Toshiba: defining the standard in DVD
Written: Jun 21 '01
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Pros: Great picture and sound, easy to use, excellent features.
Cons: I honestly haven't found any yet!
The Bottom Line: You can not go wrong with this player. All the important bells and whistles of the bigger models, at a better price.
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| trifix's Full Review: Toshiba SD-2109 DVD Player |
Let me just say i love this DVD player. Although the Toshiba line of DVD players is very extensive and this is only a entry to mid-range model it is by far my favorite from the numerous Toshiba's I've looked at.
the SD-2109 has many features that higher end models I've looked at either don't have or were implemented poorly. Probably one of the things i like best and use most often is the zoom. When i was working a while back selling electronics I was able to play around with all of the different DVD players and try all of their features. The zoom is a feature that i find to be extremely important. almost every movie released on DVD is released in wide screen (letterbox) where you see the movie as it was in the theater and bars of black are seen at the top and bottom since most TVs are not in the 16:9 aspect ratio (they're usually a 4:3). Many people I've talked to do not like this, especially if they have a smaller TV (less than 21 inches is pretty bad) because the picture is significantly reduced in size. With the zoom on the SD-2109 you have four levels to select from. The un-zoomed mode is the standard letterbox and the highest zoom would be what you would see if it was being shown on TV and a message preceded the film stating "This film has been formatted to fit your television" (where the left and right sides are cut off). Having a 21 inch TV myself you can see why I appreciate this feature. Additionally, when the zoom is enabled the four directional buttons on the players remote can be used to move the image so you can see areas that are out of frame (sort of a DIY "Pan and Scan"). My friends and I are always trying to spot logical flaws, inconsistencies, and boom mics in movies and this feature is great in that respect.
As far as actual playback goes this DVD player has been flawless. My roommate has a Sony DVD player and occasionally scratched discs will skip or have distorted video blips on it, but the SD-2109 never seems to encounter those problems, even with the same movies.
The pause is perfectly crisp (as with every DVD player). The fast forward and rewind options are great, starting at 2x forward or reverse another press of the button jumps to 8x and another finally to 30x. All with perfect image quality. Although you are only seeing every couple of frames at a playback rate like that you are still able to farely accurately stop and resume normal playback after using the feature a few times. The slow motion feature is equally nice featuring 1/2x, 1/4x, and 1/8x playback. Navigating in movies is incredibly easy with these features at your disposal.
Getting back to what I'd mentioned about the zoom, you can see how easy it is to spot if someone's gun switched hands or if they have different shoes on between shots in a scene with full zoom and 1/8 playback.
Some reviews i've read of the SD-2109 said that the remote wasn't very convenient because of the size and lack of backlit or glowing buttons. i will say to this however that almost every DVD remote i encountered was immense. Buttons were made far larger than need be and the overall remote would not sit comfortably in your hand. A few of Toshiba's other DVD players (i believe the SD-3109 at least) have gigantic remotes with the same buttons on them, which to me, makes no sense. As far as backlit/glowing buttons go, i generally dislike them. My receiver remote has glowing buttons and i find them annoying when i've got the lights out and i'm watching a movie. Generally speaking i use (and know the locations of) only a few buttons while playing back a movie.
In addition to the "beneficial lack" of backlit/glowing buttons there is a button on the remote which will cycle the display brightness on the player itself from full bright, to half, to off. If the movie's playing, i don't need an LED on the front of the unit telling me so, i can look at my TV.
So in conclusion, i've had excellent luck with this piece of equipment, great picture and sound quality, and features i like. To top it off, i got all of this at a price i was quite happy with.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 175.00
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Epinions.com ID:
trifix
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Member: Don Smith
Location: Madison, WI
Reviews written: 10
Trusted by: 2 members
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