Home > Consumer Reviews > Toshiba SD4700 Progressive-Scan DVD Player

This player packs a lot of value into a relatively well priced package. On average, for a few more bucks than it's main competition (ehem...Panasonic, etc.), not only do you get progressive scan and CD, CD-R, CD-RW, MP3 playback but this unit also includes DVD-Audio, which delivers amazing sounding 24-bit 96KHz audio on 6 channels (or 2 if you prefer). It just kills regular CD audio. Toshiba's Colorstream Pro progressive picture on my Toshiba 43H70 TV (high def progressive rear projection) is as good as it gets for picture quality in this price range. No aliasing or artifacts, rich and detailed picture. Add optical, coax, and 5.1 outputs (all gold plated) plus component out (of course) plus cool looks (blue LED, scrolling + fading matrix display, cool navi menu, etc.) and you have an awsome player that people will drool over. Best in class for the money.

I purchased the SD-4700 mainly for its progressive scan feature and I must say that it does make a big difference. I'm using this player with a Philips digital widescreen HDTV (32" tube) and, finally, I'm starting to see the full potential of the DVD format. Some people may argue that since a lot of new TVs (especially HDTVs) are equipped with high quality line doublers, you get all the benefits of progressive scanning directly from your TV, but at least in my case, the SD-4700 does a much better job than Philips' own "Natural Motion" technology in presenting progressive output while still maintaining that "film quality" of the... err... film :)

The remote control is a lot easier to use than previous Toshiba models and provides very easy access to all the features you may need during playback (e.g. subtitles, audio and angle selection). It also contains a rather large joystick that makes it very easy to navigate menus. Also worth mentioning is the fact that all the controls are also available on the player itself. Very useful for these times when you accidentally "misplace" the remote.

As for the supported formats, I had no problems playing DVDs, VCDs, music CDs & CDRs and MP3 CDRs. The MP3 support is very basic and has some quirks. For example, I still can't really understand how the player determines the order of tracks. Seems a bit random to me but there must be a logical explanation here :). Anyway, the feature actually does work, the overall sound quality is good and that's what counts. I haven't tested the player with DVD Audio discs yet so I can neither confirm nor deny the problems reported in other reviews.

Now for the kinks, which are minor but still prevent this player from getting 5 stars:

1. Some widescreen HDTVs (my Philips among them) do not allow the user to manually set the aspect ratio for progressive signals. This means that you may get just a little bit frustrated when you play widescreen, NON-anamorphic DVDs ("letterboxed" -- where the "black bars" are coded into the frame to make it display correctly on 4:3 TVs). Your options with these DVDs are to either watch them letterboxed in a rather small 4:3 viewing area (annoying!), have the SD-4700 stretch them to 16:9 (annoying because it will mess up the aspect ratio) or use the zoom feature of the player to try and get the optimal picture (frustrating but doable). What this player really needs is a smart zoom feature that removes the black bars and scales the picture to fit the screen (like most widescreen TVs have) but I guess you just can't get it all. That said, since most new DVDs are anamorphic (contain no black bars and therefore always displayed in the correct aspect ratio), this can be considered a minor inconvenience.

2. The player has some problems displaying menu items in 4:3 progressive mode: highlighted menu items sometimes get totally messed up. This doesn't happen with native 16:9 DVDs or when you set the player to stretch everything to 16:9, so it's not really that big of a deal.

3. Pixel cropping - I think this player crops almost half an inch off the bottom of your picture (I made sure this was not a problem with my TV not being properly aligned). According to the AVIA test signals I used, over 25 pixels were cropped out and that's considered a little too much. Still, I guess many people wouldn't notice this glitch because their TVs are probably cropping so much more... :).

All in all, I am very pleased with this player. You really do get a lot for your money here! Sure, there are a few kinks but they are not horrible (unless you are a non-compromising videophile). If you have an HDTV, you really owe it to yourself to get a progressive scan DVD player, and this is probably one of the better (and cheaper) ones out there.

In my opion, i think this is the best DVD player on the market for this year. It supports all formats, dvd-audio, mp3 and progressive scan at the price (...). The picture is amazing. DVD-audio is excellent. Just like you are sitting right in the middle of the real concert. The remote is very useful and easy to use. You can't ask anymore from this DVD player.

I purchased this unit wanting to have one player handle all formats, as well as progressive scan, which will be my next upgrade (16:9 format screen).

As a DVD player, it doesn't get better than this! The player has exceptional picture quality with no "hangs" or artifacts. The freeze frames are crystal clear. The zoom function was far more useful than I had expected. It is amazing how far you can zoom in on a picture with minimal picture quality degradation. If you do not care for the black bars you are forced to have on some wide screen DVD movies, you can "zoom" as much of them away as you want! Right now it is connected to a Mitsubishi 46" with an S-video cable. This is the best picture this set has ever displayed. I can't wait to see what it will do on a progressive scan set! All the outputs you need for audio are there - coax, RCA, and optical, as well as the ability to handle Dolby Digital, DTS, etc.

As an MP3 player, I am disappointed. Some files that played flawlessly on an MP3 player or PC had distortion, and LOUD sound artifacts when played on the Toshiba. Other similar files played fine. Although the addendum sheet stated to use 8 character file names and no more than a 74 minute CD-R, it seems to work also with 80 minute CD-Rs and CDR-Ws (same results with MP3 - poor). No problems when the MP3 file was burned in standard CD audio format, though.)Also, no problems with standard audio CD playback.

The remote control was easy to use and intuitive for major functions. It is not the "universal" type. The menu structure is easy to use.

The manual was clear, but I would like to have seen it broken down by type of media being played back. An extra manual is included to correct all the errors in the original manual Most of these correct functions the manual states the player will do, but in reality does not do.

Overall, I am pleased with the machine as a DVD/CD player.

The perfect DVD player. It has all the features you could want, and if you someday plan on upgrading your TV to HDTV (and you should), the progressive scan feature on this player will blow you away. This model packs in all the high-tech yet user-friendly features you'd want. Did you know that hardly any other brands feature a ZOOM feature like Toshiba does? Gosh, I thought it should be a standard feature. The Toshiba SD4700 (and most other Toshiba models) has it, as well as every stereo decoding feature you'll want or need. Prepare to be awestruck by the superior sound, picture, and breadth of options!