Toshiba SD-2108
Review written by Leo C on 5-Jan-2000

Many educated readers of HT magazine will know this player has recieved probably the highest score for a wallet-friendly DVD player (Califorinian Labs and THX certified-like DVD players excepted). Why? Simple. Unlike many other companies in the DVD race, Toshiba offers a gimmick and bug free, feature packed DVD player at a good price with the performace to boot.

This unit I have received is covered in a gold finish which make the unit seem much more expensive than it seems. With little more than the basic DVD buttons, this player looks sleek and elegant. This player is now just had its first birthday, but still there are many DVD players which have been released in the last year and still can't top this player.

The manual is good with clear and simple instructions for operating the player for newcomers to DVD. The remote is one of the best I've seen with it comfortably fitting in one's hand with colour coded buttons which are the right size and in the right position. Less often used buttons are hidden underneath a sliding door located at the bottom of the remote (such as chapter repeat, zoom and the numeric keypad).

One feature I have not seen on any other brand of DVD player is the handy zoom feature. This feature allows a 3 level magnification (up to 4x) of the picture while in motion or still with the ability to make even a 2.35:1 film fill the entire screen of a 4:3 set. Of course though, the sides of the pictures are croped and with the directional pad, you can scroll around. This is handy for a 1:1.85 film to be fullscreen without hardly and picture loss. The player uses a smoothing technique to smooth out jaggies and some artifacts during the use of Zoom.

One feature I thought that was not needed was the somewhat dodgy 'Spatializer N-2-2 Virtual Surround Sound'. It emulates a Pro-logic setup through 2 speakers. Why they included this, I dont know, because any serious DVD owner would have a 5.1 setup, not a stereo setup. Nevertheless, it did make the imaging somewhat more expansive when litening to DD in 2 channel mode but is no substitution for a real 5.1 setup. Through headphones, (who watches movies through headphones?) it did make quite a positive difference though. Lets hope they ditch this feature next time.

The performace of the unit is outstanding, with deep colours and contrast and none of its own artifacts added in the picture thanks to its supreme 10bit video D/A converters. Superb detail and colour rendition, up there with the best. 'Nuff said.

Audio is also supreme, with no lip-sync problems with ANY title encountered (which is over 50 DVDs I've used) and no audio drop-outs. But the DD sound is always dependent of the outboard processor and the interconnect used but nevertheless, Dolby Digital surely kicks ass. Also, functioning as a CD player, its PCM D/A clean up any other DVD player I've seen, with its smooth and 'ungrainy' feel of other players in the competition.

Layer changes are unnoticable, taking the player about half a second to switch and the GUI for the player's setup is a no-brainer with simple and concise navigation.

Every title used in this player has worked perfectly without a hitch, (even all those dreaded VCDs aswell) signifying Toshiba's good engineering and solid firmware intergrated into its players.

If you are looking for a good player at a good price, look no further than a SD-2108, with the price of $AU999 (1/1/2000) or any other Toshiba player infact! You'll probably have to pay double the price to see any perfomace increase. It would probably be easier to buy the newer model, the SD-2109, which to my knowledge, passes 24bit/96khz PCM data, and I believe the SD-2108 reduces it down to 20bit/48khz but this is not an issue because there is no DVD-Audio titles out there that are in that format anyway. I believe that the re is no other added features. For some reason though, the 2108 feels more solid than the 2109, but thats my personal opinion. Anyhow, which ever DVD player you choose, make sure its a Tosh!

Overall Satisfation Factor : 9.5/10 (Awesome!!!)

The Good:

• Supreme Audio and Video Reproduction
  
• Serves as a good CD player aswell
  
• Bug free playing of DVDs
  
• Bevy of outputs to suit all aplications
  
• Excellent finish and build quality
  
• Awesome value
  
• By far the flattest video frequency response from 0-6Mhz ever measured by HT Magazine (SD-2108: 0-6Mhz +- 0.1dB, Pioneer DV-515: -3dB @ 4.5Mhz)
  
• Made in Japan (unlike some.....)
  

• Nothing hideous about this player!

• Inability to read some blue based CDRs (Gold based CDs work good)
  
• No onboard DD/DTS decoding
  
• Already outdated with the even better SD-2109!
  
• Useless Spatializer N-2-2 Processing
  

Features:

• Solid brass spindle
• Gold plated jacks
• ColourStream Component, S-Video and Composite Video Out
• Toslink and Coaxial Digital Out
• Zoom function
• 2x,8x & 30x forward & rewind
• 1/8,1/4 & 1/2 slow motion playback
• Single Frame Advancing
• 10-Bit 27 MHz Video D/A Convertor with High Resolution Filter
• Video Black Level Control
• Dolby Digital / DTS Compatible Output
• Spatializer N-2-2 Virtual Surround Sound
• 4x Picture Zoom (25 sector)
• Ergonomic Remote Control
• Dimmable Fluorescent Display
• Bit-Rate Meter

Equipment used for evaluation:

• Sony WEGA 68cm TV using S-Video
• Yamaha RX-V992 DD Reciever
• Acoustic Research HO 310 Mains, Sonique CC-125 Centre and Mordaunt Short MSi 20 Pearls, M&K V-75 Sub.