Page 1 of Help! Which - DVD Philips, Tatung or Samsung?

Martin Dawes have a offer on at the monent. Take out a contract on a Mobile Phone and the will give you a free DVD Player. You have choice of Philips DVD 612S, Tatung TDV5100 or Samsung DVD M105. They will set the Tatung up as Multi-region but not the other two.
Advice please on which DVD to go for. Thanks.

I have a samsung m105 second hand and it looks very good in my opinion. The picture isn`t bad either on the SCART! There isn`t much difference to the quality on my tv though between setting it to 16:9 mode or letterbox mode (I have a 4:3 tv that has a 16:9 mode). My version was region hackable but I`m not sure if the latest firmware is.

There is a review at : http://www.whatvideotv.com/testbench/DVDPlayers/Samsung/SamsungDVD-M105.shtml

Having said all that, I was amazed by the ultru cheap Oritron DVD1030 available from Comet for 89 pounds. It doesn`t play MP3`s but is region hackable. I got mine free from a mobile phone company too the other day. The picture is so amazing it`s almost unbelievable. There is a noticeable difference between 16:9 mode and letterbox mode on this one and the picture has more detail than the Samsung even though the Samsung seems to be oversharp and shimmer sometimes. The detail is definitely better on the Oritron though (noticeable on far off lettering on the racing car in Charlie`s Angel`s for example). I can`t tell you enough how impressive the picture is.

I just thought I`d add that this Oritron DVD1030 seems to be a bit of a mystery. I can`t really find any information about it. The DVD1030 has a dual focus laser according to hte box but can`t play MP3s so I don`t see much point. It`s hackable for VCD and multi region though. According to another site the Oritrons have disabled VCD by default to save a few dollars in royalty payments (most DVD`s play VCD`s by default). The early players kept going wrong apparantly. I think it was to do with the firmware. My player says it has firmware version 07 from 27th September 2001. I can`t see the DVD1030 mentioned even in the Oritron website!

The latest samsung m105 is multiregion, This is firmware Ee. This uses a different five digit code for multi region. I still need a RCE disc to see if that works


Jimmy