Then I got a larger television. Then DVD came along, and the whole hardware upgrade cycle started to repeat itself. Now I am pretty compulsive about high-tech toys, so that may explain my desire to upgrade hardware periodically. But in all seriousness, like laserdisc, DVD made me want to make my home theater the best it could be. DVD players come in many flavors, but they are generally all composed of a fixed set of features.
Some players are no-frills with a minimum set of features.
Some players are full-blown, with everything and the kitchen sink. Tomorrow, I'll try to put all these features together into some of the DVD players that are currently on the market. Without any additional hardware, you can plug these into your television or receiver and get at a minimum stereo playback. If you have a surround sound decoder, and the signal is so encoded, you will get Dolby Surround just like any other video source. With a decoder built-in, the DVD player provides separate outputs for all six channels of sound.