Toshiba SD-5970 DVD Player with HDMI
Waste of Money
I agree with other comments I have read.  The picture is excellent, when the unit works.  A total digital signal is clearly a feature I must have for my home theater.  I was anxious to get a DVD player with HDMI and settled on the Toshiba SD5970 because it was available at my local retailer. BIG MISTAKE.  The remote is almost useless.  It has to be pointed directly at the unit sensor and it even still may not respond.  Using the buttons on the main unit itself may also result in no response.   Every time you watch a new movie after turning the unit off you need to reset the picture format for your TV 480p,720p or 1080i.  You would think it would have memory???  Most recently the unit began to get stuck on the DVD layer switch.  The only way I could find to reset it was to open the tray and restart the movie then locate the last scene viewed.  A perfect way to ruin a good movie!  Even the restart may result in the unit getting stuck again.  Now the unit has progressed to getting stuck at random places on a disc.  And when you open the tray to try and reset I find only 1 of 10 times it will accept the disc otherwise it will error \\"Bad Disc\\".  It has also just begun to not read brand new discs right out of the box.  I thought the problem was a dirty laser lens so I tried using a DVD cleaner with no such luck.  The unit is just simply a piece.  I think this was a first time design effort for a new Toshiba engineer.  When I looked at my receipt I thought I had a chance for warranty at 6 months.  I dealt with the quirks for too long when I realized it only has a 90 day warranty.  Even with 90 days I would guess Toshiba is still getting a lot of warranty complaints.  I am sure it does not cost them anything because the unit probably has an internal company cost of $10; or at least that is what it acts like.  I am extremely disappointed in such a well known electronics company that I never plan to buy another Toshiba product.