Customer Reviews

Toshiba SD-4980 DVD Player with HDMI and DivX Playback

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

After a year of frustration with a Philips DivX capable player, I found this Toshiba to be a gigantic improvement.

My primary reasons for buying this player were DivX capability, a decent remote, and quick recognition of video file names. The Philips would not recognize many DivX and XVID files, it would sometimes take more than a minute to set up a menu for a CD or DVD of DivX-encoded files, and the remote was the most poorly designed one that I've ever come across.

The previous review faulted the lack of retention of settings, especially for HDMI, and I can't argue. For me, though, it's not a problem since my primary goal is DivX playback. Its performance on computer video playback is exemplary. It sets up menus in just a few seconds. Playback of .avi files is flawless; it plays files that the Philips choked on without a bit of trouble. I've had NO problem playing back any DVD that I've tried, and it has NEVER hung up on me. [Since the review was written, I've played at least 75 disks, and it did hang up one one; however, my other player and PC did the same on this disk] The effective angle of the remote is no worse than on other DVD players that I've used, and is better than most. The remote is beautifully organized and quite comprehensive. The amount of information about computer video formats revealed by the Display button is impressive; this player can even handle Ogg Vorbis audio, which is an extreme rarity among players.

On the down side, the blue light that shines around the tray is really irritating, and so is having to cut it off every time you restart the player. I don't use a flat panel display, so the HDMI settings don't matter to me, but I can see it being a problem to those who need it.

For people who want DivX playback who are not bothered by the HDMI limitations or the blue light, this is an exceptional player. I'd buy this over the other DivX-capable players that I've seen without a second's hesitation. Now, if they'd only make a player capable of handling .ogm and .mkv files . . .

Addendum: after a while, I noticed that while the player plays divx and other encoded DVDs perfectly, it sometimes hangs up on ordinary DVDs. It's not perfect, but it still works well considering the price and its major application.

Upconversion works great and the picture is excellent when it does work. I have watched 3 dvds so far and 2 out of 3 had screen artifacts during playback, picture would freeze for anywhere from 1-5 second and then it would start playing normally. The first DVD I played in it experienced these problems but I figured that it was a problem with the DVD itself then once the 3rd DVD experienced the same problems I begun research and have found other who have exact same problems with this model. I can't recommend this palyer to anyone until Toshiba fixes their problem.

I bought this Toshiba SD-4980 to go with a new HD-ILA JVC tv that has an HDMI input. I found the picture quality using HDMI input to be very good comapred to my RCA progressive scan DVD player and was impressed with the improvement in picture using the upconversion feature.

However I returned the first unit because it would randomly pause for a few seconds during the middle of playback, not related to the DVD being played (it would freeze in different places on the same DVD). I returned the first unit and tried a second unit only to find that it did the same thing so it was also returned.

I liked this DVD player but it is very distracting for the movie to stop suddenly and so sadly like one of the previous reviewers I will not be using this unit until Toshiba fixes the issue.

Unfortunately, I like the other reviewers here found that my 4980 unit paused unacceptably and randomly throughout playback (usually about once an hour during a movie). I contacted Toshiba and they quickly arranged to replace the unit with another 4980.

This unit arrived with the same exact problem; as a matter of fact, I went to my local Best Buy just for grins and picked up another 4980, and IT TOO had the same exact problem. I quickly returned that unit.

I contacted Toshiba once again, and still claiming ignorance of any known issue with the 4980, offered to replace it with a 6980, worth about twice as much. I readily agreed, and if they indeed do so, and it doesn't have the pause problem, I'll be quite content.

This player upconverts 480i to 1080i, which was the primary reason I purchased it. It does that nicely, although it took a little bit of setup to get it working. There are two things I don't like about it. The first is that it is slow to respond to input commands. This often causes me to hit the button a second time which then doesn't give me the result I wanted. Second, when playing a DVD that is in 4:3 mode (a purchased television show for example), the default is to show it full screen on the TV, which means everything is stretched out. There are multiple settings that have to be changed to get it to display properly. I think that should be automatic.

Pros: Extremely good DVD playback via HDMI.
Small unit, fits anywhere easily.
Easy to use and operate.

Cons: Remote is strictly made for DVD player, no option to program remote to control TV like Sony's DVD player remotes.
No color setting options

I've had this player for a year and this thing is getting on my nerves. It will periodically and randomly skip even though I'm playing a brand new DVD I bought earlier in the day. I rewind the scene back to make sure I don't have a defective disc and it will play fine through. So yes this is very random skipping for no reason at all. Multi-angle scenes are even worse since most, but not all, the time it skips so much it is not even watchable. Some DVDs will play perfect, others will not. The same goes with multi-angle scenes. Also this player has froze up on me a few times, but it is rare.

The nice features like HDMI upconvert and Divx playback are the only pros that keep me from giving this player 1 star. The picture quality is nice through HDMI but obviously not as good a blu-ray player (seen a PS3 in action so I can compare). But the random skipping, freezing, and the inability to play multi-angle scenes really outweighs any positive aspects this player may have. If these problems can be fixed in any easy manner, I would bump up my rating.