Agreed, that's just sad. I somewhat cringed giving my parents a DVD player for Christmas, because their tv's so old it probably only has the RF.
A lot of the 'cheapy' dvd players that are below 50 bucks are progressive scan, and I've heard that the Apex players, while being cheap, aren't necessarily 'cheap' [as in crappy].
i just went to Bestbuy.com, and their cheapest DVD player is a Cyberhome Progressive Scan, for 40 bucks.
"Plays DVD, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, CD, CD-R/RW, MP3 CD, VCD, SVCD, JPEG"
It doesn't have a DD or DTS decoder, but it does have a Coaxial Digital Audio Outputs if that's what your reciever has.
And I have no idea if Cyberhome is a piece of crap or if it's decent, but you should be able to find a decent, prog scan, single disk player for under 100 bucks. They even have one 3-disk for 70, not sure if it's prog scan though.
off-topic: Whereabouts in/near Atlanta are you? I live in NC now but i used to live in Peachtree City, about 15 miles down 85 from Atlanta.