Toshiba SD4700 Progressive-Scan DVD Player
Chroma bug and audio difficulties aside, a great product
Considering this is my first standalone dvd player, it's hard for me to fully ascertain how strong this product is. I bought the 4700 for the video quality more than the audio features, and in this respect, I am more than pleased. But it's not all peaches.<br />After two months of owning this product, I have confirmed that this dvd player has the ill-fated &quot;chroma bug&quot; problem. I only became aware of this recently when watching Vertical Limit on DVD. While watching the &quot;making of&quot; featurette, there was significant bleeding of bright red, especially evident with the subheadings. For the more casual consumer, this isn't that big of a problem, because it's hard to notice. But I'm sure any meticulous buyer will want to know. However, since many of Toshiba's, Sony's and Pioneer's lines of dvd players are conflicted with this problem, I don't see any reason to particularly bash this model. (By the way, this chroma bug flaw can't be fixed. Let's just hope future mpeg decoding technology will overcome this problem. As far as I know, only the Panasonic brand has consistently avoided the bug.)<br />The chroma bug issue is not a big deal, since it's rarely noticeable to the untrained eye. What's more important is the overall picture quality, and that's where this product shines. I'm using this player with standard analog connection (no S-video, no hdtv, interlaced mode), and the video is SUPERB. I can only imagine how much better the progressive scan would be. There should be no concern that the video display will far surpass expectations.<br />However, dealing with the audio features can be frustrating. Switching between 5.1 Dolby Digital audio, DVD-audio discs, normal CDs, and mp3 music requires you to switch modes manually. There is no automatic conversion, so if you use this player a lot for audio playback between different mediums, be prepared for some tedious menu changing. Some reviewers have complained of the player's poor mp3 playback. I don't knowpersonally since I only use this player to watch DVD movies, but I could imagine audio problems existing. The LCD panel only has 8 characters, so I'm sure this will come as a problem for long mp3 filenames.<br />The zoom feature was surprisingly good, and although I think the remote is ugly and bulky, I quickly adapted to it. The manuals and documentation were pretty good, and the Toshiba website seems to provide good support and FAQs, although I haven't found them to be necessary yet (that's always a good thing). The warranty is only three months, which is downright sad. <br />Despite it's flaws, I'm still giving it 5 stars. Why? Because 1) the video is superb (my main priority), 2) there are a plethora of features, 3) lots of connectivity choices (all gold-plated), 4) $250 (Best Buy) is an absolute steal for a progressive scan player, 5) very simple graphical menu system and ease of installation, 6) fast and silent disc loading, 7) plays problematic discs (ex. Matrix) without fault, and 8) it doesn't heat up and seems to have strong build quality.<br />Weighing the cost-benefits, I'd say it's as close a perfect product as one could get for the first-time or casual DVD consumer. An audiophile, however, might want to entertain more scrutiny.