Toshiba SD-3960 DVD Player
Low Price and Great Player
This player does everything I expected when I finally decided on this model.  It plays DVD movies with great picture quality, and plays home made DVDs as well.  It will play DVD-R and DVD+RW with no problem, haven't yet tried other formats.      It also plays VCDs and mp3/wma CD-R and CD-RWs.  The manual says only use 650 mb CD-R and don't use CD-RW, but 700 mb CD-R and CD-RW work just fine.  Be careful with wma music file though.  If a wma was made with Microsoft's copy protection, such as CDs ripped with Musicmatch, it won't play.  You can pull up a display of song title from the music file name, it won't read id3 tags.  It will read folders on mp3/wma discs and you can select random play from the play mode button on the remote.    Others have reported the player is noisy, and that it takes extra long to open the tray.  I've experienced neither.  Yes, there is no counter on the player display, but you can pull up the counter on screen by pressing the display button on the remote.  It took a while to get used to the onscreen display, but after a couple of times of use, I actually liked it.     The remote could be a little better designed, but its certainly useable. But to me a remote is a remote, they all have too many buttons that you have to figure out.  I'd never let a remote control be the deciding factor in a buying decision.      The setup menu on the player is very easy to use with great response.    Most reviews contain subjective comments regarding picture quality which to me makes the comments on picture quality not very useful.  However, [...] does very detailed objective testing of hundreds of players. For players under $200, this model ranked number 2 overall in picture quality.  Please check it out for this model or any model you are considering.    Again, for the price, I think this player is a great bargain.