I am thinking of buying a DVD player with recording function and can play VCDs...etc.
Is it important to buy a player with internal hard drive/storage?
That budget won't get you DVD recorder with HDD storage. I think the cheapest in Benq/Samsung with 80 GB HDD ard 699. I just got pioneer myself but only can use DVD-R or DVD-RW. The best actually is LG this player able to record on DVD+/-R/RW.