DVD Players

With lower end DVD players costing less than £80, now could be the time to take the plunge with this reltively new, but established technology.

DVD players have come down in price as the quality has improved. It's now hard to buy a bad one, and lots of very good quality players now cost under £80. In 2002, a similar quality £80 player would have cost you £180. That's a drop of over 100% in 3 years.

The advantages of DVD players over VCR are plain:

• Superior sound and picture quality
• DVDs that you rent or buy have extra features - often extra footage, directors commentaries or documentaries about how the film was made
• You can navigate discs easily and quickly, by jumping to chapters within the disc, without tedious fast-forwarding and rewinding
• The main disadvantage is obvious, too: you can't record from the television on to a regular DVD player. For that, you'll need a DVD recorder - which is not only more expensive, but also has some practical drawbacks.