Sony DVP-PQ1 PSYC DVD Player with MP3 Capability
A short review.
This is an excellent player for the price -- Sony is finally competing with the Chinese products like Apex, and with a better product.  For the record, versions of this player sold in Asia do indeed play SVCD.  However, since SVCD has roughly half the playback time of VCDs, most movies on SVCD span three or more discs, and who wants to get up to switch discs two or more times?<br />This player, as advertised, plays everything it claims.  Picture quality on pressed VCDs is excellent.  What looked murky on my Daewoo player looks like VHS quality on this Sony.  In addition to playing DVD-R (Apple brand) and DVD-RW (Sony brand) flawlessly, MP3 playback from CD-R/W is impressive.  The sound, even on 128kbps encoded files, is clear and distinct.  The player displays long filenames (not ID3 tags), so if you name your song files properly, the player displays them onscreen and in a pleasing, easy-to-read font.  I noted it even plays variable bitrate MP3's up to 384kbps.<br />In addition to the standard formats of audio CD/VideoCD/MP3 CD/DVD/DVD-R/DVD-RW playback, I found this player is capable of playing back \\"XVCD,\\" a VideoCD whose video bitrate is outside of spec.  The maximum bitrate I tested was 1.7Mbps, and the disc played flawlessly (note:  the standard VCD bitrate is 1.15Mbps).<br />This player was an Amazon impulse buy ... and I'm quite pleased with this purchase.<br />I would have given the player 5 stars, but it doesn't have the ability to play more than 200 songs on an MP3 disc.