Customer Reviews

Toshiba SD-3900 Progressive-Scan DVD Player

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I have never owned a Toshiba player before, but I have heard about their quality since I first got into DVD 4-5 years ago. I'd wanted to try one out, but always ended up selecting a different model (I've had 4 players) Finally, I decided to upgrade again and got this player because of the price. While it's MSRP is $149, it can be found at Amazon and other locations for $. Don't let that fool you. This technology gets cheaper and better every day, and I'd say this model is much nicer than a $400 player 2 years ago, and that it's easily competitive with players today in the $200 range.

I've got it hooked up to a Sony Wega via component cables, and the pic is excellent. Very detailed, no artifacting, no sign of the chroma bug. Blacks are there too, many players now days cannot really do a black properly, this player does it very well, and does it without muddling all the dark colors on the screen into 1 shapeless blob too. It's detailed enough to be dark without missing what's going on. The colors are very strong, but do not bleed or over saturate. This is a problem on many players and TVs, so I wasn't expecting much. I was very surprised though at the depth and color of the pic. Reds were stabilized, even bright reds. Very nice.

If you're considering this player, I'd stop considering and buy it. Toshiba's the name in DVD and this player is one of their best. I gave it 5 stars because I really don't think there is a better player out there in this price range.

I've been around the block with DVD players. First, I bought a Samsung which choked on playback and was incompatible with my TV, then I bought the Toshiba 2900 which worked but had an inscrutable interface.

This Toshiba 3900 really is perfect: the image is clear, sharp, and easily adjustable to any TV - even if you only have a regular-size old TV like I do, you'll notice that the image at first is weirdly vertical (like El Greco paintings) because the default output is for the slightly wider screen of the new digital TVs. Adjusting the output for my regular-size TV was easy, I just pressed "MENU", selected "Setup", and under "TV Display", I selected "regular TV", and the image output changed to be perfectly sized for my TV.

Clearly, Toshiba put some thought into the remote, which has the frequently-used play, stop, forward and rewind buttons slightly larger and centered nicely. The menu interface also is a breeze, in plain English without inscrutable icons or baffling toggles. The zoom feature, for example. is just as it should be: you press "ZOOM"; the display zooms (on the Toshiba 2900, pressing zoom led you into a forest of mystifying menu symbols and toggle options).

The Toshiba 3900 comes with progressive scan, an image enhancement feature now standard with DVD players. Both the progressive scan image output and the regular image output are crystal-clear and sharp on my regular old TV, and quite an improvement, particularly compared to analog broadcast.

Recording perfect VHS tapes from the DVD player is easy - simply by feeding the audio and video output from the DVD into the audio and video input for the VCR, I can record perfectly anything that's playing on the DVD player. I'm not saying you should do this, I'm just pointing out that it's possible.

The player has played every disc I've put in it without difficulty, even one that had been scratched.

And it has a sleek, understated gray brushed titanium finish that looks sharp. Friends have actually commented on how nice it looks.

This player can play non-R1 DVDs. It also converts PAL to NTSC. Here's the hack:

1. Put in non-R1 DVD.

2. When the region whine message appears, press: [menu] [1] [play]. The DVD should play, but with region message still up.

3. Press [Marker] then [Clear]; Message is now gone.

I rated this player at less than five stars because it lacks the ability to remember the last-played location on a disk when the power is turned off.

This is the third Toshiba DVD player I've had. They've definitely worked out a few kinks that prior models suffered from. First, the 3900 has a workable remote, the buttons are logically arranged and it is easy to hold right-side up. The jpg feature works very well, pics are very sharp even at low resolution on my 50" TV. The zoom is incredible, not by having an absurd magnification, but for the extreme sharpness at high magnification. It also allows just a 'slight' zoom at the first notch, perfect for expanding a letterboxed movie somewhat without losing too much of the frame. (The SD-2805 model overdoes it and it won't work properly for this.) This player doesn't network, doesn't have DVI output, doesn't record, doesn't have a mega-byte-per-second indicator. Not quite cutting edge, but it does all the standard feautures, plus progressive, without faults. An impressive value, I'm placing my Amazon order for a second unit.

I bought this player at Best Buy, and also purchased hi-def Monster cables for about the same price. I hooked it up to my 42" Gateway plasma and put in Monsters Inc.

--The colors are amazing, and you can almost reach out and touch the textures.

--The 5.1 digital surround sound is incredible (Kenwood HTB-306 from etronics.com...can't beat it!!!)

--No skipping with any rentals yet.

--Extremely lightweight with a sleek silver design.

--Drawback: The remote control has a big button for Play, Stop, FF, Rewind, and Slow-Mo. Only a small button for Pause. I wish they'd switch the pause and slow-mo buttons, as I pause it much more than I use slow-mo.

I can't recommend its use using coax or s-video, as I've never tried either. I splurged for the hi-def cables since I have a hi-def TV. I couldn't have made a better purchase....

Unless you happen to purchase a defective unit, you will love this DVD player. Viewing JPEG pictures via CD-Rs is a breeze. I am converting all of my old VHS tapes into DVD-Rs via my computer and have yet to experience any problems. Please note: you must purchase DVD-R - NOT DVD+R.

I am very satisfied with my Toshiba and would recommend this DVD player to anyone - even Vikings and Bears fans (sorry but I'm a diehard Packers fan).

Can't say enough good things about this DVD player. I've owned two previously (one Sony and one Panasonic) and this one beats those two hands down.

Some highlights:

1. Lightweight and sleak design. I've gotten several complements from friends just on its looks! Sweeeeet.

2. Responsiveness: it's super-quick on startup and menu selections.

3. Visuals: excellent. The picture even makes my 20" flatscreen Apex TV look good (and that's using coax--can't wait to see S Video).

4. I love that stinkin' remote control. Well thought-out with large buttons. Me likey.

5. The audio is superb! Can't wait to hook it up to 5:1!

Hope you get this player. I know you'll like it as much as I do. It's awesome. My girlfriend loves it, too...

I was looking for a progressive scan player under [money amount]. This player has all that I needed--plays jpeg files on CD-RWs, component video, and optical digital audio. The picture and sound are great. The remote is easy to use and I have had no trouble on rented DVDs or my computer generated CD-RWs. I haven't used all the features, but those that I have used worked well with the remote. This player is exactly what I wanted.

Compared to another DVD player I bought a couple years ago (for considerably more money), this one has:

--Clearly superior sound quality
--Fantastic ease of use (the manual is very short, but I hardly needed it at all; the machine makes many automatic adjustments to the media being played)

There's little reason not to own a DVD player when they're this user-friendly and affordable!

I purchased this one to replace my old Toshiba SD-1200 to add optical audio and progressive scan to my home theater. It hooked up no problem to my Toshiba HD tv, and via Optical Tos-link to my Yamaha Reciever. Sound is great picture is wonderfull, only drawback is that I now notice when a movie is a made from a bad print, I can see the flaws in the oriniginal 35mm print they used! (Not the DVD players fault that it's that good with picture!). I haven't tried using it for jpeg images or MP3 play back, but so far it works great with my movie collection (includes Foriegn, Anime, Disney, Sci-Fi, Musicals, Adventure, etc...). Even plays disks my SD-1200 used to have trouble with (a couple of foreign and Anime titles). If you after DVD playback, go for it.

UPDATE 11-06-2003
Found a major flaw in the DVD player. It has a big tendency to lock up if you pause a movie and then turn the power off. When you go to turn it back on it will not power up. The only way to reset it is to unplug it from the power outlet. I still enjoy the player, but I have very carefull about this issue! Also no problems with Netflix discs for me.