Price Paid:  $250.00 from Richer Sounds

Summary:
I was a Design Engineer for 13yrs for Panasonic and so am very reluctant to declare this DVD player a piece of worthless garbage ( now ).
Unfortunately, my DVD has also given up wanting to play nearly any DVD. Once in a blue moon it will play one if it feels like.
I have now purchased a new DVD player ( Panasonic DVD-S75EBS ) in the inane hope that it may outperform the last. Perhaps I have misplaced loyalties.

Strengths:
Great when it works. No bad points.

Weaknesses:
Doesnt work after a year.

Price Paid:  $299.00 from Best Buy

Summary:
What a piece of junk! It worked great for a year. I loved it. But two months after the warrenty ran out it stopped reading some of my DVDs. It would just give a "No Play" message on it's display. Once I put in Harry Potter and watched half the movie. The next day, I got up and tried to watch the second half and it wouldn't read the DVD. This is a DVD I have watched loads of times. It stopped reading about half my DVDs. I promptly read some reviews on this model and I am not the only person running into this. Everyone loves the product...until it's about a year old then "No Play". Panasonic has no information about this on their web site.

Strengths:
Works great for about a year

Weaknesses:
Stops working after about a year

Price Paid:  $75.00 from pawn shop

Summary:
Ive had this unit for 4 months now, and i am pleased to say that its picture quality compares to higher end dvd players. Theres no comparison with lower end playrs. It runs the same priced used as the lower end dvd players retail new as well.

Strengths:
awesome color and contrast,great sound quality to boot

Weaknesses:
doest play mp3s

Similar Products Used:
apex was my last dvd this panasonic kills it at a lower price as well...

Price Paid:  $250.00 from The GoodGuys!

Summary:
This was my first ever DVD player. I must say that I have been impressed with the Video Quality and the Audio Quality. I havn't had any problems with this unit and it has played every type of DVD available. Why others are having problems, is beyond me. I have always liked the dependable quality of Panasonic products. Has Component and S-Video outs and Exc. D/D circuits. I did wish that it was compatible with CD-R's but at the time of manufacture, that wasn't a big concern like it is now. A good player for a second room etc, and can be purchased for $50-$100 on internet auction sites. Remote leaves a little to be desired. Good Op manual. A great buy in today's used market.

Strengths:
Video/CD Quality, especially the video. Dependability.

Weaknesses:
Remote, No CD-R/CD-RW ?? capability.

Similar Products Used:
Denon DVM-3700
Pioneer DV47

Price Paid:  $150.00

Summary:
I bought this unit to get me into DVD while the industry made up its mind about standards and features. It was listed at $250 but I had a $100 coupon at some (now defunct) internet retailer so my cost was $150.

It was meant to be a value player and for the most part, it held it's end of the bargain.

I use it exclusively for DVDs on a 32" Sony Wega. The picture quality is good enough but I'll admit that I have no basis for comparison since the DVD format is waay better than VHS and Digital Cable, no matter what.

Good point is that the unit did it's job of playing DVDs (met my expecations)

Bad Points: Never really could handle the occasional CDR and, more important, lately it's become finicky and will sometimes refuse to recognize (and play) DVDs (some brand new).

The lack of consistency suggests that the Laser Pickup is having trouble. I'm replacing it with a Toshiba sd5700 (another bargain player) that has DVD-A support (if I ever get around to building a system that can support it) and a progressive scan capability (for the day I get an HDTV capable monitor/projector).

Strengths:
Good value at the time
Worked well for two years

Weaknesses:
Longer-term reliability with DVD playback
Poor CDR support