Several confusions over DVD players

[sbasak]

I am confused buying over DVD player. Could you please clarify following points?

Do all DVD players are VCD players by default? Or they must show VCD symbol to state explicitly that they do play VCDs as well?

If a DVD player is made for zone 2 only, is there any way to make it zone free?

Some DVD players say they can play Kodak Photo CDs. Now what is exactly "Kodak Photo CD"? Is it just any CD consisting JPEG files? Or there is any special requirement of storing JPEGs in the CD? That is, if I create a CD by writing several JPG files in its root folder, will it become Kodak Photo CD?

In the market, there are several DVD players available - from £30 to £200. Their specs are more or less same. Then what is the difference between cheap and expensive DVD players?

In the back of most DVD players, I find following output sockets.
A yellow socket [for video]
a white socket [for left or mono audio]
a red socket [for right audio]
a orange socket marked as coaxial [what is the use of it?]
a scart socket [does it have any use outside UK?]

If my TV doesn't have scart socket [ie. it only has coaxial or R/F socket], can I attach a DVD player to such TV?

Any suggestion will be hightly appreciated, thanks a lot in advance!

[CORONA BEER]

Not all DVD players will play a VCD, it needs to say mp3 compliant on the front and it will most likely play VCD, because VCD is a MPEG/AVI file converted to MPEG2.

www.videohelp.com will answer more of your questions.

[dglienna]

the orange (coaxial) jack requires a special coax cable that has to be plugged into the coax input of a digital receiver. (the other digital option available is fiber-optic cable, and some DVD's also have this.)
Once you have this connection, you don't have to use any other connections for the audio out of the DVD (unless it won't play CD's: I've seen some that require stereo rca to play CD's)
Digital connections carry the audio portion of many varieties of Dolby Digital signals. Most common are Dolby 5.1 which is four main (front and rear) speakers, a center channel (for dialog) and a sub-woofer (for bass).
Digital signals are very powerful with almost NO noise. Just like the theater.
I was watching a movie once, and a bomb shattered a window in the flick. I must have jumped 2 feet, as it sounded like it started from behind me to the left.
Woke up the neighbors, also. They came up to see if I had blown myself up.

Really cool.



also, S-Video to S-Video produce a stunning picture for TV's that have the capability.

[dglienna]

If my TV doesn't have scart socket [ie. it only has coaxial or R/F socket], can I attach a DVD player to such TV?

You can use the Video to RF signal for the picture. Run the audio to a stereo, otherwise you won't hear any sound.

[sbasak]

If I follow you correctly, it means

I need to connect video (yellow) socket of DVD player to R/F socket of TV
and
I need to connect audio (red & white) sockets of DVD player to some external speakers.

But how do I connect video socket to R/F socket? A coaxial cable won't fit into video socket of DVD player! How much that "Video to R/F signal" converter/cable cost?

Thanks

[dglienna]

most console games include them, and some external antenna's have them, and Radio Shack sells them for a couple of bucks.

if your TV as inputs for a VCR you can also use it. VCR's also have RCA input. As long as the VCR is inline, you can watch DVD's