I am thinking about getting a DVD Player and am leaning towards Alpine. I'm just wondering what everyone thinks of these two models: DVA-9860 & DVA-5210. Which one would you get and why?

Two different applications:

The DVA-9860 is a head unit while the DVA-5210 is just a "slave". I would say that the DVA-9860 would offer more system flexibility so it gets my vote as Alpine's web site says they should be the same price.

excuse my ignorance, but what does it mean that its a slave? will I not be able to control the functions (ie. play, ffwd, pause..)? or hook up amps or what?

A slave is a DVD player that has no radio, amplifiers, etc. It needs to be plugged into a regular head unit. Slave also implies that you can control it from your main HU.

Say you have a HU like mine, with a cd player but no DVD, but it has an input and 5.1. I just need to plug a "slave" DVD into it, a screen, and I'm good to go. I can even plug those portable DVD players into it and get 5.1 out of it [img]smile.gif[/img]

ahh, I see.. I got it now, thanks! I guess I'll be going for the DVA-9860 [img]smile.gif[/img]