Toshiba SD-4980 DVD Player with HDMI and DivX Playback
I like this player!!
After a year of frustration with a Philips DivX capable player, I found this Toshiba to be a gigantic improvement.    My primary reasons for buying this player were DivX capability, a decent remote, and quick recognition of video file names. The Philips would not recognize many DivX and XVID files, it would sometimes take more than a minute to set up a menu for a CD or DVD of DivX-encoded files, and the remote was the most poorly designed one that I've ever come across.    The previous review faulted the lack of retention of settings, especially for HDMI, and I can't argue. For me, though, it's not a problem since my primary goal is DivX playback. Its performance on computer video playback is exemplary. It sets up menus in just a few seconds. Playback of .avi files is flawless; it plays files that the Philips choked on without a bit of trouble. I've had NO problem playing back any DVD that I've tried, and it has NEVER hung up on me. [Since the review was written, I've played at least 75 disks, and it did hang up one one; however, my other player and PC did the same on this disk] The effective angle of the remote is no worse than on other DVD players that I've used, and is better than most. The remote is beautifully organized and quite comprehensive. The amount of information about computer video formats revealed by the Display button is impressive; this player can even handle Ogg Vorbis audio, which is an extreme rarity among players.    On the down side, the blue light that shines around the tray is really irritating, and so is having to cut it off every time you restart the player. I don't use a flat panel display, so the HDMI settings don't matter to me, but I can see it being a problem to those who need it.    For people who want DivX playback who are not bothered by the HDMI limitations or the blue light, this is an exceptional player. I'd buy this over the other DivX-capable players that I've seen without a second's hesitation. Now, if they'd only make a player capable of handling .ogm and .mkv files . . .    Addendum: after a while, I noticed that while the player plays divx and other encoded DVDs perfectly, it sometimes hangs up on ordinary DVDs. It's not perfect, but it still works well considering the price and its major application.