Panasonic DVD-S35K Ultra Slim Progressive Scan DVD
Excellent inexpensive DVD player
The look and feel of the Panny DVD-S35K is very sleek and modern.  We've placed it on a bookshelf in our bedroom, and the slim lines of the unit means that it does not \\"take over\\" and visually dominate the other items on the bookshelf.<br />This unit was so low-priced that I was not sure what to expect in terms of picture quality, but I was pleasantly surprised.  The colors are accurate, the image is sharp, and I have not seen any visible video artificats in any of the numerous DVDs we've watched so far.  Within the display limits of our television I have absolutely nothing bad to report about this DVD player.  Overall, the picture quality from this unit is head-and-shoulders better than that from the flaky and unreliable 3-year-old Sony 530D DVD player I have in our living room.<br />(When reading my comments as to picture quality, please bear in mind that we are using this player with a Philips 20PF9925 20\\" LCD panel TV.  As many of you already know, there are certain trade-offs in using LCD technology, e.g. lower contrast; and of course a 20\\" screen is not exactly widescreen and hence certain categories of defect are largely invisible even when they are - or might be - present in its input feed.)<br />This unit is also feature-rich.  As advertised, it can play CD-R's with MP3's/WMA's and JPEG images.  Frankly, I assumed that this would probably be poorly implemented and/or frustrating to use.  But in fact I was rather startled to see how *well* it worked.  I placed into the tray a CD-R made a couple of months ago which contained about 150 family pictures in three different directories.  After only a few seconds load time, the player correctly identified the disc as containing photos, indexed all of them, and offered me the choice to begin a slide show.  Very easy to operate and highly configurable, for instance if you want to show the whole disc or merely one directory.  Easy enough that even the proverbial \\"grandma\\" could use it.<br />Final comments:  in givingthis player 5 stars, I am relating it to my expectations for a DVD player in the \\"budget\\" category.  I think that if I wanted a progressive scan player for a dedicated home theater, or for a big-screen (43\\"+) HDTV monitor, I would probably look elsewhere and buy a more expensive unit with a more advanced decoder chip, SACD or DVD-A support, etc.  But among players in its class the Panny DVD-S35K simply cannot be beaten.