Oritron DVD600 DVD Player

• Limit: 1 player per customer
• Dolby Digital and DTS coaxial digital-audio output; 2 composite-video outputs
• Multidisc resume (will recall last viewed point on 5 recently viewed discs)
• Full-function remote control
• Plays Zone 1 (USA) discs only

For the most part, the DVD600 is a very basic DVD player: it passes (but doesn't decode) DVD-based Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1-channel surround formats, it offers both stereo analog and coaxial digital outputs, and it routes video through two composite-video connections (there's no S-video jack here). Not bad for a budget model!

But this DVD player offers a couple cool, if only marginally significant, features we haven't seen elsewhere: a five-disc resume capability and A-B repeat.

Resume--whereby a player will begin disc playback from the last point viewed--is a common enough feature, but normally just for the disc currently in the player. As soon as you open the drawer, forget it--you have to know where you were or start over. The DVD600 will let you not only open the drawer, but remove the disc and start four other DVDs, all the while remembering where you left off on each of them.

A-B repeat is used mostly on CD players; it's a handy feature for looping and scrutinizing (or digitally sampling!) a riff, a line from a lyric, or a bit of between-song banter; the A and B represent user-definable start and end points for the loop. DVD broadens your A-B repeat options. Now you can savor special effects, dancing, or fast-moving action over and over at the touch of a button. Want to pick up some moves from Gene Kelly? Here's your chance.

The DVD600's sound and picture quality are very good--that's one area where microchips have helped narrowed the quality gap between cheap and expensive electronics. The sound from the analog stereo outputs is definitely inferior to what you'd get from a better DVD or CD player, but the DVD600's coaxial digital output lets you listen through your surround receiver's digital-to-analog converters rather than those onboard the DVD600 itself.

After experiencing the earlier DVD200's difficulty with delivering high-bit-rate audio and video (that is, loud and busy DVDs), we were skeptical about this area of the DVD600's performance. But the player pulled through with none of the picture freezing or excessive pixelization of its ancestor. And while this model does play DTS surround-encoded DVDs with ease, it does not pass the digital signal from DTS-encoded surround CDs, so fans of multichannel music should take note.

The DVD600's biggest drawback is actually something far more mundane than any technical shortcoming: its lack of a front-panel display. There's a red power-on light, a green status indicator (basically saying, "I'm ready for action"), and that's it--no chapter or title indication, no program time. So if you're planning to use the DVD600 as a CD player, you'll have to do so blindly or with the TV on. The onscreen display for menus and commands takes up some of the slack when you're watching DVDs.

The unit is lightweight and smaller than the average DVD player, but its build quality is lower. At one point in our testing, we hit eject and the tray emerged--without our disc! It did come out with no trouble when we tried reclosing and reopening the drawer, and it didn't happen again in our tests, but it's something to consider.

Is the Oritron DVD600 a great player? Not in the growing scheme of all-around great DVD players. But with its feature set and remarkably good sound and picture quality, we have no reservations about calling this a great buy and a terrific starter or bedroom DVD. --Michael Mikesell

Pros:

• Great deal for the money
• Plays both Dolby Digital- and DTS-encoded DVDs
• Unique features
• Rapid disc access
• Helpful onscreen display
• Plays CD-RWs

• No front-panel display
• Cheap build quality
• No S-video output
• Will not play CD-Rs or DTS-encoded CDs