What do you mean "blue operation bar"?  My Pioneer 656A's been fine with all my R1 discs barring Road Trip, which is a disc fault rather than hardware fault (think the disc's deteriorating).

This Pye though - can you confirm it's a Philips? Could be tempting as I need to archive some VHS (Rik Mayall Presents, Loved up, etc) onto DVD and don't want to pay a lot for a DVD-R since Teleworst now have the Teleport thing for the odd time I miss a programme I want to watch.