I liked this player so much I bought another one. This player plays DVDs that were unplayable on my other players (Panasonic, Sony, RCA). I have never tried the disc explorer because other reviewers complain about it and I lose power occasionally. I use a spreadsheet as my DVD guide so I can sort by Title and have a great custom "TV Guide" including episode names on the TV show DVDs. I bought my first CX985V 6 months ago and I have had no problems so far.