sony brand has gone way down over the years... My 32xbr is dying.. I know its caps are drying out. Colors are bleeding, not much contrast. Its probably not worth fixing unless I do the work myself and that will be a pain...
Now sony's commercial and medical grade stuff is a different story... Much better quality, but very expensive.
My sony vcr is garbage.. After about 6 months its ejecting mechanism failed. Same thing with their dvd players.. It has problem reading discs and its only 3 years old... One good thing about sony, they make great remotes...
I would say give mitsubishi a try. Their vcrs are solid and my ancient 19"MCA tv is still going strong. My first generation 35" mitsubishi set is also in need of caps..
I just bought a toshiba dvd player.. It seems pretty decent quality. If those are your 2 options, I would go with toshiba.