Toshiba SD-4900 Progressive Scan DVD Player

Whether your living room is currently home to an HDTV or you're merely thinking of "someday," the SD-4900 stands ready to deliver the full potential of DVDs. Progressive scanning, referred to as 480p for the number of horizontal lines that compose the video image, creates a picture using twice the scan lines of a conventional DVD picture, giving you higher resolution and sharper images while eliminating nearly all motion artifacts.

The SD-4900 also performs 3:2 pulldown. DVD mastering introduces a common distortion when adjusting 24 frames-per-second movies to 30 fps video; 3:2 pulldown digitally corrects this distortion. Conventional composite- and S-video outputs bring compatibility with nearly any television. The "expanded" mode in the player's black-level setting produces richer, deeper black tones in every image. PLUGE (Picture Line Up Generation Equipment) delivers black as well as below-black signals to a television.

DVD-Audio offers super high-fidelity (192 kHz/24-bit) sound. DVD-Audio discs provide multichannel and stereo sound, incredible storage capacity, and unique bonus materials not available on regular audio CDs. Because the DVD-Audio signal is too high-resolution for the digital-to-analog converters in current surround receivers (and also as an anti-piracy measure), the SD-4900 performs its own decoding of DVD-Audio signals, passing high-resolution analog, not digital, audio to your surround receiver. This means you'll need an audio/video receiver with multichannel analog-audio inputs to appreciate this feature.

A set of left/right analog-audio outputs channel audio to Dolby Pro Logic receivers and stereo televisions. Both Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1-channel surround-sound signals can be routed through the player's digital-audio outputs (one each coaxial and optical) for direct connection to a digital AV receiver, and with these formats the choice is yours: route the surround signal digitally or use the same analog outputs you use for the DVD-Audio signal.

Playback options include 3-D DNR (digital noise reduction, which reduces random noise in DVD images by comparing each frame of information to the previous and succeeding frames), bookmarks, a powerful 16x picture zoom, and parental lock.

EAM (Enhanced Audio Mode) offers three audio-enhancements: "normal" mode equalizes regular digital-audio signals; "3-D" provides virtual surround sound through Spatializer N-2-2 circuitry; and "Dialogue" enhances the center-channel frequencies when you're playing Dolby Digital-encoded discs via the D-R1's analog audio outputs.

What's in the Box
DVD player, remote control, remote batteries, a user's manual, and a stereo analog audio interconnect/composite-video cable.

Seeing the negatives some people are mentioning, however, I feel compelled to defend this player, as it's getting a lower rating than it truly deserves - largely due to ignorance.

First, concerning the "booby trap" issue. It's not a trap, it's progressive scan. If you don't have an HDTV, PS isn't going to do much for you anyway! If you try to set the player as PS, and your television can't handle it, of course your display is going to bug out for a bit. If you check the manual, however, this "trap" is mentioned, and it's resulting fix to reset the settings. People are saying "good luck" like Toshiba is to blame for this, when it's simply the result of people hitting buttons and selecting options that they don't know anything about.

As for the time/chapter display, this is shown on the front panel of the unit - just like virtually *any* player out there. The reason you can't simply pause the player for hours and leave it in the same spot is more a matter of liability control on the part of Toshiba - doing this is BAD FOR YOUR PLAYER. It's bad for any disc-based drive.

To finish this up, this is a great product that displays audiophile quality in *certain* areas. It has it's warts, such as the remote, but has been almost perfect throughout my experience with it. If you know how to operate a DVD player without selecting stupid options and mistreating the unit, this one is great for you.

If you're the type of fool who fries their previous DVD player, complains about not being able to read the front panel properly, or can't figure out how to display the remaining time on a disc, then by all means...stay far, far away. From all electronics.


Best DVD player ever!   May 8, 2004
 4 out of 6 found this review helpful

Wow. This DVD player is awesome. I have had it for almost a year and it has never let me down. About the Progressive Scan problem, I read the instruction booklet about it. You need a Progressive Scan compatible TV.
I love all the features, and the remote layout. All the music features rock, and the 3D surround sound is great!
I recomend this product to anyone looking for a High-Quality DVD player.


Booby trap fixer upper   April 25, 2004
 5 out of 5 found this review helpful

I had the same pro scan problem with this (otherwise excellent)Toshiba DVD player, but it's not difficult to correct. The instruction manual says to press the 'stop' button to turn off the disc you're trying to watch, then press and hold the 'stop' button for at least 5 seconds. The Toshiba screen saver should then pop right up on your TV screen. Good luck... it worked for me.