Planning ahead on getting a new DVD player. A few models I see offers DIVX which appeals to me while some has USB which allows MP3 to be played. This got me thinking. Is there any DVD players where I can put DIVX on a USB storage device and I can then play it off that instead of having to burn movies onto discs (used to do this a lot but recently found it to be easier to just put on a HDD).
Also, is a DVD player with HDMI connection worth getting? Also planning on getting an HDTV in the future.
Yes, a lot of DVD players with divx and USB support allow the playing of movie files from USB (For example
this one amazon were selling for £27.99 a couple of weeks back).
An xbox with XBMC is an alternative as FAST6191 suggests and is an awesome bit of kit however it will only support external hard drives of upto 4GB (due to FAT16 limitation).
DVD players with HDMI connections are usually upscaling DVD players, that will upscale the picture to a HD resolution. I heard they are quite good but can't say much more on them because I don't have one myself.
Personally I think the best option would be get a HTPC (Home Theatre PC)/sit a PC under the TV. To build a nice proper one can get very expensive (some of the better cases can cost over £130 alone), but you could totally cheap out and buy a second hand 'small form factor' PC for next to nothing, stick it under your TV, make sure it's got a TV out obviously (though once you have a HDTV TV it will have a VGA input anyways), stick a copy of XP MCE or Vista or whatever on it, buy a remote control for £10-20 and Bob's your uncle. For under £70-80 you could get yourself a fully functional media center PC. Look out for Dells because they do some very small form factor machines and can be had for cheap (a la
link, though obviously you might want to find one with a DVD drive so you can play DVDs, and more RAM if you want to run Vista or playback h.264 stuff).
