Samsung DVD-M301 DVD Player
Good for the price, but lots of annoyances
First of all, a response to the reviewer who had problems with brightness and/or jumpy DVD playback:  this DVD player, like all others made in the U.S., has circutry called &quot;Macrovision&quot; that is designed to prevent you from copying DVDs onto your VCR.  The technical details are unimportant, but the result is that you cannot connect your DVD to your VCR and pass the signal through to the t.v.; instead, you'll have to connect it to the t.v. separately, using the video and audio jacks, or through an RF modulator box (you can get them at Radio Shack).  Past Samsung DVD players allowed you to bypass the Macrovision protection by using certain secret codes on the remote control, but this model doesn't seem to support that.<br />Besdies the fact that you are prevented from setting up your entertainment center the way you want, this model does have a few other pesky features.  The machine takes an unusually long time to read a disc upon insertion and recognize whether it is a music CD, mp3, or DVD and respond accordingly.  Also, I've sometimes had difficulty pulling up the DVD menu while in the middle of a program.<br />Otherwise, the unit does a good job with the DVDs I've used, including some relatively scratched DVDs from Netflix.  Audio quality with both DVDs and CDs is good, although I haven't tried it with mp3's.  The remote is ok, although there are lots of tiny, somewhat badly labeled buttons and a joystick that takes some getting used to.<br />If you don't need the CD/mp3 features, you're better off buying an older Samsung model-- the 700 and 900 series can be easily reprogrammed to turn off region coding and Macrovision.  If you do want the audio features, this model supplies them at a decent price, but be prepared for some annoyances as well.