Unless you've been living under a rock for the past five years, you'll no doubt be aware that DVD players are the beginning of the signal chain in an entertainment system: the unit that plays your source disc.

A DVD player carries out the task of reading, then decoding the data on your disc and sending it to the appropriate device, which could be your AV receiver or even your TV (if you connect the video directly to it).

What are the main technical facts to consider when selecting a DVD player? Well, do check whether it supports HDMI, DivX, HD DivX (that’s something I have yet to see on a sub-5K unit) and of course extra features such as USB input playback and Kodak JPEG playback.

These are all fun to tweak and test, especially checking the upscaling engines. I personally find it more exciting to see the upscaling of these 'cheap' players, as they do sometimes throw up pleasant surprises these days.

Of course, if you have a good AV receiver and HD ready, or a True HD TV (you lucky b***d), upscaling need not be done by the DVD player. Just send the signal via progressive output to the receiver and chill. The receiver will do the upscaling. But then chances are you will be using a more expensive DVD player in this rig, so this article is actually not for you.

Just like any other segment of technology, DVD players come in different packages and prices. Some are cheap enough to make you blink twice and smile, while others can manage the proverbial task of ‘burning a hole in your pocket’.

This article highlights the fairly large bunch of players available that can be termed as reasonable: they all cost under 5000 rupees. The ones we have reviewed will be exposed to a greater extent, while important features of all will be enumerated.

Most of all, I’ll be trying to answer the most common question that we've been asked in different forms, time and again. It goes something like this: "What DVD player do I buy?"

After lengthy field trips to Vijay Sales and other mega retailers, numerous calls to the respective brands (some cooperated, some did not), and lots of web browsing, we've collated all this info for you…

Philips
Philips has quite a few DVD players in the market, and is still selling some old models. The DVP 6565 (Rs 4790) is good value, and quite new. It looks good too: a nice and sleek body, metallic gray chassis, with a light strip on the bottom front panel.

It has no tray sliding out on eject; rather it features a smooth slot type drive like in car DVD players. The USB input is in the front, while connections at the back include one component out, HDMI, S-video and composite.

Simple and clean, this one scores high on aesthetics. Performance-wise, the deinterlacing could be better; a few artifacts were encountered, such as blurred edges and scan lines. Fast response, good menu systems, and the absence of jerky video all make this a viable choice.

Upscaling made the player a little slow in response; setting it in the menu showed us this lag.