Should I get the Toshiba SD-4800 (1 Viewer)

[John_Mark]

Best Buy has both the 4800 and the 3800 on sale right now. The sales guy at the store near my office said the web site is offering free shipping if you're not near a store. 4800 for $180 and 3800 for $160 *I think*...don't quote me.

Yes...the 3800 and 4800 are the same except for the DVD-A.

I'm going to keep the 4800 due to the fact that most of the DVD's I play on it are outstanding. However...I'll be keeping my ears open over the next 30 days to see if anything pops up as being a bigger bang-for-your-buck.

BTW...I spent some serious time last night playing with the zoom feature on the 4800. Now that is very cool.

 

[Guy Usher]

Do any of you know which Toshiba player replaced the 6200.
I understand it has been DCd? Did the 4800 replace it? I am looking for another 6200 or equivalent. . . Thanks

 

[Joe Woj]

Thanks for the feedback guys. Am going to go ahead and buy one this weekend. I'll post my thoughts about it when I get one

 

[Bryan "C." A.]

Best Buy has both the 4800 and the 3800 on sale right now. The sales guy at the store near my office said the web site is offering free shipping if you're not near a store. 4800 for $180 and 3800 for $160 *I think*...don't quote me.

I tried to resist the urge, but I had to quote you. The actual retail values are $188.99 and $150.99 according to their web site.

I recently finished trials on the SD-3800 and I like the picture better than I did from the SD-4800. It may be considered a subjective feeling unfortunately, since I did not test them side by side to make sure all the settings were the same. I was hardly aware of any chroma error. Of my test material, only Yellow Submarine (a non-anamorphically encoded film) made it easily detectable. Toy Story chapters 3 and 4, Ben-Hur chapter 19, and the red merging with white title of Star Trek: Insurrection all looked pretty good. Gathering from the disparity of comments I read here and my own experience, I wish I had paid attention to the manufacture date of the 4800 as I wonder whether Toshiba added hardware or firmware improvements. My current Model No.: SD-3800U has Manufactured: June 2002 CY. Does anyone have a clue what CY indicates -- Christian Year maybe?

I also want to correct and clarify some things from my previous post. The Toshibas only have tweaks for progressive in their menus, otherwise there is a switch on the back of each unit, which I believe requires a power cycle to activate, and then a button on the remote called Progressive will work to switch between interlaced and progressive modes. The CP72 had a setup menu item and a display menu item, each of which had to be set for progressive. The CP67 had the old Panasonic method of a toggle button on the front of the player. Moreover, the Panasonic CP67 does not perform as well as the CP72 (and per secondhand reports very likely the RP62 does not either).

Finally, a little more on the Toshiba zoom features. I now checked it with non-anamorphic material and yes I can see more of the picture than I would be able to without the zoom features. There are some caveats:
1) Zoom reducing and enlarging sometimes pixel crop. I was going to detail what scales performed best until I discovered that it matters whether the player is in 16:9 using 4:3 mode or in 4:3LB using full mode and I believe it matters whether the material is anamorphically encoded or not. Anyhow, the permutations began to discourage me. To determine what crops the least, use a still frame with grid lines, such as those included in THX Optimode video testing material.
2) Zooming may increase or decrease the likelihood of certain artifacts such as moire. For those who will take the trouble to see what they have been missing, happy experimenting.

 

[peter_i]

I have the 5700 and didn't notice the picture problems that were mentioned except for maybe the chroma problems in Toy Story but they weren't that intense if u ask me. My big gripe with the player is the fact that when a disc is first popped into the player, it sounds like there's a jet taking off!! Literally! I hear the bloody transport making so much noise it's crazy. Mind u this is only when u first pop in the disc, but still the noise continues until u start the movie. I'm exchanging the player for the Panny rp-82 this weekend but otherwise the player is great. I'm exchanging it because I hear that the Panny is an all around better player. Is this true? can anyone comment on this?

 

[Joe Woj]

Just picked up the 4800 tonight at Best Buy and so far am very happy with my purchase. I noticed quite a good improvement in picture quality over my 1700, even though I do not have a HDTV. Ran through the paces with LoTR and TPM and I couldn’t be happier. My only gripe is the lack of a Display button the remote, which the 1700 had, other than that am happy as could be.

Also has a side note, I finally got a chance to use my Monster Digital Optical Cable that I had as well, and I noticed large improvements over the stock Digital Coax Cable that came with my receiver. I was stuck using that because my 1700 didn’t have a Optical port.

 

[Bryan "C." A.]

My only gripe is the lack of a Display button

I must admit, that is an annoyance. It takes, let us count: one NAVI button, one right arrow, one down arrow, and one enter button -- four buttons to do what one button did before and bit rate display is in the separate QUICK menu. It unlikely avails to use the display button on either the Toshiba 1700 remote or a universal remote with Toshiba codes -- the probable outcome being the NAVIgational menu.

Sorry for my ignorance but what is TPM and should it not be LotR instead of LoTR? Never mind, I think I got it. I am used to seeing SWEI or some such in front of it, but now there is acronymic mixed metaphor in the statement. LoTR should be TFotR as SWEI is to TPM.

 

[Joe Woj]

I always use LoTR shrug

 

[JohnSterling]

Last night while watching ET...I notices that Elliot's red shirt at the beginning of the movie practically was floresing (spelling?). Anyway...although I had ran the Video Essentials disc after setting up the Toshiba, I went ahead and dropped the color down about 20%.

*WOW* what a difference. Almost all of the wierdness I had seen in Moulin Rouge is gone. Haven't yet looked at Oh Brother. Before the color reduction, the thruster jets on the ET spaceship were 'chroma-bugging'---major horizontal lines through them----***really bad****. After the reduction...it was very clear.

 

[Kamal_K]

Check out vcdhelp.com for reviews and what formats the dvd player will handle.

 

[Guy Usher]

I just bought a new 3800 (3days) and it amazes me. I have always liked Toshibas zoom but for a buck fifty it blows me away. Prior I have been using a Sony NS700p and I thought the Sony was OK for a cheap player, the 3800 tears it up.
It has been a couple years since I looked at DVD player prices. I was going after the Panasonic RP82, but they wouldnt move off the 229 price. Now I am glad they didn't.
Only 3 days using Progressive mode, I have watched about ten movies (not critically) and it is great, nothing obvios so far except my poor spelling.

 

[Bryan "C." A.]

I always use LoTR

What are you going to use for TTT and TRotK?

 

[Joe Woj]

I use TTT for The Two Towers and RoTK for Return of the King...

 

[JohnSterling]

Bryan,

Thanks for the advice. I'm going to look into that this week. Off to Rat-Shack.