Pioneer DV525 DVD Player
Excellent player!
Being fairly critical of electronics, I did go and look this gift horse in mouth.  Results:  I am so COMPLETELY pleased with this player, both from my experience and what I've found by post-mortem research of the competition!  Especially nice:  the &quot;resume&quot; feature that mimics the handling  of a VHS tape:  you can press STOP, power it off, and then come back and  pick up where you left off automatically.  One MINOR drawback is Pioneer's  obsession with tiny remote control buttons which are a bit hard to find and  use in the dark.  But, I was able to compensate fine by using my All-in-One  universal remote, which was the plan anyway.  One feature that would have  been nice:  a pass-through S-Video that toggles between the player or a  line-in; I had to buy a selector A-B-C-D switch since my TV only has one  S-video input.  No other wishes or complaints.  Picture and sound on any  movie (esp. &quot;Matrix&quot;) are rock steady and look and sound  fantastic!