Our review:Item Description:Movie and music lovers, rejoice! This Toshiba SD3800 DVD player delivers everything you've been dreaming of. Digital Cinema Progressive delivers the smoothest, most film-like images to any progressive scan television, such as an HD-compatible one, and ensures maximum resolution. Parallel video output lets you connect your player via composite, S-video, and/or interlaced component video outputs and watch simultaneous images from each connected TV. The MP3 audio compatibility expands the players' functionality to include playback of custom music collections encoded via MP3 digital audio format onto CD-R or CD-RW media. NAVI graphical user interface uses graphical icons (instead of simple text) in a convenient menu display for quick access to key player functions. Superb performance and comfort - that's what marks this DVD player.
Amazon.com Item Description: Get the most from your DVDs and CDs with Toshiba's SD-3800 single-disc DVD player, whose ultimate Super ColorStream Pro progressive-scan component-video outputs produce seamless, flicker-free images with high-definition and HD-ready TVs. Built-in MP3 decoding let you compile music on your PC and listen to it on your stereo or TV, and you can even watch customized digital-picture slideshows using recordable CDs filled with standard JPEG image files.
Whether your living room is currently home to an HDTV or you're merely thinking of 'someday,' the SD-3800's Digital Cinema Progressive feature delivers the full potential of your DVDs. Progressive scanning, referred to as 480p for the number of horizontal lines that compose the video image, creates a picture using twice the scan lines of a conventional DVD picture, giving you higher resolution and sharper images while eliminating nearly all motion artifacts.
Digital Cinema Progressive also includes 3:2 pulldown. DVD mastering introduces a common distortion when adjusting 24-frames-per-second movies to 30 fps video; 3:2 pulldown digitally corrects this distortion. Conventional composite- and S-video outputs bring compatibility with nearly any television.
Grayscale in video is measured and tracked on a scale of 0 (black) to 100 (white) IRE units. A picture's NTSC video black cutoff level is traditionally assigned a 7.5 IRE value. The SD-3800's 'expanded' mode lets the player output a 0 IRE signal for richer, deeper black tones in every image. PLUGE (Picture Line Up Generation Equipment) delivers black as well as below-black signals to televisions with exceptionally high contrast ratios.
The Toshiba Digital Photo Viewer lets you enjoy digital photographs on your television. The viewer supports a variety of popular digital formats, including Konica, Fuji Photo, Kodak Picture CD, as well as standard JPEG files created on a home PC. An intuitive onscreen display assists you in creating customized slideshows with just a few simple clicks of the remote. You can set the viewing time for each 'slide,' zoom in on parts of images, and rotate and pan the photos.
Onboard NAVI user interface uses graphical icons (rather than simple text) for quick access to key functions. The system includes an onscreen 'virtual remote control,' an angle viewer for titles encoded with multiple camera angles, preview for creation of thumbnail chapter views, strobe for a breakdown of a particular scene, and capture, which lets you choose custom wallpaper.
A set of left/right analog-audio outputs channel audio to Dolby Pro Logic receivers and stereo televisions. Both Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1-channel surround-sound signals can be routed through the player's digital-audio outputs (one each coaxial and optical) for direct connection to a full-featured audio/video receiver. The player's internal digital-to-analog converters work at 24-bit, 192 kHz resolution to ensure optimum sonic quality from a range of digital program material.
Enhanced Audio Mode (E.A.M.) offers three sound settings: normal (off), 3-D (virtual surround sound enhancement), and dialogue expander (which enhances center-channel frequencies in the range of human voices during playback of multichannel content). Other playback options include picture zoom (which lets you magnify a select area of an image) and parental lock.
What's in the Box DVD player, remote control, remote batteries, a user's manual, and a stereo analog audio interconnect/composite-video cable.
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Buyer Testimonials
Average Buyer's Review:
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If you have 3 days to watch a movie
This thing locks up and skips on almost 75% of the disks I put in it, including brand new ones.
If it a rented disk with a few scratches, forget it. I end up using a free Apex someone gave me just to avoid this thing.
Buyer's review: -
Nice, but..
Great performance and picture, though has the annoying habit of occasionally locking up during load/unload, have to pull the power plug (and dismember entertainment center to get at it) in order to regain control.
Buyer's review: 
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Excellent progressive scan DVD player
I bought the SD3800 to go with my Toshiba 57H82 HDTV. There was an obvious improvement in the picture and clarity over my old Toshiba 1600 which played many enjoyable DVDs. The SD3800 upconverts to 540 and that matches the Toshiba HDTV. It was easy to set up and has worked great for the last month. The remote is nice and large with easy access to buttons. It allows easy adjustment of audio settings and provides zoom controls that help you to fit the screen to your TV if you need it. It is nice and compact and fits well on top of my TV. There are many choices and you can find good info at [website]to help you make your decision.
Buyer's review: -
Fine progressive scan DVD player at a bargain price.
Toshiba makes top-notch DVD players with an excellent reputation for outstanding performance as well as quality and reliability. The SD3800 has these desirable characteristics plus component video output for better picture quality and progressive scan technology for compatibility with HDTVs, all at a bargain price. You may not have an HDTV yet but you probably will have one within a year or two, so why not be prepared with a progressive scan DVD player when you can get one this good at such a low price? And the component video output will improve the picture quality even on non-HDTVs. This player is an outstanding performer at a terrific price.
Buyer's review: -
My first DVD player; great so far; sound is very low
After countless review reading for DVD players, I was set on either a Panasonic or Toshiba NON-PROGRESSIVE SCAN DVD player as my first. ... Luckily, I had a chance to buy this one WITH PRGRESSIVE SCAN..., so I grabbed it.
After pummeling the DVD player in its first 1-2 weeks of ownership with about 20 hours straight of Stargate SG-1 DVD collection viewing and rental movies, I can safely say that it's a great buy.
The menus are easy to use for setup, and the unit features nice zoom and image capture features, if you need that stuff. The documentation for some of the features could be a little better, as I couldn't find the section on storing bookmarks or memorized DVD chapters for viewing later. That may be something that I'll find on my laptop DVD player and software rather than a standalone unit.
Finally, the sound, through my piddly RCA-jack-only TV is VERY LOW. I have to turn the TV up about 5 extra notches to hear the dialogue on movies. There is a dialogue enhancement mode for sound, however, that helps with the quietest rentals that I've enjoyed.
Bottom line -- a great DVD player, if you can get it at a [good] price. Too bad it doesn't come in black.