The Grundig GDP-3550 is a DVD player that is based on the ESS 6698chipset, providing good performance and many features. The player is advertised as DivX Home Theater and NeroDigital Standard format certified. We confirmed these claims, so you can be sure that your encoded files will play back without any problems. Unfortunately, an advanced feature of the Mpeg4 format (QPel) is not supported, so be careful when encoding your files. The Xvid format is supported too (GMC 3 WP) and of course Mpeg1/2 formats as well.out

What is missing and its obvious, is a digital output port (DVI/HDMI), but if you are looking for this, the next model up may interest you (GDP-3560). Lastly, we have a few complaints with the remote control: too small, hard to learn, especially after having tested many other devices with a more standard remote. The device is priced around €75, which isn't the lowest price on the market...

- The Good

• Its DivX and NeroDigital certified
• Nice external design
• ESS ES6698 chipset can "handle" many Video and Audio formats
• Can recognize all CD/ DVD writable/re-writable discs
• Supports progressive scan, via Component output
• Can recognize all CD/ DVD writable/re-writable discs
• Supports Subrip and IFO/Sub (.srt) subtitles, but only for Latin based alphabets
• Can upgrade its firmware
• Can become region free

- The Bad

• Medium priced (75Euro)
• Remote control needs major redesign
• QPel is not supported
• No upscale (720p/1080p) function
• Not a lot of information displayed during playback
• Doesn't support some character sets (e.g. Greek) for filenames and subtitles