Just Thought I would throw this in.I Have found this to work w/all DVD players I have came across.

Hitting the play button on the remote turns the DVD player "ON" and begins the DVD

Hate the DVD menu that comes up where you have to select Play from? Usually Happens everytime you start a new DVD.(I have some customers that are having a hard time understanding how to navigate threw the menu's, because every DVD is different!) Try This:
When Selecting DVD have it Initiate a sequence: "Play" (turns the DVD player on) [May have to add a delay between these steps for some DVD player's.] "Stop", "Stop", Then "Play" again.DVD Will start to play from the begining of the movie every time.
*Notice when you select "stop" then "play" the dvd will resume where the movie was stop at.This is also true even if you power the player off and then back on.By Pressing "Stop" and Then "Stop" again ,then when pressing "Play" Will start the Movie from the beginning Bypassing the pop-up menu.This is also usefull when you program the DVD and CD to stop when you chose to watch say VCR and automaticly selecting play on the VCR.(Don't want DVD and CD to continue to Playing when viewing or listening to another source untill you desire too)Then when you select DVD, Do you wish for the DVD to resume where it left off or begin from the begining? In most cases, customer's wish from the begining.

To turn the DVD player "OFF" every time, make a sequence on the OFF button to issue a "play" followed by a "Power" command. If unit was off to start with ,the player will come on breifly then go back to off. Have found that some DVD player's will require a delay between these steps in order for the DVD to come on enough to be able to respond to the power button.(usually no more than 7 seconds)

Anybody Have any other tricks?

good trick about the stop stop play. i will try it on my dvd mega changers to see if they work.

here is a tip for mega changers and dvds that don't let you stop during the commercials like my kenwood. select another disk and then you can hit stop.