All you need to know about the newest batch of DVD-R players is that you will almost always run into the new "copyright protection chips" that will prohibit you from recording movies (and some television shows) from your cable box.  In my humble opinion, this is a load of hooey.  We paid for the cable already, we aren't getting the special features of the movie when it's bought in-store, and unless we're idiots we aren't going to go copying it for all our friends (or to sell out on the street corner).  This is along the same lines of way back when recording on a VCR got the executive's goat...