3. CHOOSE YOUR PICTURE QUALITY

Maybe this step should be titled "Relax," because you know what? When you spend $300, you're going to get a great picture. The $300 picture is obviously going to be inferior to the $1300 one, but you'd have to be a hardcore videophile to really notice.

The difference between the low-end and the high-end players with regard to picture is to some extent in how they handle what are called "digital artifacts." Machines that have some sort of digital video noise reduction system will eliminate the "artifacts," or errors in the image from digital imperfections. It's not actual "noise" (as in sound) that is being reduced, but "noise" as in unwanted stuff.

So this is how we recommend you proceed: first, go to a store and look at the picture quality. Whichever one you like best, buy. After that, you can use the technical and non-technical features as a tie-breakers:

  • Every DVD player has either 9 bit or 10 bit D/A processing. D/A just means "digital to analog." This converts the digital info into a signal that your TV can understand, and as you could probably guess, 10 bit is better than 9 bit. Even if that meant nothing to you, just know that 10 is better than 9.

  • Some players might give you options such as "soft," "sharp" or "cinema" outputs. These will give you subtle changes in the picture as it appears on your TV.

  • The "oh, cool" features are important too. Does the picture scan or play in slow-motion smoothly? Can you focus on a part of the screen and zoom in on it while play continues? Do you even care if your machine can do that? Some of these additions will be of the "neat" variety, but others you might find to be indispensable. Play with the remote in the store and try to check out all of these features.

  • On upper end machines, look for things like disc stabilization. The truer the disc spins, the better the picture's image. Also look for controls - horizontal and vertical sharpness, black level, and gamma level - that allow you to tinker specifically with the image itself. Sharpness is self-explanatory, black and gamma levels give control over color and light respectively.

  • Finally, don't forget to check out the controls both on the deck and the remote. You're not going to read directions (don't get defensive... nobody reads them), so make sure the controls and access to the features you are going to use are largely self-explanatory and simple to figure out.

There are potentially dozens of things to take into consideration, so don't forget to budget ahead of time. What you are willing to spend will dictate to a large extent what options you have to choose from. You may feel limited, but it might save you having to worry about technical specs that you can't even afford.