I'm looking for a good but inexpensive DVD player for my sister for Christmas. She will likely never have a HT setup, but wants a DVD to watch movies on her TV. She won't have a big one of them (at least anytime soon) but I'd like to get a progressive scan anyway. There was a Panasonic at Best Buy for about $75, which is my current leader. Anyone been researching in this arena and have some suggestions?

Jason, the first one that comes to my mind is the Panasonic F85, a 5-disc changer for about $130. If she's not going to use it to play CDs though, there's little need for her to have a changer and one of the single-disc players which they're almost giving away should be all she needs. The Panasonic S35 and Pioneer 363 run about $90 and the Panasonic S25, which might be the one you saw, is fine too.

I may be wrong on this but I don't think a regular tv can show progressive scanned images, isn't it only for hdtv?

If thats true don't get hung up on it, by the time hdtv becomes universal her dvd player will be ready to be replaced. If you are in the US any $100 player (even $75 )should be ideal.

There are plenty progressive scan, non HDTVs out there.

thanks, not aware of that.

Just still a search and I'm still in a confused state, is it not true that only hdtv or hdtv ready tvs can do progressive scan, and that analog TVs can't display progressive scan signals?

Here's an example of one.

Progressive scan means the TV can do 480p (p=progressive). Most TVs do 480i (i=interlaced). The number stands for the number of vertical rows of pixels the TV is capable of displaying.

HDTV-ready TVs can do 1080i.

So, I suppose that the point could be made that the TV Jason's sister has most likely isn't one that can take advantage of progressive scan. Anymore, though, nearly all the players, even inexpensive ones, have progressive scan, so you might as well get it.

I agree that you might as well get it. She doesn't have a progressive scan TV now, but it wouldn't suprise me if her next one supports it, so might as well get a DVD player that supports it too. I'll probably go with the Panasonic if I end up getting her the DVD. Mine is a Panny and I like it. They seem to have a pretty good rep as far as players go.

For those that are interested, I went with the Panasonic single disc DVD player (s25 I think, it's already wrapped).

Thanks for the help.