Panasonic DVD-CV50 5-Disc DVD Player
Stay Away from Panasonic!!!
I purcahsed this unit at Best Buy near Christmas time 2000.  While it looks like a strong candidate in the DVD market do not be fooled by good online reviews.  I have owned several Panasonic components, including Technics CD changers and all have failed within two years!  Sadly, this was no exception.  Initially, this player worked great until I tried playing dual layer discs.  These will play fine until the layer change, and then you will see intermittent blocks of digital &quot;noise&quot; which will gradually get worse until the disc freezes up completely.  After calling Panasonic and receiving no help at all, I did some online research and found many others were having the same problems.  Apparently this has been attributed to anything from defective firmware to the unit overheating and the laser pickup forming condensation on it.  When I approached Panasonic again, they told me to REPLACE MY DISCS!  Because I have some 15 discs out of 59 that won't play at all, I have a hard time beleiving the disc is to blame, especially when they play fine on the new Toshiba sd355 player I recently purchased.<br />As a very unhappy Panasonic customer I urge you to look beyond the seemingly attractive prices and go with a higher quality player.  You will be happier for it.