Beautiful-looking sound.(Sight And Sound)(DVD players)(Buyers Guide)

As any Boy Scout knows, it's good to be prepared. With more and more of the best contemporary classical-music performances appearing on DVD video, you may want to invest now in some extra equipment--the right DVD player and possibly an upgrade to your television and stereo rack.

DVD players can be intimidating, with long strings of acronyms printed on the boxes (DTS, MP3, CD/R), but purchasing them really need be no more daunting than buying golf dubs or wrist watches. And if you're not worried about being seen shopping discount, you can pick up technology that performs just like the most expensive products.

DVD technology has advanced to such a degree that by spending a whole lot more on a product, you're getting only incremental gains in performance. Do titanium clubs really carry farther than moderately priced ones for the average duffer? How much more accurately does a Rolex keep time than a dime-store quartz? Amazingly, one of the best DVD players on the market today can be found at an exclusive electronics boutique called Wal-Mart. For $90, you can get the Pioneer DV-260 player with all the necessary video and audio outputs to drive thousands of dollars in home-theater equipment.

The crucial features on the Pioneer are component output, progressive scan and 3:2 pulldown. Component cables send the video information to your television in pure component parts: red, green, blue. Since the image's color streams are kept separate, the picture quality is slightly better with these simple wires. But double-check that your TV has three component input plugs; otherwise, it's a wasted feature.

The "progressive scan" output is useful only on a progressive TV--that is, a television that addresses the technology differences between broadcast TV and film. When ordinary sets receive cable and broadcast transmissions, they show only half a video image at a time; a split second later, they receive the other half and show it. A progressive television, however, can show an entire video frame at once, for a sharper, more stable image.

The 3:2 pulldown means that the player can discern whether the DVD was originally shot on film or video. Since films are shot at 24 frames per second, television at 30 frames, the player fixes problems caused by the six-frame difference. A microchip slices and dices the video's images to match the original film format, making movies and performances shot on film look fluid and smooth.

Let's say you want to go for the works in a DVD player. You just bought DVDs of Cecilia Bartoli's Mozart and Haydn recitals (BBC/Opus Arte OA 0869 D, OA 0870 D), and you want to see them in their unparalleled perfection. The Denon 9000 ($3,500) has component outputs, progressive scan, 3:2 pulldown, and it's THX certified. This means that it lives up to very high audio standards (those of filmmaker George Lucas, who invented the certification). What you really pay for in the Denon is the high quality of the digital-to-analog circuit, which takes the digital information off the disc and lovingly reconstructs it into the equivalent of a film image. (Bear in mind that opera-lovers are worldly, but DVD discs are not. Each device is locked with a code for its region, and players simply won't work with discs sold in another country. If, while visiting Covent Garden, you bought a Puccini DVD in a local shop, it probably won't work in the U.S. When picking up discs for use in the U.S., they must be marked "Region 1" or "no regional coding.")