look the same and you may find some better than others. This is because films are encoded onto the discs using different compression methods in order to save space on the disc. Badly encoded DVD discs will display obvious "blocking" where there are contrasting colours or dark areas or fast moving scenes, such as explosions.

You should also examine a player's searching features; note how well it's able to rapidly fast-forward and reverse-scan while providing a glitch-free picture. Some players offer special visual effects such as a variable zoom, which allows you to examine elements of a scene in greater detail.

Video Connections
The state-of-the-art video connection at this point in time is component video. In this system, the video signal is divided into three separate bands: luminance, or "Y"; a modified red (minus the Y component); and a modified blue (minus the Y component). This method of video connector, which requires a TV or monitor with component-video inputs, is about as good as it gets. If you have a TV or projection system with component-video inputs, look for a DVD player with component-video out connectors.

The most common connector you'll see on UK DVD players is SCART, which is in-line with the connections available on most UK TVs. When connecting via SCART, it's worth noting that there are usually two options within the on-screen menus to configure SCART to either use a composite signal, or RGB. Where possible you should use the RGB option as it provides a sharper and better defined picture. To get the best results you will need an RGB SCART cable and an RGB compatible TV. Also, it's worth noting that a SCART connector will also handle an audio signal.

An S-Video connection offers high quality video, though it is less common to see this connection option on UK TVs. However, if necessary, you can buy connection adapters that will enable you to hook up an S-Video connection on a DVD player to a SCART socket on a TV.

Composite video is the next notch down on the quality scale. Most DVD players have both composite and SCART outputs. Even if you have to use the composite format, you'll still see a huge improvement in picture quality over VHS--just not quite the same quality as with component, SCART or S-Video.

Widescreen Playback
Many DVD discs come "widescreen-enhanced" or "anamorphic," which means the actual picture is squeezed into a horizontally narrower frame (making the image taller and thinner than normal). Widescreen televisions with a 16:9 aspect ratio can un-squeeze the picture so it fills the screen. While being able to view an anamorphically squeezed DVD video on a widescreen TV provides the ultimate in DVD picture quality, most people still have conventional 4:3 aspect-ratio (square) televisions, in which case the DVD player itself has to do the un-squeezing and create a letterboxed version to fit the screen. Some DVD players do a better job of un-squeezing anamorphically squeezed video than others.

Most DVD players also provide options to view widescreen DVDs as letterbox (with the black stripes top and bottom), or to use "pan and scan" to pick the key area of the image and show this on a 4:3 screen, so you lose the left and right extremities of the image, but have an image that fills your screen.

Another point to be aware of with widescreen on discs is that there are a variety of different formats, ranging from 16:9 (which is the common TV widescreen format) right up to 2.35:1 which is more commonly seen in cinemas. If your disc is a widescreen disc at 2.35:1, then it will still have stripes at the top and bottom, even on a widescreen TV.

Surround Sound
One of the biggest advantages to the DVD format is that it can output surround sound audio. A surround sound format like Dolby Digital 5.1 consists of five discrete, full-frequency-range channels plus a restricted-range, low-frequency "effects" channel. Some DVD players have "virtual" surround built in, which synthesizes a surround sound effect using only two speakers. To take advantage of the surround sound capabilities of your DVD player, you will need an appropriate AV amplifier/decoder and set of five speakers, plus a sub-woofer.

For the very best in surround audio, it's best to have your Dolby Digital decoder built into your home cinema surround receiver. But if you only have a "Dolby Digital-ready" receiver--which might not decode the digital signal but does offer six-channel analogue inputs-you should look for DVD players that have built-in Dolby Digital decoding and six-channel analogue outputs.

Many discs are now available with DTS (Digital Theater Sound) surround sound as well; DTS is another 5.1-channel format that uses lower compression rates than Dolby Digital (and thus tends to sound a little better) but uses more disc space for audio. DTS is currently the only format on which you'll find surround mixes of mainstream musical releases. If you're interested in exploring DTS surround sound you'll need a player that passes the DTS bitstream.

Audio Connections
All DVD players offer some form of digital output for Dolby Digital, DTS, or conventional 2-channel PCM sound. Some players have both optical and coaxial digital outputs; others may use one or the other. If you've already purchased an AV receiver, check to see whether it has optical or digital inputs and plan on buying a DVD player that uses that output format.

CD-quality Audio and Beyond
One of the other benefits of DVD technology is higher-than-CD-resolution audio playback. While CDs are recorded using a sampling frequency of 44.1 kHz and 16-bit words, the DVD-Video allows for 96 kHz recording at 24 bits, offering the potential for wider frequency response and higher dynamic range, respectively. Some players down-sample the 96-k/24-bit signal to 48-k/16-bit prior to both analogue and digital output.

All DVD players can play CDs as well. Some also have the ability to play CD-R/CD-RW discs and some even play CDRs containing MP3 files. Depending on the quality of audio equipment you are used to using, you usually won't be compromising much if your DVD player is going to be doing double duty as a CD player. In fact, depending on the DVD player, you may find that your CDs have never sounded better. Our reviews will examine how each player sounds with CDs.

Construction
The quality of a DVD player's construction is also important. Some players are built better than others and simply feel more substantial. Usually, the more you spend, the better the build quality will be--but not always. Our reviews make special note of which players rise above the average.

Multi-region Playback
One of the most requested DVD features in the UK is multi-region playback--the ability for a DVD player to play discs intended for other countries. The reason for this is because DVDs are encoded to play in set their "region" or geographical location. The world is split into eight regions and a "free" region 0. Europe is region 2, while North America and Canada is region 1.

DVD Region Breakdown:
Region 0: Region-free (plays on any DVD player)
Region 1-1: US, Canada, US Territories
Region 2: Europe, Japan (region 2 NTSC), South Africa, and Middle East (including Egypt)
Region 3: Southeast Asia and East Asia (including Hong Kong)
Region 4: Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands, Central America, Mexico, South America, and the Caribbean
Region 5-5: Eastern Europe (Former Soviet Union), Indian subcontinent, Africa, North Korea, and Mongolia
Region 6: Peoples Republic of China
Region 7: Reserved
Region 8: Special venues (airplanes, cruise ships)

Because films tend to be released on DVD earlier in the US than in the UK, multi-region players have become very popular. Also, in some cases, region 1 DVDs have extra material.

In an attempt to stop the export of region 1 DVDs to other countries, some of the biggest US movie companies implemented a security feature on their discs called RCE (Region Coding Enhancement) that effectively stop a disc from playing on a non-region 1 DVD player. However, DVD manufacturers have found a way around this feature so check a player can play RCE discs if you plan to buy region 1 DVD discs.

Portable DVD Players
The superior audio and video quality has led DVD to become the most successful new audio/video format in the history of entertainment--selling more units in it's short life than CD did over the same time period. And in this short time, we have seen two generations of portable DVD player--with a third on its way. These lightweight units usually weigh around two pounds and are capable of delivering films in either the traditional 4:3 or widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio.

Films are usually played on a colour LCD monitor. Built-in stereo speakers deliver theatrical sound, often enhanced by virtual surround sound technology. The main concern with a portable DVD player is battery life--make sure you either get a unit with a battery life of at least three hours or consider buying an extra battery pack so you can be assured of watching a movie in its entirety. Portable DVD players are great for travelling, especially during a flight or in your hotel room.

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