Pioneer DV-343 DVD Player
Plays DVD-R and DVD-RW
These days I want a DVD player for one thing: DVD-R compatibility. Other people may focus on MP3 playback, but that is not a feature requirement for me. I have a Pioneer DVR-A04 burner, and I want the DVDs I create to PLAY, period.<br />Perhaps not surprisingly, it does indeed play the A04-created discs. I've used cheapie cdrecordable.com (now out of business) and Ritek stock and both work. DVD-RW from Memorex also has been excellent. So--if you are looking for a player that WILL play your DVDs, this is it. No artifacting or problems with files greater than 2GB, as seen in some other brand's players. I've burned a disc to almost the full 4.7GB capacity and it played just as well in the last 5 minutes as the first.<br />As for the rest of the features, the unit is fine. It doesn't have zoom, and the remote is awful, so knock off a star for that. Otherwise it performs adequately. And if you want MP3 playback, look elsewhere. But somehow I think more and more the question people will be asking when they buy DVD players won't be &quot;will it play MP3s?&quot; but &quot;will it play my DVDs?&quot;