Great DVD player for a reasonable price

As a member of Netflix I watch a lot of DVDs, sometimes more than one a day. Many of these DVDs are scratched and consequently would not play on my other DVD player. In my frustration I decided I needed to get another DVD player.

I decided to buy a Sony DVD player because I had read about their "Precision Drive 3" technology, which compensates for disc damage and corrects it so that these formerly unplayable discs can be played. All I can say is that these discs now play as if they were new.

I was pleasantly surprised with other aspects of play as well. When I power down the DVD player, it remembers where I stopped to resume at that point. The amazing thing is that it will do this even when the DVD is taken out and another one is played, meaning that when the first DVD is put back in, it remembers where it stopped in order to resume play where you left off. Great feature for a household with multiple users, because this multi-disc resume feature works with up to 6 discs.

I read another review about this DVD player, who was dissatisfied with the complexity of the owners manual. I admit it, I never even cracked open the manual. All I did was plug it in, matched up the red, yellow, and white wires that came with it to the red, yellow, and white holes in the back (obviously I'm not that technologically oriented), and voila, it played. If I can do it, anyone can.

The remote seems totally self-explanatory to me as well. In addition to the normal Play Stop Pause etc commands, there are some interesting keys that allow you to skip ahead or behind for just a few frames at the touch of a button. This works well if you didn't quite catch something that was said, because you only have to touch one button without having to worry about going back too far. It also has some other interesting keys - slow play (.6 of play) and fast play (1.4 of play), that speeds up or slows down the DVD just slightly (the sound continues to work with this feature), so if you are looking to pause at a precise spot you can do so with this feature.

I already have a Sony TV, quite old, so the remote controls the volume and power of the TV as well. Even though the panel is not backlit, it does have tactile buttons that enable you to navigate in the dark once you get accustomed to the remote.

I am also very satisfied with the picture quality.

I bought it at Target for $79.