Best DVD player for the money?

You might try describing what your current setup is, what your goals are, and your budget. Without such information, all anyone can do is throw model names at you.

For instance: The Meridian 800 Reference Version 3 DVD player is one of the best, if not THE best, DVD players available. If you have the money. It runs about $19,000.

I didn't because I really was just looking for a general over-view/education of what to expect from a DVD player -- what features and capabilities separate a high-end interpretation of a player from a mass consumer-grade piece, and whether those differences are worth paying for, and where diminishing returns begin.

I'm right in the middle of re-building, so a lot of my setup is in flux. I'm using just a 30" HD tube widescreen, but that'll be a HD plasma down the road. I need to buy a new (probably used) processor, right now a Lexicon DC-1 seems like a good idea, but who knows. I'm driving my speakers with a couple of B&K amps (all used). Where audio is concerned, I've always subscribed to the approach, "why should I buy a brand-new Chevy when I can buy a two-year old Cadillac."

I'm not so sure I'll get off as easy with the DVD player -- I suspect they're changing, unlike solid state amps, all the time. On the other hand, there's that "diminishing returns" caveat. $500 seems to be the theme (so far) for each item (my most recent purchase, a used B&K three-channel amp, cost me about $500, and was over $1k new). I guess I need to figure out what I can buy for under $500 in a DVD player, verify whether there's viable options on the used market, then determine if it's worth going upscale, based on the answers to the first paragraph. LOL. You asked.

Toshiba 4900 for around $90. It really does sound great IMHO.

Cambridge Audio Azur 540,

They also now have afew more model which I am not sure about

All DVD's are standard definition and they must be scaled to HD resolutions. The absolute best DVD player is one that has digital video output via SDI. This allows you to have the exact 1's and 0's off the disc before any processing and encription. The only way you can do this is with a SDI modified DVD player, and JVB Digital has the best SDI mods at the best price (you can buy a player already modified by them, they can modify yours or they will sell you the SDI board for DIY) (the JVB Digital Video web site is: http://www.jvbdigital.com/player). But, the only way you can read the SDI digital video information is with a special processor/scaler such as the DVDO iScan Ultra HD, Cinemateq SDI Picture optimizer plus, or the Key Digital HD Leeza (there may be a couple of others available - but please know all are expensive of $2,000+ USD). The best results with a SDI capable player and a SDI processor/scaler is to have a display device that accepts digital video as an input source.

To me the best-bang-for-the-buck is the Samsung 9xx series which outputs digital video via DVI/HDMI (the 1's and 0's off the disc are encripted with HDCP and some processing, but it still looks very good). The Samsung 9xx DVD player costs around $300 USD and you will need a display device that accepts DVI or HDMI and it must be HDCP capable. In my opinion, SDI video will only be 5-10% better than digital video via DVI/HDMI from the Samsung 9xx player. The Samsung 9xx DVD has a very decent scaler built-in. V, Inc. makes a good DVD player that has digital video output that looks very good as well and it is also fairly resonable.

I've recommended and installed many DVD players in my day, and I always make the client happy when we go to digital video. I've even gone so far as to do a side-by-side comparison of two DVD players feeding 2 inputs to their display device both being paused on the identical frame of the same movie in each player (I recommend one of the recent computer animated films) and we jump from one input to the other - it is no comparison that digital video always wins over 3 wire component every time. BTW - I own a Pioneer Elite DV-59 AVi and a Key Digital HD Leeza and this combo makes the best video picture of any player-processor/scaler on the market, including Meridian (and the Pioineer Elite DV-59Avi is a universal player for 2 channel and multi-channel audio as well which is also fantastic).