Sony DVP-NS400D DVD Player
The Best Bang for your Buck.
I own three other DVD players and am familiar with a friend's, and none of them have performed for me quite so well as this one.  Its sheer number of options in almost all aspects of DVD (and CD music) enetertainment along with flexibility in terms of control and viewing make this a great deal all on its own.  Having had so much experience with other players, I had soon put this one through its paces.<br />The remote control is large and solid, its weight comfortable to the hand and reassuring of the quality that went into its making.  The buttons are intelligently placed rather than just shoved on where they would fit and the are all of high quality and comfortable to press.  After only two days of use I can already find most of the options without having to search for them, which is good since there is no sort of backlighting or glow in the dark plastic.<br />Advancing to different tracks on the DVD is very fast, no slow down when trying to access the next scene like I have sometimes seen with cheaper players.  The rewind and forward buttons are part of the flexibility I previously mentioned.  There is the option to SCAN the disc with multiple speeds x3 as well as a push and release SEARCH for when you just want to scan back a few seconds.  This way you aren't bothered pressing the SCAN button then rushing to press the PLAY to stop it.  Just press and release when done.<br />I won't go into all the features, but it includes everything you'd expect a DVD player to have.  Slow motion with multiple stepped speeds similar to the SCAN in both forward and reverse.  Angles and subtitles and audio options along with shuffle, repeat, and programmed playback for listening to CDs.  Time and chapter searches, noise reduction (for DVDs that tend to pixilate) and a picture sharperner/softener.  The only oddly lacking feature would be the absence of a zoom button.<br />A nice feature that my previous DVDs didn't have is the automatic saving of settings for the DVD you're viewing.  The player will save your settings for up to 50 DVDs automatically.  Once you get past 50 it just overwrites the oldest one saved so that any you watch on a regular basis will always be set how you like.  This way you don't have to mess with menu and audio/picture options everytime you sit down to watch a movie.  There is also a 9 screen splitscreen option that you can use to speed up searches during playback, view scenes from each chapter if the DVD doesn't offer this on the menu, and view all the different angles available at once.<br />Audio options are many and varied, allowing not only for the selection of the number of speakers and types (front, back, center, subwoofer) but also for the size of the speakers and the distance of each from the viewer for optimal sound performance.  In addition to this there are various sound setups for theater quality sound in a variety of styles.  There's even an option to make your music CDs sound like you're in the best seats at a concert hall in Venice.  There is even a setting for viewing DVDs at night which will keep you from having to constantly adjust the volume during the loud scenes.<br />There is also a DTS converter of some sort, I haven't figured out the logistics of it yet... but apparently you can achieve DTS sound without the need of a receiver that will supply such.  There are also S-Video hookups for ultimate screen performance as well as YPR connections for an even better picture and more accurate colors.<br />There is only one thing I can really find against the player.  The menus are big and rather ugly.  The saving grace here is they are very easy to manipulate to do what you want quickly and get them off of your screen.<br />All in all this is a great DVD player, and I am very glad that the folks I talked to got me to buy this one instead of the one I had in mind.  I haven't even begun to touch on all of the other keen things this player can do, but if you're not convinced by now... well, there's nothingI can do but invite you over to see this thing in action in person.  You won't be disappointed.