Some people have noted that cheap DVD players rarely skip, and some people have noted that PC DVD drives rarely skip...
Many of the cheap dvd players use PC components because they're manufactured in huge numbers and therefore much cheaper than designing and manufacturing a unique product, I've seen some with a PC DVD-ROM drive (with front removed to fit their custom box) and even PC video card chipsets. Open one up and there's a good chance you'll see an IDE cable!
Also, expect the scratch problem to be worse for Bluray players. The reason the disks have such huge capacities is because a blue laser beam can be focused to a smaller spot than longer wavelengths(Red for DVD and InfraRed for CD), the smaller laser spot allows tighter packing of the pits on the disc which also makes the finer scratches that would be ignored by DVD and CD players a problem for BluRay.
