Home > Consumer Reviews > Toshiba SD-V280 DVD-VCR Combo, Silver

I purchase this vcr/dvd combo today and was disappointed. My first dvd movie suddenly paused without warning...I could not start my movie and had to exit all together. Second, use of the remote control was frustrating. Save yourself some headaches...do not purchase. I'm returning my purchase tomorrow.

First off being a combo unit it saves alot of shelf space and thats good. The dvd player is a very good unit. The pictures are bright and clear and colors seem very prominet-like film. The sound from the dvd player is equally good. All the subtle noies and loud moments come through clear. One problem though, on layer changes the player pauses a good 3 to 4 seconds. Although on Jurassic Park 3 I noticed nothing at all. It may depend on the disc so, its not a deal breaker for me. No digitizing occured during playback either. It has optical and coax outputs for DD and DTS sountracks. Also, "s" video, composite. and componet outputs. The vcr is like all vcr's today with all the basic functions. It does rewind very fast though, and it records unusally well in SLP mode. The playback of rental tapes and some of my own were ouite respectable. Not a bad vcr. With music cd's I was a little surprized. It sounded quite clear and of good quality to me on various types of music. One note though, the bass was very prominet. This may be because Im using the optical output for cd's for the first time and adjustments were needed in my receiver settings. So thats it . Quite a good little deal if you ask me. With exception of the layer changes and a poorly laid out instruction manual, the SD-V280 is a good deal.

When I bought this combo system I assumed that in exchange for convenience and space saving there would be some compromises. Unfortunately there are a little too many. First, the unit cannot play back MP3 CDs as advertised. It lost about half of the songs from each CD I tried, it broke individual songs into multiple files, it messed up directory structure -- in short, forget about using it to playback your MP3 collection. It is clear that the MP3 functionality was tacked on as an afterthought - and not very well. Instructions regarding MP3 playback do not even appear in the (indecipherable) manual, but rather are found on an (equally indecipherable) piece of paper shipped with the unit. Since MP3 playback was a big selling point for me, I was rather disappointed.

A second annoyance is that the remote control does not work with my new Toshiba TV. Nor does the Toshiba TV remote work with the VCR/DVD. This is just ridiculous.

My main complaint however is that the unit simply stopped working 3 weeks after I bought it. The entire electrical system just shorted out - I couldn't even eject the tape and DVD that were in it. Amazingly, there is a Toshiba certified repair center nearby. They promise to have it fixed about 3 weeks. Great.

Update - Two weeks later, I received a call from the Toshiba Authorized Service Center saying that they don't know how to fix the unit. I was told to call Toshiba customer support. Toshiba says they will looking it, but are non-commital doing anything.

I bought the SDV280 after returning a similar competing product (reviewed elsewhere). I can't comment on reliability, but so far I'm pleased with the DVD playback quality. The disc drive is quiet and the tray has a good, solid feeling when it comes scooting out. The remote is very responsive and has separate pairs of buttons for FF/Rew and Skip Forward/Back. As others have pointed out, however, it is not a universal remote.

One gotcha with this unit, as with other combos, is that it does not necessarily free up an input on your TV. If you use just the RCA connections, you can play both DVD and VCR on one input (the Toshiba does the necessary switching), but if you use S-Video for the DVD, you need to plug the VCR into the second set of RCA jacks; it won't play on the first. That's the case with my TV anyway, and it means threading the VCR cables around to the front of the TV, which is not completely satisfactory.

The player is very nice to look at, with a nicely subdued blue glow to the digital display. It's surprisingly lightweight and easy to carry and position. The gold connectors are nice too. Quality is excellent with both the DVD and VHS. Recording looks good. Colors seem perfect. Audio is top notch. Dialogue, music, and the bass really kick in nicely. Monster cables or something equal increase the quality something fierce, so I recommend picking those up. The VHS is noticably less crisp than DVD, but that's pretty much a given with anything. I'm sure the remote and on-screen menus could be made more user-friendly, but I'm not complaining. Some form of audioscopes would be welcome to go along with the music. Overall, no real complaints. I like the multitude of features. It compliments my little home theater setup nicely.