I've been thinking more about this laser life span issue while looking at my CD player. How different are DVD players lasers and lens from CD players? We(I) don't hear of limited life on CD player lasers. This thinking now makes lean toward urban legend status for limited life of DVD lasers.

Since, I don't need progessive scan there seems to be many choices of DVD players in the hundred dollar neighborhood. I been reading good things about Samsung in addition to the Panasonics. I never had problems with my Toshiba until it got toddlerized.