It's important that buyers make sure they purchase a DVD player that can handle any media format that's thrown at it, since it's much easier to combine the functions of three separate players into just one small unit to save space and cost.

DVD players that support additional media types tend to cost just $10 - $25 more than the DVD players that don't, which makes this option highly worthwhile.

DVD players offer the sharpest image quality available in a pre-recorded format. Instead of a normal VCR's typical 250 lines per inch of resolution, DVD players belt out 450 to 500 lines per inch.

To retain as much image clarity as possible when sending data from the DVD player to the television itself, DVD players offer three types of Video Out formats:

For years, composite video connections have been used to send video signals from a VCR, video camera, or gaming console to the television's screen. This older solution lacks the clarity and image quality of S-Video and Component Video Out ports, and therefore should not be used unless your television only accepts composite video connections.

S-Video: Most televisions above the size of 19" now offer a single or double S-Video IN port in addition to the standard composite video IN ports. The advantage of S-Video over a normal composite connection lies in the fact that S-Video modulates the video signal in its separate parts--chrominance (color) and luminance (light and dark). This makes for a more precise, detailed picture than standard composite video output.

In our experience it doesn't matter if it's a DVD player or a Sega Dreamcast you're hooking up to your TV, if you use the S-Video port the image quality will look dramatically better than when using either the TV's coaxial or composite IN ports.

All DVD players we've seen include an S-Video OUT port.