Does DVD player make any big difference in HT experience?

[agidol]

Sorry to sound so newbie but I'm wondering if it's worth spending fortune on an expensive DVD player. I have a decent HD TV and good sound system but I have a really basic DVD player from JVC (less than $100 but progressive scan). I thought DVD players don't affect picture quality as much as TVs do. Am I wrong? Will a $700 DVD player show any significant picture improvement over by cheap JVC DVD player? Thanks in advance.

[poneal]

DVD players have dropped dramatically in price as of late. If yours works well then I would keep it. I doubt you will hear a dramatic increase in sound quality by shelling out $700 for a DVD player.

[woodman]

Whaaaaa Paul? The poster wasn't asking about sound quality ... he was asking about picture quality. I'm sure your intentions and your heart were in the right place, but ... maybe you need a nap?

agidol:
To answer your question: NO, a $700 (or a $7K) DVD player is not going to give you any meaningful increase in picture quality. This is not to say that all DVD players produce exactly the same pic quality - that would be an oversimplification and not really correct. What I am saying that the improvement in pic quality will not be significant and certainly not "worth" the money spent - unless of course you have more money than brains (which SOME that post here evidently do).

Hope this helps you

[skeptic]

Thanks for the advice Woody. I was going to buy a $50 DVD player. But I've decided to wait until they give them out free with each fill up at the gas station of over 10 gallons. At the rate gas prices are going up, they will be able to throw one in about a couple of months from now.

[Woochifer]

Well, there are various performance measures that can be used to assess the playback of a DVD player. The Secrets of Home Theater website periodically does comparison tests of DVD players on how they fare with various tests. One thing you'll see from this website is that how well a particular player does on a lot of these tests does not correlate with the price at all.

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/cgi-bin/shootout.cgi

[agidol]

Thanks guys,
That confirms my belief that DVD players make only small contribution to the picture quality. I'll stick to my JVC which has been able to produce very high quality pictures (at least to my eyes) at a very affordable price. Thanks again.

[stevos2005]

If the JVC produces a good enough picture for you, that's what counts! Stick with it!

I had a sub $100 cheap DVD player and got a REALLY good deal on a Denon DVD-2900, and the difference has been night and day. I also used DVD-A and SACD, thought. Also, my cheap DVD player wasn't progressive scan, and the Denon has Silicon Image progressive scan and 24-bit Burr-Brown DAC's, so there should be a marked improvement there!