The Story of TUCKER, was that the auto world was ruled by 3 giants, and a newcomer said "Why don't we do it better? Because they sure aren't." He rocked the boat, and made waves that shook the industry to its core! But the giants were still BIG! Tucker was crushed, but his legacy still made changes.(Things like SEATBELTS, SAFETY GLASS, FUEL INJECTION! This is what pressure from an outsider does!)

I see a lot of parallels in VaroDVD to the Tucker story. They have some features and ideas that seem like they should have been given to us long ago! But they also suffer some of Tucker's failures. Tucker never did get ALL his ideas into the car. VaroDVD throws so much design at us it's a marvel to start playing with, but the video decode still is below that of its major competitors. Even WinDVD, a known resource pig, plays better on the test system in most cases. But don't get me wrong, VaroDVD still played well on most titles. With it's loaded features, it may still be the player of choice for some now, especially S3 owners.

When the Test system gets upgraded in the next month or 2, I plan on keeping this player to try on a power system. If they can add a few more tweaks to setup, and maybe better mainstream audio support, it really might be that good. It should get better hardware support, but it may not matter with more power. You may never have heard of Tucker, or of VaroDVD, but you may enjoy watching TUCKER on DVD. And you might even want to watch it on the VaroDVD player! :) Almost seems like you should.

Interested in buying VaroDVD? click here.

For more DVD Information visit the following pages: DVD Frequently Asked Questions. DVD Tips & Tricks. DVD Terminology. DVD Genie. VaroVision Home Page.

Product Scoring: Video Quality 8.0 Audio Quality 8.0 Performance 6.5 Features 10.0 User Interface 9.0 Total Score 8.0 (Total score is not an average)

Review conducted by Kelly Garvey.