Home > Consumer Reviews > Toshiba SD-P1500 Portable DVD Player

I have been looking at other portable DVD players made by Sony, Pioneer, Sharp and Panasonic and finally chose Toshiba SD-P1500. Yes, Panasonic's 9" model is bigger but the picture quality is not as good as this one and it costs more. Why did I choose this machine?

1. I need a portable machine that can play DVD, CD, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R and VCD. Sony machines can't play VCD (Video CD) so bye bye to Sony machines. Other machines may not be able to play home-made Video CD movies on CD-Rs. I have not tried them all in local stores therefore I don't want to risk buying something that I don't know about. This Toshiba claimed to be able to play everything (just like Sharp but Sharp's 8" model discontinued).
2. This machine is inexpensive for its features and the 8" screen.

Next, I would like to tell you my first week's experience with this machine:

1. Battery life: a fully charged battery can give you 3 hours and 15 minutes uninterrupted movie watching time.
2. Display: too bad that there is no internal or external control of the display's brightness. Some dark scenes cannot be display correctly. However, when the movie's lighting is good, the picture does look very sharp and present very good color balance.
3. Sound: (...) you will know that there is a problem with this machine's sound system. Not really, let me tell you why. When you use this machine to play DTS 5.1 encoded movies, the sound is very weak even you turn the volume up all the way to 10. Why? Because there are only two speakers built-in and you are asking for an effect that only can be produced by 6 speakers or more. It is unrealistic. If you want to enjoy home thearter like sound, you should either hook this machine up with a home thearter system, or, get a good headphone. In fact, I bought a $9 Sony headphone and the sound improved a lot. If you have money to buy a noise reduction headphone, (such as a Boss model)you will be enjoying true home thearter sound. However, for people who like to watch VCDs, sound is not a problem at all! I get beautiful MTS sound with all my video CD movie collections even when my volume is set to 3 and it is still kinda too loud for me. Plane noise? without headphone: yes for DVD movies and some CD music tracks but not for VCD movies and some CDs; with headphone: no problem at all.
4. Super correction: this is an undocumented feature. I have a lot of home made video tapes and currently I turned them all into Video CDs and DVD-Rs for easy storage. Some of my early VCDS were made by a slow P-II 450 MHz machine therefore sometimes it skips a track or so and the picture looks fuzzy sometimes. However, this machine can play those VCDs without any skipping, and this is a feature called "super correction" only available in some of the high end progress scanning machines sold in Japan. So, if you have some home-made vcd movies or broken vcd/dvds, this machine will not let you down.
5. Anti-shock system: many other portable dvd players do poorly when you are watching a movie on board a boat or on your bed where you have to change your sitting position all the time. This machine allows at least a 3 seconds antishock protection so that you can enjoy your movie without interruption. I even accidentally dropped my machine from my bed to the hardwood floor and it still plays well without any problems. Quite amazing!

In summary, I would highly recommend this machine if you are looking for an affordable portable dvd player with a big screen.

I bought this portable DVD player for the primary purpose of watching DVD movies on the plane when I travel. I tried the player at home alone and everything seemed great. When I recently used the player on a plane however I was very disappointed that the sound wouldn't go any louder. The background noise of being on a plane washed out the dialogue. I could hear the sound effects but had to keep pressing the headphones into my ears to hear the dialogue. Very, annoying and sometimes painful.

I did find a solution to this problem however. You can buy a headphone amplifier. It is a small device that... plugs into the headphone jack on the side of the DVD player and amplifies the sound as far as you need it to go. Another great thing is that this device also splits the amplified signal to 3 separate headphone jacks so others can listen. I came across this amplifier and bought it right away. The device is called a Boostaroo. You can find it on Boostaroo.com

Other than the sound being too low the player was great. The picture was fantastic and I've really been waiting for a portable DVD player with component output. And, you can view the screen from virtually any angle.

It would have gotten five stars if it wasn't for the sound. Even though I was able to remedy the problem, I... expected more...

After doing a lot of research I finally had a chance to see the Toshiba in person. I was impressed and took the dive. The next night I took it on the road.

This is a great machine. I had no pixel probelms, which seem to pop up so often in other machines reviews. No sound problems. Without headphones its acceptable. BUT, use Bose noise reduction headphones and it is awesome. On top of that it has two jacks for headphones, great for traveling with a firend or spouse,

The picture is excellent. I could argue for a few more chances to fine tune a picture but in the end the large screen and sharpness makes watching a movie or concert a pleasure.

Battery life is 3+ hours for the one provided and I have purchased the extended which is easily available. The weight is probably more than a small screen but very reasonable and easy to carry on the road.

I could not be happier with the player. The research was worth the time and I got the right player.

The Toshiba SD-P1500 is one of the best styled portable DVD players I've seen. The controls are easy to use, except for the fact that you have to tunnel into menus to access fast-forward and rewind controls. The display is very large, at 8 inches. In addition it has an excellent contrast ratio and black level. However one disappointment is the number of pixels: barely just over 100,000. For a unit of this price I would have expected closer to 300,000 pixels. The result of so few pixels? A rather large amount of moire patterns are visible.

I bought the SD-P1500 for a great price through another online vendor and was very excited to try it out. We took it on a long car ride and found the screen to be excellent, but the built-in speakers had a limited volume range. I was willing to overlook that shortcoming as I imagined using headsets or connecting to a TV primarily anyway.

But, less than a week later, when using it on a plane the same volume limitation occurred. I could NOT hear anything except VERY FAINT dialogue and the occasional sound effect. On a layover, I spent money on "noise reduction" headsets. Again, to no avail. No matter what DVD I put in, neither I nor my traveling companion could hear the dialogue or music while flying.

On the ground with no engine noise, the device is not exactly perfect either. It was very finnicky about the DVD's it would play. The first disc I tried (Phenomenon) would not "read". I cleaned the disk, looking for obvious reasons, but still had no luck. I encountered the same problem with another disc (Dangerous Liaisons) which was double sided with widescreen and full-screen versions. The full-screen version could be played, the widescreen could not.

Finally one last problem, which may or may not be related to this device, was output to a TV. I tried hooking it up to a TV in a hotel room without any luck. The TV sensed the connection, but I could never get any picture or sound. Granted this may have been a problem with the TV and not the device. I did not try it again when I returned home.

I am returning the device to the e-tailer from whence it came. I wish I had better news, but I have to give this device a big-thumbs-down.

Beware.