DVD Player

I have been a movie enthusiast for many years. I have over 1,500 movies on tape but when I purchased my DVD player my viewing habits changed overnight! Being interested in the technical aspects of the movies I greatly enjoy the added storage space on DVDs that permit commentary tracks where the director, writer and actors can speak about each scene as you what it. Also, the realism of the surround sound and the added clarity of the picture makes watching a DVD a better experience than going to the movies. Here is the DVD player I own.

Toshiba SD2109

Comments:

After switching from my RCA DVD player to the Toshiba SD2109 there are a few notable differences. First, and foremost, the Toshiba does not have an optical digital output. This is disappointing since I already had this cable. It does have the digital coax output. I ordered a special cable for this but before it arrived I found a regular Monster gold tip audio cable (75ohms) worked fairly well. Eight hours after receiving the player I got the digital coax cable and it did make a difference. The sound was clearer, louder and the separation in the six tracks was more pronounced. The increase in gain was so noticeable that when testing it out with Twister, the THX logo resulted in an overload in my receiver. Fortunately, the receiver has an automatic cutoff.  The next difference is there are no bookmarks. This is a feature I have come to enjoy while reviewing movies to mark a section and be able to go back to it. The Toshiba does have something that some may feel is a bit better. It has the ability to go directly to a given location based upon time. So you can go directly to 1:23:14 if you want. The unit also has DTS which my previous unit lacked.

The design of the unit is very simple. The front panel has only a minimum of buttons and the rear panel is extremely stark. The tray comes out slower than other models I have seen but seems to give the feeling of more control. The remote control is where all the action takes place. The remote provides control for every single features. Since I use the Sony AV2000 universal remote I was anxious about the reprogramming. The built in code for Toshiba DVD players worked the first time out and I only had to go into learn mode to add a very few buttons, Display, Subtitles and 'T'. The 'T' control is the button used to a specific title/track or to a certain time. This Display control is more interesting than usually found on other DVD players. When you press it the first time you get a display of the details of the DVD or CD you are playing. This includes the time into the disc, the time remaining in the disc, the time into the chapter and time remaining in the chapter. The next hit of the Display control provides a bit rate meter. This visually displays the actual current rate of data transfer in Mbits/sec. I have not found a use for it but it is an imaginative little extra that is fun to watch.

The play back can be modified in a more flexible manner than most other DVDs in the price range. The fast forward goes to 2X, 8X and 30X speeds as does the reverse. The slow mode permits selection between 1/2, 1/4 and 1/20. The still mode is clear and you can advance frame by frame. There is also a three level zoom feature that I really haven't found much use for yet. Typical of recent DVD players (like there are any antique ones around) the video output can be set for 4x3, 4x3 letterbox and 16x9 anamorphic. The sound can be set for bitstream or analog.

Now for the real tests, how it performs. The first thing I noticed is that discs that used to skip or exhibit compression artifacts. The video output was much smoother on the Toshiba than my old RCA.  The audio, as mentioned above, was clear with very good separation. I had some misgivings about changing from optical to coax but my worries were largely unfounded. It took only a few minutes to swap out the old unit and install the new one. Most of the controls on the remote were intuitive so the learning curve was very shallow.  To test the audio output I used the following:

                Terrorist take over the airplane from Air Force One

                 Blade kills three vampires with a boomerang from Blade

                 Opening twister scene from Twister

                The opening 'jack' robbery from Strange Days.

These scenes are great for pushing all six speakers to the maximum. There are also two modes for black, regular and enhanced. I haven't played around with this feature yet but will report here as soon as I do. The setup is simple and icon based. There is screensaver for inactive times as well as some other minor variations such as whether or not you want to see a little camera on the screen when there is multi-angle information on the disc. There is also an energy saving feature that took me a bit by surprise.I stopped a DVD when the phone rang to speak to a friend. During our conversation I heard a low level click and the TV screen went blank. At first I thought there was something wrong with my TV but I noticed that the DVD player's front panel was off. The unit had gone into energy saving mode. When I hit play the DVD started right where I left off.

All in all, an excellent unit.

Specs:

Special Features

Dynamic Range Control.

During the playback of Dolby Digital discs, this feature reduces the range of the playback. This is good if you are listening to a film during very late hours and don;t want the neighbors to call the police. The effect is subtle but effective. Due to my work, I get up at 1 am almost every day. Because of this I find this feature very good if I want to enjoy a film during these off-hours. The effect is most pronounced in the lower frequencies so the sub woofer will not boom late at night.

Extended Audio Features. Some DVDs contains a special language track that describes the actions on the screen for the visually impaired. If this feature is activated the player will provide this information automatically upon detecting it on the disc.

TV Shape.

You can chose from three modes here. The first is 4:3 regular which is used for pan and scan films on a regularly shaped TV. The next is 4:3 letterbox which displays the images with the black masking bars above and below the picture. The last if 16:9 mode which is used for the new higher definition TVs. The last mode works best with films that are recorded in the anamorphic process which compresses almost 33% more vertical information.

Black Level.

The black level of the picture can be set to two levels, 0 IRE or 7.5 IRE. The latter setting is better if the viewing room is very dark and there is little direct light in front of the TV.

Extended Subtitle Features.

When this mode is activated discs containing special subtitles or closed captioning for the hearing impaired will be automatically shown upon detection on the disc.

Screen Saver.

Ths feature will show the Toshiba Logo floating around the screen to save the TV's screen. Since the player is Energy Star compliant, this feature is rarely seen as the player turns itself off after about 20 minutes of no activity. When the play button is pressed the film resumes where you stopped it.

Spatializer N-2-2™ Virtual Surround Sound

This feature enhances the surround feel to movies not recorded in true DTS or Dolby 5.1 sound. This feature is very iffy at best since it provides a different degree of expanded space for different modes and films. A lot depends on the information originally recorded to the disc. The mode seems to work best on Dolby Digital Surround (Dolby 2.0) and Dolby Prologic films.