Steve13 - Thanks for the insight. I wish I had heard this back when I bought the Samsung initially. I almost went with the Toshibia 3109, but didn't know better.
Erik - Interesting to hear that someone else had a similar issue with Sony. I didn't take it as far as you did (problably should have), but just bought a Pioneer player and eat the Sony. The Pioneer has worked flawlessly for a couple of years now.
Mike - Thanks for the advice. But I think I'm going to take a slightly different route.
The "reconditioned" unit that I'm going to receive is simply not going to work very well either - whether it does or not. I have absolutely NO confidence that a reconditioned (or another new unit for that matter) will be any more reliable than what I have already had. Therefore, I am going to assume that no DVD player from Samsung is going to be satifactory.
I intend to be a huge "thorn in their side" and demand my money back. Period. I'll have time on my side - I'll have this "reconditioned" unit that will problably work OK for a while so I won't be down any longer. If it truely does not work, I'll buy a Toshiba 2200 and then REALLY pursue the refund route. I don't like it, but I can deal with $260 for another DVD player - it's not that much money (geez, I spent $300 on my Philips Pronto).
Thanks for the feedback. I hope this helps out some other people that might be thinking about buying Samsung products.