I got this after having first tried the Samsung 1080I-720P with DVI connection. I have a Toshiba 51in. HD ready monitor. the Samsung was very expensive, and the picture quality did not impress as it should have (highest quality connections). Bare in mind, with that unit, if the DVD was recorded in the highter resolution, it was fine, but did little to improve older films.
The SONY on the other hand, (once properly set up, which can take some time if you unfarmiliar with the new technology) this machine is quite impressive for its lower-end price with a picture quality that rivals the samsung I paid twice as much for. For dvd's recorded in higher end resolutions, the picture comes out near perfect, while old recordings, such as tv shows (ex. X-files) are smoothed to improve quality. This method is also imployed on VCD and DVD-R's which can suffer in quality. I would highly recommend this product, though be warned. Improperly set up, and you'll not get the best of what this... Read more

I bought this player to replace my ancient 5-disk CD player. I've never owned a DVD player before and didn't really expect to need that aspect of it--we have TiVo and a vast VHS library, so why do I want to switch formats? But time marches on and it's clear that I need to start migrating to DVD.

Let's start with the music part: As a CD player this unit it flawless. It does everything my Stone Age TEAC CD player did, silently and effortlessly. It's not unattractive and it's lower profile than most. The blue light bulb in the front of the unit is a slight annoyance (I don't really need my CD player to be a nightlight).

Hooking up is quite easy. It was a bit of a chore for me because of my TV/TiVo/amp setup: I play the TiVo box through the Amplifier to the TV, but the amplifier only offers a single video input. The DVD and the TiVo box both want to use the same line to the TV and neither offers the ability to "pass through" a signal. Both want to be on the end of the cable... Read more

it plays nice and I was able to get rid of my CD player and use this for both CDs and DVD. However even though you can supposedly set the machine to zoom when playing widescreen DVDs on a regular TV, the zoom feature does not work. My old cheaper DVD player did this. And many of the settings can only be changed when you hit "stop", not while it is playing.