Goodmans GDVD 161DX

This player plays just about every type of disc & movie format I give to it - DVD+/-R/W, CDR/W, DivX, XviD, MP3, JPG. If you have a collection of DivX/XviD movies and want to watch them directly on your TV, then this 'could' be the player for you.

Some DivX/XviD movies do not play (or are unwatchable). This is more likely due to poor encoding standards than a fault of the player itself.

Inserting any non-DVD/VCD disc presents you with the usual directory/file structure on screen, from which you can then select the movie/music to play. Unfortunately only the first 8 characters of the file name are shown, so it can be difficult to browse if similarly named files are listed. Also, the tracks are listed alphabetically, so unless you have named your MP3s with the track number they will not be in their correct album order.

Playback of DivX/XviD movies is within a 4:3 box, so on widescreen TVs a widescreen movie will appear as a small letterboxed 16:9 picture in the centre of the screen. Make sure you have a TV that has zoom function so that you can see it full size!!

The only bad point with this player is the (Pin 8) scart switching. The TV's auto AV channel switching only occurs when the main power switch at the back is turned on, but not when the front 'standby' button is used. This means that in normal daily use the TV channel has to be manually changed to watch DVDs etc.