Toshiba SD-V594 DVD/VCR Player with HDMI and USB Input
DVD Player stopped reading DVDs after 1 week
After doing lots of research online about DVD/VHS players, I chose the Toshiba because it offered the best features for the price, and generally had better reviews than other products out there. After receiving the new machine, things worked fine for about a week, after which the DVD player would no longer read DVDs. After inserting a DVD it gave a \\"reading\\" message for a long time before finally saying \\"error\\". Oddly enough, the machine would read CDs just fine! I called Toshiba about the problem, but they couldn't help. Resetting the machine by unplugging it for 5 minutes availed nothing. Finally, I just decided to return it. I'm going to buy the Sony SLV-D570H to replace it. Both have HDMI outputs (DVD only), but hopefully the Sony machine won't break down on me after one week. <br /> <br />In terms of features with the Toshiba, the skip commercials feature overshot the commercials by three or four minutes. Programming the machine to record television programs was difficult and confusing (for context, I'm 27 years old and somewhat of a tech expert). LED display on the machine itself was minimal and hard to read, and only showed hours and minutes when playing DVDs instead of hours, minutes, seconds, and chapter number. When changing television channels, the number appeared on the TV screen, but did not show on the player itself--an inconvenience for those who like to look at the machine to remember which channel they are on. The remote, while backlit and \\"universal\\", was hard to use, and had no \\"last channel\\" button.  The onscreen menu that appeared when a CD was playing was nice; its too bad the rest of the menu systems were so poorly implemented. <br /> <br />If I were looking into DVD/VHS players with HDMI upconversion, I would probably steer clear of this machine, the Samsung DVD-V9650 (terrible reviews online because of malfunction and poor video quality), and the JVC HR-XVC38B and HR-XVC39S (no MP3 CD playback). That basically leaves the Sony, which I hope turns out better than the Toshiba. I guess they really are trying to push consumers to buy the more expensive machines (DVD recorders, Blu-ray, HDDVD).