I bought one Philips DVP5982 DVD player in Costco. I liked it because of smart combination of technical advantages, such as USB interface and multiple file formats reading/playing.
But unfortunately it did not want to recognize my USB drive, so after searching for the information about problems with file systems I decided to upgrade it's firmware. I went on the site, downloaded a file, burned CD, booted... I followed all instructions thoroughly, but it hung up and did not wake up anymore... I called Philips technical support, but after the conversation they requested to ship the player for repair. They refused to ship me new one in advance, but I needed it ASAP, so I went on eBay and found a similar one (actually, a bit newer player) really cheap: it was refurbished, and works fine, though it still don't read my HDD, but I'm afraid to experiment with upgrades anymore... Probably, I'll buy Panasonic next time.