Toshiba SD-5970 DVD Player with HDMI
Good picture, but...
One positive thing about this player is that it delivers a high-quality picture through a totally digital HDMI interface.  <br /> <br />But there are several things, which in my opinion, make this player unusable: <br /> <br />The remote control is very unresponsive. Often I have to press a function several times before it will \\"register\\" with the player. In general, the entire unit is sluggish. Opening and closing the tray using the button on the front of the unit is a slow operation. <br /> <br />The player does not remember where you left off on the current disc if you press stop and leave it alone for more than 10 minutes or so. This is such a basic operation I am surprised to see this feature lacking in a model these days. <br /> <br />When viewing 16x9 material, the player renders the picture just fine. But if I have discs containing 4:3 material, the player will stretch the picture to fill the entire screen, which is not the way the material was intended to be displayed. This happens only through the HDMI interface. <br /> <br />Several discs that I have that can be read fine by my old DVD player had problems with this one.  <br /> <br />I seriously think that they just weren't ready to release this and were trying to get this out to market as soon as possible. Sony has an HDMI upconverting player, but it is not widely available yet (although you can get it here on Amazon). I have not tried that player yet.