I wasn't overly impressed with the picture quality of an LG I bought but they do seem to play a variety of discs including PAL. The only recorded discs I've played was made on a Sony recorder from a DVR and I haven't had any problems playing those on anything. Some one brought over a bootleg one time and the funny thing out of all the good players I had the only thing that would play it was one of these off brand $30.00 players the kids used in their room. My theory is the cheap one played it because they were supposed to be basically a cheap computer drive in a box and it takes a computer drive to play a computer burnt disc, although I know this isn't always true. I still have to wonder if you burn yours on computer if it isn't the program rather than your players.