Toshiba SD-V291 DVD/VHS Player Our Rating:

Here is another wonderful product. This player from Toshiba is a DVD/VCR combo. It plays all your old VHS tapes from back in the day, and all of your newer DVDs, all in one unit.

The DVD player plays tons of formats: CD, VCD, CD-R/RW, mp3, WMA, and DVD-R, and can view JPEG pictures as well. It has component video output, and is Dolby Digital/DTS Compatible. The VHS player works great and includes multiple features, such as high speed fast forward/rewind, commercial skipping for recording, automatic clock set, and an automatic head cleaner.

We loved being able to use both common types of video media in this unit with the same remote. However, we found that the DVD player in our machine was touchy at times. Rarely, it would take several tries for it to play a DVD. However, this did not occur often. We found that cleaning it with a DVD drive cleaner helped it significantly. If you want to get a new DVD player, but still have a massive collection of VHS tapes, consider this player.

Philips DVD621 DVD Player Our Rating:

This DVD player from Philips is basically just that. It also has the capability of playing CDs, but that is it. It is simple, but it works poorly.

We picked up this DVD player and tested it’s capabilities. It only plays regular DVDs and CDs, meaning anything that is burned will not play, unfortunately. This is a major drawback.

It is also very slow to respond to functions, and it also loads slow. Using it is a hassle. At the end of it all, it does play your DVDs. However, avoid this player.