DVD players: The best models to pick for the ultimate in sound and picture

Are you tired of being the only kid in the dorm without his own DVD player? Do you find yourself staring at your old VHS tape player, wondering why you bought such a useless contraption? Do you know what VHS means? I didn't think so. Well, it looks like you might as well start using those tapes as coasters and that VCR as a Frisbee, because you're not "cool" unless you watch your movies digitally. Here's how you can begin your trek to break into the "in crowd."

The first thing you have to do is buy a DVD player. There are many choices for this, varying in features, quality, and most notably, price. Let us begin with the very basics: what kind of DVD player are you looking for?

Of course, there's the traditional, single-DVD player that takes up about the same amount of space as its prehistoric predecessor, the VCR. The price for such a machine varies from $120 to $1,800. Just when you thought that someone would have to be schizophrenic to spend over a grand on something that he could get for less than 1/5 of the price, I was informed that there were, indeed, reasons behind this madness.

I asked junior Erik Hummel why someone would drop that much money on a DVD player. He informed me that a player of that quality "does everything perfectly." Seeking for an elaboration on "perfectly," I asked him what sort of bells and whistles would come with a DVD player at such a high price. "Bells and whistles?!?" Hummel exclaimed. "Bells and whistles just fuck things up!"

With that issue clarified, let's move on to other manifestations of the DVD player.

There now exists a five-disc DVD changer, for those of us who can't stand the time it takes to change discs between three hour sessions of your "Godfather" marathon. If you're looking for one of these changers, expect to spend over $200, instead of the $150 of your basic single-DVD player (that might not "do everything perfectly," but still gets the job done.

If you really have time on your hands and an extensive DVD library, you can look into the Onkyo DV-M301 301-Disc DVD/CD Changer. It goes for about $725, and is the ultimate in laziness. By the time you hit the late DVD #270, all the ones you put in are classics, and the DVD itself is obsolete.

Of course, then there's the opposite direction: the portable DVD player with a built-in screen. These will set you back at least $400. One that you might want to check out is Panasonic's DVD-LV57 "PalmTheater," a portable DVD video/Video CD/CD player with a built-in five inch diagonal LCD monitor. For those of you who aren't sure just how long five inches is, that's slightly shorter than the average man's .electric shaver. Due to the sheer size of the screen on this bad boy, the PalmTheater comes with a remote control. This prevents you from hurting your eyes by sitting too close to the machine.

When you finally decide what type of DVD player you want, your best bet would be to visit Lycos Shopping at http://www.lycos.dealtime.com. This site will first narrow your search by price range, then you can browse for the model that you want, and compare prices from different on line merchants.

After observing several DVD players, I have noticed minimal difference between them concerning audio and visual quality, but apparently there are people who do and create a demand for those with four-digit prices and no bells and/or whistles.