Suggestions for used reciever and player?

there are some internet companies that sell really good budget gear as demos. nothing esoteric but denon, marantz and many others work fine in this price range. and you get a warranty.

I can't help with the DVD, but I picked up a marantz receiver off a seller here used for $400 sr-5004 I believe and it was vastly better than the price would reflect and gave me everything I needed (HDMI inputs 7.1 etc.) including good dac performance for my old Sony es DVD I am using as a cd source. It was bought as a stop gap, but it is a keeper. While I don't use the internal amp (I have tube amps) I did try it in bridged two channel and it performed well. I also hear good things about the top of the line marantz which retails for $1500 which would indicate that you could get last year's model for less (even though msrp was higher than $1500 last year).