Pioneer DVD Player DV-440
An excellent DVD player!
After months of research, the pioneer DVD 440 came up top of my list as the most value-for-money in terms of performance, features and reliability. I've been using it for 6 months now, this is my review of the player:<br />Installation - Very simple, just plug the supplied cable to your TV and that's it.<br />Picture quality - Brilliant, sharp and crystal clear. You can also adjust/customise the video setting if you want to.<br />On-Screen Menu - Simple yet practical window-like menu. The text are fairly large and easy to read, unlike other DVD players that uses small graphics/icons which although looks nice but can be difficult to read and use. Got to admit, I almost didn't buy this player because (at first) I thought the on-screen menus are plain and even a little bit ugly, I mean JVC has this super flashy/high-tech menus and Panasonic 31k has this little icons thingies. But in the end I chose the Pioneer because of its easy to use menus and the features available. The features available on the JVC and Panasonic are rather limited. Flashy and good graphics is useless without ease of use and the features to go with it. <br />The on-screen display is very useful. By pressing the Display button on the remote displays all kind of info like elapsed time, remaining time, total time, transfer rate etc.  <br />Playability - It plays EVERYTHING i.e. DVD/CD/VCD/SVCD/CD-R/CD-RW/MP3. I probably wont use all of them, but its good to know that this player can play them should the need arise.<br />Audio CD playback - Excellent sound quality. You can have program play, random play etc, all though its on-screen menus. You have to switch on the TV in order to listen to music (at least on my standard cable setting). I haven't figured out how to bypass the TV and go straight to my mini hifi yet.<br />MP3 - You can program play, random play etc etc...I don't use this feature much though...<br />Features - plenty of useful features, especially the a time search feature. Just press the&quot;Time Search&quot; button on the remote and you can jump to a specific title, chapter (press TS twice) or time (press TS 3 times) in the dvd. In VCD, you have to press 1 on the remote first before playing the movie to be able to have this feature. It has &quot;memory A-B&quot; so you can watch your favourite scene over and over again running in a loop.<br />Remote control - Does the job nicely, very comfortable to hold and good buttons layout. My only comment is that some buttons are small. <br />Absent features - this player does not have a zoom function. What it means is that if you have a normal (full screen 4:3) TV and you want to  watch a movie in widescreen format, then you can only watch it in letter box format (black bars on top and below picture) or in 16x9 format (picture appeared &quot;stretched&quot;). Unless of course if your 4:3 TV has a zoom function. If you have a widescreen tv, then no problem. <br />Others - Very slim design, easy to put anywhere. Actually my player is a gold colour DV-533k, which is the DV440 equivalent for the Asian market. The only difference is that the DV-533k has added karaoke functions. Other than that, its exactly the same as the DV440, it even share the same user manual.<br />Conclusion: A great all-rounder dvd player that has great pictures, sound, plays everything and lots of features. If you are a first time buyer or an average movie-lover like me, then this is MORE than good enough for you.