Rating: 
Summary: great value ...
Review: A GREAT VALUE...! ONLY DRAWBACKS ARE LACK OF DIRECT DISC SELECTION (IE. YOU CAN'T JUST ENTER "DISC 3"; YOU MUST USE THE DISC SKIP BUTTON REPEATEDLY UNTIL YOU GET TO THE DESIRED DISC); ALSO THE REMOTE CONTROL IS NOT ARRANGED CONVENIENTLY...THE BUTTONS ARE TOO SMALL AND CROWDED. STILL, NO REGRETS HERE! BUY 2 !
Rating:
Summary: A superb value
Review: The best thing that can be said about the Toshiba SD2805 is that it was once top-rated by Consumer Reports. Now how you feel about Consumer Reports' ratings is one thing, but if this was considered a great machine at a street price, how can anyone complain about it?Toshiba has traditionally made fine televisions, and many have lauded their line of DVD players as well. This model offers a solid performer at a ridiculously low price for a 5-disc changer. Considering other favorable reviews of this model on other DVD-related sites and in magazines, I went ahead and ponied up for a couple. What can be said pro and con for the unit? First off, the cons: 1) Not a stylish bone in its body. About as exciting to look at as a beige wall. 2) The aforementioned (by other reviewers) slow response to commands. From checking around, it seems that all multidisc players are a bit laggard in responding, though. Is the Toshiba any worse? I can't say for sure, lacking any empirical stopwatch figures. 3) Inputs and outputs. If you have a VCR, dish receiver, DVD, and TV, you may have a problem if you lack an AV tuner/receiver capable of handling all the inputs and outputs. The SD2805 sadly lacks an S-Video input, having only an output. Same for some of the other more recent forms of ports; you've got every possible output, but few inputs. So if you have an older TV lacking a plethora of different inputs, you might have a problem if you don't have a way to juggle all the inputs and outputs. This problem is true of most DVD players, though. Why manufacturers can't provide a way to avoid buying a new receiver to handle this last, additional device, I don't know. 4) The remote is poor. Not universal, not even a decent size, it sadly falls in with many of its brethren in providing far too many buttons. Why manufacturers can't provide more modal buttons, ones that have multiple functions, I don't know. For instance, on the SD2805 the "play" button pressed once just plays. But what if pressed again it paused? Pressed once more, it could play again. In short, no need for a pause button. In fact, using this as an example, I believe that half the buttons could be eliminated. The other issue lies in how some buttons don't work without pressing them several distinct times. The "disc skip" button held down should cycle through the discs, but it does not. In short, as necessary as a remote is to accessing specific functions, this one seems an afterthought. And now, the pros: 1) The picture is tack sharp and stunning. Unlike cheap DVD players, the picture does not "bloom" or "breathe", meaning solid, perfectly-saturated colors "within the lines" and no pulsing of colors or images. This is the best picture I have seen on a player that is not progressive scan ( - which is essential for HD TVs.) 2)The audio is excellent. A few CDs revealed a more spacious feel than I got from my old CD player when driven through the same speakers and receiver. 3) Did I mention it was a multidisc player - a price point for many single-disc players? 5) Plays about every format of disc out there. In short, you can have a top-rated DVD player for less than half its original SRP. Is this a closeout? Sure it is. Toshiba just announced a new line of players with built-in Tivo. Still, if you have not taken the DVD plunge and love a value, this is the unit to get.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Unit, but False Advertising
Review: I have been happy with this unit, although I do not use it for much else than playing DVDs. One thing that really disappointed me is that the online literature promotes two features that this unit does not have. The first feature is "Paralle Video Output". This feature allows the DVD player to drive the Component Video and S-Video at the same time. My unit has a tiny switch in the back that I have to toggle all of the time. The other feature is "Bookmark". This feature is promoted as useful for demonstrating to friends. Well, the player does not have a 'Bookmark' feature, but it does have 'Marker Search'. Marker Search is useless for demonstration because the markers are cleared when the unit powers down and the unit powers down automatically after some time. I called Toshiba on this and their response was "All design specifications and dimensions are tentative and subject to change."
