Toshiba SD-4980 DVD Player with HDMI and DivX Playback

by Toshiba

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 19 x 11.5 x 4 inches ; 10 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 5 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• Shipping Advisory: This item must be shipped separately from other items in your order. Additional shipping charges will not apply.
• ASIN: B000AYJDDG
• Item model number: SD-4980
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #133,993 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)

Product Description

Also plays DiVX Format / HDMI / Progressive Scan / JPEG Viewer / Picture Zoom / Parental Control / Front Panel Control / Remote

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Poor design, September 18, 2005

By 

Michael L. Sheppard (Winston-Salem, NC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Toshiba SD-4980 DVD Player with HDMI and DivX Playback (Electronics)

Here are the good things: it does play DVDs, the remote works, and the apparent upconvert works as well.

Here are the bad things: DVD playback freezes periodically; the remote works poorly with limited angle tolerance and requiring multiple pressing of the keys at times; there is an annoying blue light on the tray door that can be dimmed via the setup menu, but then comes back to default after turning the player off; and finally, the selection of upconvert (1080i or 720p) is not retained after being set once the player is turned off.

This player is being returned tomorrow. I am very disappointed with Toshiba and think they have some serious rework of their design department ahead of them.

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Current best inexpensive Divx player, January 23, 2006

By 

Kenneth Stuart (Northern California) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Toshiba SD-4980 DVD Player with HDMI and DivX Playback (Electronics)

I currently own a Toshiba 4800 DVD player and a Philips 642 Divx/DVD player. I use the Philips to play Divx/Xvid files, but the picture quality is not as good as the excellent Toshiba, so I've continued to use the latter for DVDs.

So, when I saw that Toshiba now has a DVD player that plays Divx/Xvid files, I was quite interested. I was hoping that it removed the annoyances of the Philips first generation player, and indeed it has:

- 28 character file name display instead of 11 characters on the Philips

- Plays GMC and QPEL encoded files that cause problems on the Philips

- Standard Toshiba DVD player remote codes which allow use of a universal remote

- Display button provides elapsed time, remaining time, file number and video and audio encoding details.

- Picture quality on both Divx/Xvid files and DVDs that is up to Toshiba's usual high standards.

I don't have HD (so I can't comment about upconverting), but I have a very good quality SD set, and I'm quite satisfied with the picture quality, so I've now replaced my Toshiba and the Philips with this player.

I have not yet had one disk freeze. My guess is that the first production run had a bad batch of lasers, and that subsequent production has better quality. I can't imagine why else the fall reviews describe this problem, while the winter reviews don't. (Note that any particular retailer might have old stock.)

Personally, I'm not bothered by the blue light, and neither is my wife. However, my player is up above the TV in the entertainment center. Probably the key is to not have the player at seated eye level where the blue light might be shining directly at you.

By the way, about the only annoyances with this unit are that "auto-play" is hard-wired into the unit - you have to press stop to get the menu of Divx or MP3 files. And, there is no "root" menu display of folders - left or up arrow goes to another folder's file listing. And, oddly the folder names are only 18 characters rather than 28 like the file names.

PS Concerning remotes - note that home entertainment devices are shipped with really cheap batteries that may have sat around for months or years. So, before complaining that the remote works badly, try replacing the batteries with new alkalines.

UPDATE: After another month, still no problems whatsoever (no disc freezes). And, I've discovered that it will play PAL DVDs as well as NTSC. Of course, there is still the normal region restriction.

2ND UPDATE: I've discovered that if any file has more than 64 characters in the filename, the player will hang. Thus, you need to burn your Divx, Xvid, Mpeg, Jpeg, MP3 and WMA files in ISO 9660 + Joliet mode (and do NOT check "Allow more than 64 characters"). This is actually in the player's specifications, but there are some things in the specs that don't apply - for example, you can use DVDRs in addition to CDRs and you can use RW disks. You don't need to keep track of any of this if you only burn DVD-VIDEO disks or VCDs, because those automatically conform to the same standards. If you do get a lockup accidentally from a filename longer than 64 characters, unplugging the unit and plugging it back in, should clear it.

By the way, I've read in another customer review that the player can read Ogg Vorbis files, but I have not had any success with that. And, in case anyone is wondering, it will not read MKV format files either.

And, still no freezes in playback.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars kept it for only one reason (region-free), April 4, 2006

By 

SL (RI) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Toshiba SD-4980 DVD Player with HDMI and DivX Playback (Electronics)

I purchased this player because it was the cheapest upconversion DVD player with HDMI (1.1) output that I could find in the store. It doesn't come with an HDMI cable so I had to buy one (which was actually more expensive than the player).

It definitely looks and feels like a very cheap player-very light and feels flimsy. The cheap comestics doesn't bother me, however. The product image from Amazon looks different than my SD-4980 so I posted the image of the one I have.

Once the player is turned on, the splash screen comes in low resolution and is ugly. But, the menus for setting up the DVD are simple to follow. It does't give you a lot of options for tweaking. The only essential settings I had to change was to display 16:9 , select video to component output and change audio output to bitmap (to receiver).

Picture and Audio quality out of the box is OK. After connecting the player to the TV using HDMI cable, I was somewhat disappointed to find very little difference on the picture quality. At least it didn't make it worse which could easily happen. Upconversion is possible ONLY through the HDMI cable. I like the little light indicators in the front panel, showing 480p, 720p and 1080i-so I don't have to guess which resolution I am using. The picture quality noticibly improved after I used their EPM (Picture enhancement) adjusting brightness and edge sharpness. There's also EAM (audio enhancement) 3D sound that works on PCM mode (2 channel audio).

One thing I didn't know was that this little cheap player is actually a region-free player. To "unlock" all-region capabilty, all I had to do was keep the tray OPEN and press, 2403960. It took me to a region setting menu. I pressed "enter" several times to "9" which is all-region. Now I can watch all my region 3 and PAL discs upconverted. This is the reason I am keeping this player. I thought of getting a better player. But, I decided there's no use to spend hundreds of dollars now on a more expensive, better upconvert DVD player since the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray players are coming out soon.