Toshiba SD4700 Progressive-Scan DVD Player
Good player for this price
This is my 3rd DVD player and I have been using it for the past 4 months.  I started with an entry-level Samsung, then moved to the Toshiba 2800.  The Samsung was slow to load discs and slow to respond to the remote.  The Toshiba 2800 loaded discs faster and had added the advantage of being able to zoom the picture just enough to fill more of the screen, which is a great feature if you want to watch a letter-boxed widescreen DVD but are willing to sacrifice a small amount of the image on both sides in order to get a bigger picture.<br />However, the 2800 did not have the feature set of the 4700, which includes Toshiba's \\"Navi\\" navigation feature.  This allows you to access most of the other features of the player by selecting from a menu on a single screen, while keeping the picture in the center of the screen so that you can continue to watch the DVD.  This feature, along with the ability to zoom a widescreen image in small increments, are useful features that I would not be willing to give up.  <br />The player has the usual outputs (optical and coaxial digital video included) and also supports DVD-Audio, though I have not used that feature yet.  It also supports a variety of audio formats, but I have not used that feature except to listen to regular CDs ...  <br />Build quality seems good;  the player has a solid feel.  The remote is reasonably intuitive, though I found that the joystick was not always accurate;  I could push it up and the cursor might go to the side instead.  <br />The video and audio quality of this player are both higher than the Samsung and the Toshiba 2800.  There's clarity in the video image that was not there with the less expensive players, and the sound seems to have a broader dynamic range.  I'm using the component outputs and running the video image directly to my flat-screen HDTV and the picture is excellent.  For audio, I'm using the optical output into a Yamaha A/V receiver and the sound is also excellent.<br />Occasionally, the picture will freeze for a second or two.  If I rewind, the video plays smoothly, so it's not the DVD itself, it's the player.  However, it's not frequent enough to be annoying, just sometimes noticeable.  It handles layer transitions on dual-layer DVDs better than the two cheaper players I had, but it's still often apparent.  I have not seen any of the pixelization that I saw on the Samsung, and the video image does not skip.<br />At times, the audio can seem slightly out-of-synch for dialogue, but this is rare and goes away if you stop the DVD and restart.  Sometimes the player fails to output audio and needs to be restarted.  This seems to occur after playing an audio CD, though it can also happen if the player has loaded a DVD, but has gone into automatic shutdown because I've stopped watching the DVD to check out the TV news or answer the phone.<br />Overall, for this price point, I am pleased with the player, and it is definitely worth the small increase in price to get the improved quality and a better set of features than an entry-level model.  However, I can see now why people pay twice as much (or more) to get a high-end player.  I plan to keep this one as long as it works, but I suspect that we will continue to see better quality and lower prices on DVD players as the technology continues to be refined.<br />Bottom line on the Toshiba 4700:<br />Pro:  Great video and audio output, Toshiba's incremental zoom that allows you to \\"bump up\\" the image just enough to see slightly more of a widescreen picture on a non-widescreen TV, handy Navi feature, solid build quality, DVD-audio, and great value for the price.<br />Con:  Occasional video and audio glitches that might not occur on a higher-end model.