Panasonic Excellent feature -- terrible features

So, I picked up a Panasonic DVD Player from Target the other day for $79.

It has good and bad points.

It actually PLAYS through a badly scratched Brentwood DVD Narcotic
Justice that other DVD players and my computer hang on. What a feature!
Who's the idiot, anyway, who designs DVD players to freeze when they
encounter a scratched disc? However, I have to pack it up and only use
it when necessary, because of it's severe defects. It's too quiet!
There's no setting to increase the volume. Toshiba, for example, has a
"dialogue" setting that makes listening to quiet movies listenable.
Panasonic also has NO WAY to tell how long the DVD is! There's an
unmarked bar and a time elapsed, and somehow you're supposed to guess
the length from that.

Walter Traprock