For those who have asked. The cheap DVD player I bought was a “COMPAKS” (sic) DVD 800. It was bought in Woolworths. The one advantage of these cheapers is that they play most formats, and are easily made to support multi-region DVDs.
This means you could, possibly, although you’d be aware of the (il)legalities of doing so, download an episode of… say.. 24 series 3, burn it onto a CD, and watch it in your DVD player. Or you could fill a CD with MP3s and use your new, cheapo, DVD player to play the MP3 CD – giving you some 300 odd songs I think. Finally, it’s usually a case of following the instructions provided (or found) to make your DVD player region free, meaning you can order DVDs from anywhere in the world. My Japanese version of Donnie Darko works fine.
My advice is, if you spot a cheap DVD player, pick it up, chances are it’ll do all of the above (and may also support JPEGs on CD as well give you an electronic slide show viewer as well). However if you are more cautious than me, and presumably have a bank balance in the black (what a weird thought that is) you can always check the capabilities using the DVD Player Compatibility List.
Simple. This is the reason I laugh at my mates who have the latest Sony DVD player/surround system having spent, probably, a few hundred quid AT LEAST. I’ve spent £154 on two DVD players. One includes a surround system with inputs for both the digibox and my Playstation, the other is a teeny tiny unit which fits perfectly with the 15″ TV in the bedroom. MY DVD players both play CD-R, DVD-R (and R+), MP3 CDs and display JPEGs. Theirs don’t *snigger*.
Now I just need to get some decent porn on DVD and I’m sorted.. ohh hang on.. I can just burn my own!