PlayStation2 as budget DVD source: why/why not?

Only one first-person account, so take it with a grain of salt - a friend of mine used a PS2 as his DVD source for a while and had a lot of trouble with skipping DVD's. I finally convinced him to buy a decent Sony and all the same DVDs played flawlessly. Could easily be unit-specific, but may be noteworthy. -Kirk

I think You will want to buy the PS2 remote control to use the PS2 as your DVD. The PS2 joysticks & ladder menus are too cluncky in my opinion, unless you are going to start every DVD, and watch until it ends. Other than that, I haven't really noticed any difference between PS2 and my 3yr old Sony DVD player. Kthomas is correct that there are rumors of Data Read Errors (DRE) on some PS2. I have not experienced this yet.. but my hardware was a Xmas present. There are several DRE posts out on PS2 Users groups. The only other issue I have is with component video connections only, it appears that my TV screen is not centered only when playing video games - DVDs are fine. So for me, I run the Monster SVHS cable set. As for why to use -- why not spend ~$20 to have a DVD / CD / Game Console and use the machine for its capabilities and then decide if you don't like it -- just buy the remote from Best Buy and take it back if you don't like it. You might also want to scour Funco, Babbages, GameStop, etc. - They might have used RCs.

DVD players can be had for real cheap at Circuit City. I wouldn't rely on a Playstation to play movies, it wasn't designed to be pressed into active HT duty. PS2 as part of a quality HT set-up? Unlikely

I have a PS2 and have watched some DVD movies on it. The picture quality is just not as good as my (cheap) Pioneer 626 DVD player. If you can spend another $200 or so, go for the dedicated DVD player. A friend of mine just bought a Panasonic RP56 for $220 and the picture is fantastic (better than my Pioneer).

I used my PS/2 as my main DVD player for a few months, and it did a good job. As another respondent stated, the new Sony remote is a MUST if you go this way. But by no means is the PS/2 the equivalent of a dedicated DVD player...