SIGMATEK XS-700 Pro DVD Player

I've recently purchased a SIGMATEK XS-700 Pro DVD Player to replace my now nonfunctional Wharfedale DVD3210DVX DVD Player which only lasted me 7 months before giving up the ghost.

Firstly I'll admit that it isn't the prettiest device to ever sit in an AV rack or under a TV but once we get past that my other initial impressions are quite good. [Mine doesn't have those ugly grey port covers either, they are black] The SIGMATEK has a plethora of connectivity options around the back, S-Video output, HDMI output, Composite video output & Progressive Scan video output (YUV and RGB) which is nice, although I only need the SCART socket.

The image quality of playback is very good, and the player supports up-scaling as well should you need it. I don't have a HD ready TV but it does upscale content to 576p which is handy in some instances like when playing region 1 DVDs.

Another plus is the USB port on the front which can be used to play music and movies in a variety of formats. A neat benefit of the up-scaling is that DivX movies are up-scaled to use the full potential of the screen. The quality of the up-scaling of this content is quite good but of course depends on the quality of the original recording.

Playback from USB is prone to an occasional loss of sync which doesn't happen when playing the same file from CD or DVD so I'll assume it is because the USB port is actually a USB 1.1 device (or slower).

So would I recommend one? Well if you are in the market for a cheap well featured DVD player with up-scaling and support for a range of formats then yes.