Samsung DVD-N501 Nuon DVD Player
Horrible player
I have owned about four different DVD players; this is the worst of the lot by far.  It takes some major complaints on my part for me to return an item, but I definitely could not take this DVD player.<br />First and foremost, the DVD player skips quite frequently when playing normal DVD discs.  It was quite a severe skip too, much more harsh than a layer change.  Forget the fact that you can download something to fix the problem, because a consumer shouldn't have to jump through loops for a product to perform basic operations.  Why spend so much money on a player that will simply turn out to be a huge inconvience?<br />In addition to the skips, the player wouldn't even play some of my more advanced discs.  Terminator 2: Ultimate Edition DVD, for instance, would either not load at all or freeze upon loading.<br />Also, the player would often freeze if you use the remote buttons at a moderately fast pace.  An example would be if you are manually fast-forwarding through the movie, press pause, then quickly change your mind and keep fast forwarding.  This kind of thing can cause the player to freeze up.<br />And that is exactly what this NUON player is.  Looking for the upgrades (around the months of July, 2002) turns out to be quite an epic quest.  Before I returned it I tried several programs to fix the player, but to no avail.  The downloads I did manage to find didn't fix the skipping problem.<br />Another huge problem is the loading time.  DVD players two years older than this had quicker loading times.  It really shouldn't be too big of a deal, but when you have to wait ten to fifteen seconds before the menu comes up, it does become quite annoying.<br />My advice?  Find another player.  I've seen these players marked down quite a bit at electronic stores around me, but there are much better players at much better prices.