How to choose the right DVD Player/Recorder

If you are thinking about buying a DVD player/recorder, you will have more than one choice to make. However, you should be careful to be able to meet several important criteria. The first question you must ask yourself is “What will be the main purpose of that DVD Player/Recorder?

Home users

The majority of people buying a DVD Player/Recorder will not expect it to play only DVDs, but to play also video formats like CDs, CD-RW, DivX, MPEG. But they can also allow the user to view photo formats like Jpeg, play audio sounds like MP3, WAV.
If you are usually create your own DVDs make sure that they meet the format that can be read by the player. If for example you create a .AVI DVD, make sure that the player is made for .AVI formats.

Recording

You can decide either to record your DVDs on a DVD-RW or a DVD-R. But as always, your DVD Player/Recorder must bear the compatibility of a DVD-RW. You will hence be able to make several recording from your own television channel onto your DVD/R/RW.
You can also choose for the recording the integrated RAM, this is hence referred to as the DVD-RAM recorder. The RAM will be acting like the hard disk of the DVD Player/Recorder and you will not have to insert any DVD-RW to be able to save the movies that you want. Nevertheless, bear in mind that the price of the DVD-RAM will be much more expensive than the price of a normal DVD Player/Recorder.

Peripherals

There will be different input and output ports available depending on the type of DVD Player that you will chose. You can have the USB port that will allow you to introduce a flash disk that will be read by the DVD Player and read formats like DivX or MPEG files.
You can also connect your own hard drive to the DVD to access the different folders that can contain movies that you wish to play through the DVD.
You can also connect the DVD to a sound system, a video projector, or even substitute the DVD Player/Recorder as a computer machine. Your DVD Player/Recorder must somehow be able to read VCD/SVCD and DVD-ROM.

Configuring Video and Audio

*Elements of video connection. RGB Scart (TV connection), HDMI (digital transmission of several signals), YUV output for connection to flat screen or video projector. More optional, the DV lets you transfer videos from your digital camcorder to DVD

*Elements of audio connection. RCA connector (Hi Fi), decoders integrated high quality sound (Dolby Digital, DTS).

*Connection options. A USB port is useful to your reader. To play audio / video / photo from a USB drive or a hard disk.