> I'm getting ready to buy a DVD player and I don't know beans about one. I found a model at Radio Shack that says it is JPEG compatible, or words to that effect. Does that mean that I can show my still digital pictures, JPEG format, on it?

Sounds to me like that's the score. A quick search on the Web seems like it means that if you stick in a CD with nothing but JPEG-encoded images, the DVD player will show them as a slideshow. I'd go ahead and try it on my player for you, but I'm lazy.

> I also plan on getting a CD burner soon, and as near as I can tell, a CD should fit in a DVD player. But will it work?

Almost always yes. Just about every DVD player ever can play standard music (and video) CDs. Most DVD players these days have no trouble playing burned CDs either, though some may give you grief if you try to play a CD you burned as "rewritable." The short answer is to ignore rewritable CDs.

> I had a bad experience at another store. You know the one I mean. They had stacks of DVD players that had been taped shut. That means they were sold and returned and I am leery of such rejects.

As you should be. I'm a bit of an electronics snob, and so I suggest you go to a somewhat decent consumer electronics store and buy a name brand player. You'll pay a little more than you would getting a Korean knock-off from Wal-Mart, but it's probably worth it.

Assuming you're not terribly picky about video and audio quality (unless you have a high-end audio/visual setup you probably won't notice the difference), there are a few things that high-quality DVD players may do better than cheaper ones that you might not think about:

* Size: I've seen some of those $60 players, and they're bigger than VCRs. That's kind of silly, and might be a pain if you don't have a lot of room in whatever you store your A/V components on.

* Noise: This is something that probably most people don't think about, but DVD players can be noisy. Some of them have these stupidly loud spinning motors that can be distracting while trying to watch a quiet movie.

* Fault tolerance: If you're going to be renting DVDs, you're going to get discs that are dirty and scratched. How well your DVD player can compensate for these is something to consider.

> They also indicated that you couldn't use a DVD without an "accessory package" which was "sold separately." What's the straight scoop on these little wonders?

That sounds like a rip-off. The thing is, most DVD players cannot be hooked up to your TV through a straight co-axial cable the way many people have their VCRs hooked up. That kind of connection (technically called a radio frequency, or RF, connection) provides a noticable loss in quality.

If your TV was made in the last ten years, though, you've probably got what are known as composite (confusingly also referred to as RCA) plugs in it. These are a set of three input jacks colored yellow, white and red. The yellow cord carries the video signal, while the white and red cords carry the two audio channels (for stereo sound). This is the most commonly supported output for DVD players, and most modern TVs have at least one set of composite inputs.

I'm guessing the accessory package is for people who have older TVs and don't have composite plugs. This probably means that the accessory package contains a device to take the composite signal and downgrade it to an RF signal, so it can be hooked up through a standard co-axial cable. If your TV does not have the composite inputs (just look to see if it's got a set of little jacks colored yellow, white and red), you'll likely need one of these devices (called RF modulators).

I have, however, seen some DVD players that have co-axial RF outputs built into them, so if you don't have composite inputs on your TV that may be the way to go.

The accessory package may also consist simply of the cables needed to hook the DVD player up to the TV -- if that's all they are then they should be cheap, as a set of decent composite cables costs less than $10. Still, most DVD players should come with a set of these. Otherwise, I can't think of what other accessories go with a DVD player. They're pretty simple machines, actually. They just have a power cord and a video/audio output cord.

I hope this makes sense; I'll be happy to reply to any further questions.

Stephen

P.S. There are a host of other ways to hook up DVD players to televisions and A/V receivers. If your TV is capable of it, you'll want to use something better than a composite signal, as it doesn't look that good.

The other standards in video signals are S-video and component video. S-video plugs are round black ports that look like you should plug a video game controller into them (they have about 8 or 9 holes in them). Component video, which is the best quality, looks like a composite input but is colored red, green and blue instead of yellow, white and red. If you're going to hook your DVD player up with S-video or component video, you'll probably need to buy those cables, and they can start getting a little expensive (cheap component cables are about $20, and you can easily spend $50-60 for the high end ones).

I'm guessing you don't have an audio receiver you want to hook this all up to, but know that you have options there including digital and optical connections.