I bought this player for 3 reasons. 1. To play a couple of DVDs that were incompatible with my 18 month Toshiba. 2. To be able to play Region 1 DVDs. 3. To be able to play DVD-Rs. Now, on everything bar points 1, and the speed of reading standard manufactured discs I would consider my old Toshiba to be a far superior model. It was much better constructed, had an optical digital out for connecting to my speakers and was much simpler to set up and use. The machine specified it would play DVD-Rs, and as I had a Pioneer DVD-RW drive in my computer I assumed a Pioneer player would have the best compatibility with the discs that I burned. The discs that I burned rarely loaded and when the machine eventually loaded one it would not read the data at the edge of the disc very well. I have since tried the exact same disc in my friend's Toshiba SD110 and the discs play back with no problems at all. And that machine does not state DVD-R compatibility. Now this would not be an issue except on both Amazon (where I bought the machine) and on the Pioneer website the product specifications stated clearly it had DVD-R compatibility. My only other criticism is the poor quality remote control. Whilst laid out well with easily recognisable buttons it looks and feels cheap. Despite these issues the machine is otherwise a good machine and is generally good value for money. I am just a little bit annoyed to have to send it back to Amazon and get a player which can play the DVD-Rs as I have already sold my old Toshiba.