I regret to say that both the Sony and the Panasonic have significant flaws, but at this point it appears that the Sony is the lesser of two evils

Sony should be ashamed of themselves for not at least acknowledging this problem.

Wow, not anything like my last cheap Sony player

I bought this with excitement and am a loyal Sony customer when it comes to a lot of their products.

it could not handle the kind of wear that was common on rental discs; for all its flaws the Sony has had no problem with this and was able to play a recent rental (the surface of which appeared to be flawless) that the Panasonic was choking on

Sony is unhelpful and unresponsive to the issue.