The L 50 is an older portable DVD player by Panasonic. It is out of production and does not have some of the gimmicks of newer players (like MP3 playback), but this is why it now is affordable second hand. It has a good 5" LCD 16:9 display (which is of not much use to actually watch movies, but totally ok as preview). Battery pack is available, but a VJ will not need it.

For VJs, the following points are relevant:

plays everything region-1 I've tried: commercial DVD, DVD-R, DVD+R, VCD, SVCD. Won't play non-region-1 discs, plays non-region-coded discs fine.

slim, portable, relatively sturdy unit, nice bright 7" widescreen display. All the essential buttons are on the unit itself: monitor controls, forward/backward, title, menu, return, up/down/sides/ok, play, pause, stop, and eject. (mechanical)

I'll keep this simple and VJ related. I picked this unit up from Circuit City for $150. It has SVHS in and out, so it seemed like it would work well for live performance. The screen was very low res, and startup/shudown time was pretty slow. Here's the kicker: You cannot output your DVD to the LCD screen AND out of the Video Out jack at the same time. Bummer. :(