Rating: 
Summary: A steal
Review: Just received mine today, play everything I expected. The only drawback is no SVCD, but I knew that well before I bought it, what can I say ... The picture quality is good, you know, digital products almost make no difference on signal quality. Composite output is a big plus! And 5 disks ... So far no quality issue, dunno why the other guy complained, maybe he need a replacement.
Rating:
Summary: Best value for the price.
Review: This is not a top-notch DVD player. But it is definately a DVD/CD/VCD/MP3 player that worth more than it costs. Other than all the features listed in the description. I found a few more features that are great to have.
1. Other than the optical digital (You can connect by either fiber-optic(toslink) or coaxial cable), there are also two analog output for audio only. These comes in handy when you want to connect to a different port on your receiver/amplifier when playing CD.
2. There is a 6X zoom that will allow you to easily convert a widescreen movie to a fullscreen. If you don't have a widescreen/huge TV like me, this makes the character larger and avoid the black box on top and bottom of the screen.
3. There is quick search/fast foward from 2X to 100X and slow motion down to 1/16X, very neat.
Most of the major downside are described by others. Things like no direct disk selection, slow in disk switching, no MP3 random play, small buttons on remote etc. But for me, I do think nothing beat this player in the price range.
Rating:
Summary: A good DVD, a good MP3 player
Review: I installed the SD2805 last night and dashed back to my computer to burn a 147-song CD to test the MP3 player part of the equipment. The results were very good. Not only is this piece of equipment able to deliver excellent DVD playing and functionality, but it does very well when playing well recorded MP3. If the MP3 quality is avergare you will be satisfied. If the original quality (bit rate) is high, you very well may be astonished. Highly remmended for the price and value.
Rating:
Summary: Could have been a lot better.
Review: First off, this player is a good deal at this price. The DVD player ranks very high in audio/video quality and is compatible with many types of disc formats. But it lacks several simple features that would have made it great. There is no direct access to each disc on the remote. So if you want to go from disc 1 to disc 5, you have to press "disc skip" on the remote four times. This wouldn't be bad, but as you skip from disc to disc, the player has to read each disc before you can skip to the next one. The remote is too small. It has a good layout that is easy to use, but the buttons are too close together. The on-screen displays are also disappointing. I prefer text-based displays instead of the icon-based displays the the SD-2805 uses. These displays are sometimes hard to read. My biggest problem with the on-screen display is that it doesn't show you the total time or time remaining of the DVD your are watching. It only displays the elapsed time, so you don't know if there is 2 minutes or 45 minutes left in the program. I find this very annoying escpecially when watching the extras on dvds.
Rating:
Summary: So far so good
Review: Overall good buy. Good MP3 playback - manual says that MP3 on CD-R with 700MB is not supported but in actual practice it does work! Works beautifully with DVD/regular audio/CD-R regular audio/CD-R MP3/VCD 2.0 format. Have not yet tried all the menu options but with VCD the search using direct time is not supported which makes VCD watching in time gaps little annoying. The fast forward also is limited to 8X for VCDs. For DVDs the fast forward is 100X (very good!) The picture/sound quality is good. The remote is good and works.
Rating:
Summary: Outsanding DVD Player
Review: This DVD player was exactly what I was looking for. 5 Disc Carousel with Component Outputs, S-Video Output, Optical output, Mp3 Playback, & a easy to use remote. I could not think of a better model in this price range. This offer is a steal!
Rating: 
Summary: How could they design this without random play for MP3?
Review: THe biggest drawback of this product for me is the lack of random play for mp3. You may think it's not a big deal initially, but if you ever try to play any mp3 audio on this, you will immediately realize this thing is totally useless.
| 
