LOL - yeah, you’d have to pay an additional $10.88 for the HD DVD player at Wal-Mart! :-) No, seriously, I wasn’t trying to knock on the S53, but just alert other readers that while the S53 might be passable, there are better players around the same price or even lower, like the HDMI-equipped Toshiba SD-K860 which retails for $79 and can be found even cheaper. A great site for objective evaluations of DVD players is the DVD Shootout at the Secrets of Home Theater web site - lots of information concisely presented, without getting so uber-geeky (like at the AVS forums) that you pull out your hair.
Overall, I found the SD-K860 to be a sub-par DVD player. There were some highlights, but the player needs work in its core video performance. This has become an unsettling trend lately in our tests. While I don’t expect top of the line performance at this price point, the issues found here should just not be a problem regardless of the price. Limitations in video processing are expected, not limitations in core performance. While this is an attractive price point for a HDMI based DVD player, I would have to recommend looking elsewhere.
The S52 didn't fair any better though.
The information on the website seems to be 3 - 7 years old