Recently I bought a Gamecube and some great games to play on. Unfortunately, it looks like crap on my old 13" TV/VCR using the composite inputs. At least compared to some of my friends' setup, who have newer TV's.
So I decided I should get a new TV, and if I'm going to do that, might as well get a DVD player too. I'm not real big on TV shows (I only have basic cable for $15/mo, and usually just watch Law & Order and other USA Network shows), but I enjoy video games and DVD's (which I currently play on my computer).
However, I have a fairly limited budget (looking to spend roughly $250-400 total for both items), so I'm looking primarily at 27" TV's. I'm not terribly convinced that flatscreen TV's are worth the premium they cost. Any opinions here?
So anyway, I looked at a bunch of customer reviews of the cheaper (<$100) DVD players. Seems a pretty common problem is they wear out pretty quick. One of my friends said he's had an Apex he got for $90 and it's worked fine for him for more than a year. I'm curious if this brand has a consistent reputation for making DVD players that work. I'm only interested in a DVD player... I really don't care that much for MP3, JPEG, DVD-R, or VCD functionality. But I do want the progressive scan feature that seems to make DVD's even nicer. Walmart has
this Apex for $50 and it seems like a reasonable choice.
I also looked at several TV's, and I *think* the best choice for me would be one of these (all of these from Walmart - I might buy them from Circuit City instead since I can pick them up locally after ordering online, if they're not too much more expensive):
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RCA 27" Flat-Screen TV 27F530T for $298
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Emerson 27" Flat-Screen TV EWF2703 for $218
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Sanyo 27-inch Flat-Screen TV DS27930 for $277
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Norcent 27-inch Flat-Screen TV TV2703 for $218
Most of these have both S-Video and component inputs, which I think allow DVD players to do progressive scan playback. I was going to hook up my Gamecube to the component input and the DVD player to the S-Video input.
Thanks for any feedback/information!