Home > Consumer Reviews > Toshiba SD2805 5-Disc Carousel DVD and CD Player

We loved, loved, loved our first DVD player, a Toshiba that worked flawlessly, except on one scene of one particular disc which was damaged anyway. But we wanted a multi-disc player, so when we found this Toshiba at a very reasonable price, we jumped. It actually plays the damaged disc flawlessly, and purports to play CD-Rs (which our old player wouldn't) and MP3s (which is a feature I haven't tried, mostly because I'm not really interested (I hook up my iPod to my stereo instead when I want to hear MP3s over my big speakers (which I don't usually...))).

Overall, it's a great player. The DVD playback is flawless, picture and audio-wise. And CDs sound great, too. I haven't tried the MP3 functionality or the CD programming features; I mostly use the system to watch movies. We use component video to connect directly to our Sony WEGA 32" TV. It's phenomenal. Star Wars and Lord of the Rings both look perfect, better even than in the theatre, though they are smaller. Funnily enough, the high picture quality reveals the flaws in the transfer of The Matrix, which is unfortunate, since I love that movie, but that's probably more to do with our TV than the DVD player.

The remote is comfortable and attractive, much better than Sony's remotes. However, the most important button, PAUSE, is one of the hardest to find by touch. I like to watch movies in the dark and even when I have the lights on, I still don't want to have to look for the pause button. Take a note from Tivo, guys, and make the Pause button the most prominent and easiest to find by touch! My other complaint about the remote system is that although it is possible to access any disc via the disc skip button on the remote, I would like button on the remote to behave the same way as the button on the machine, i.e. I should be able to skip immediately onto the next disc by pressing it multiple times instead of waiting for one to load. I guess that's a personal preference issue.

A word to the wise: don't pick up the player and tilt it with discs inside. They will fall out of their trays and wrack you with worry as you hope none of them break when you open the tray to correct your mistake. None of my discs were scratched or broken when I did this. It's a stupid mistake, but learn from my experience!

Besides the disc jumble, installation is a snap. Every output you might need is on the back, including fiber optic for the audio, which I recommend (although our Sony receiver doesn't have a fiber-in for the DVD, and I have to use the CD setting, what's with that?), component video, PCM audio, and RCA audio and video. Component video is king for analog sets, and I recommend that route if your TV supports it. I haven't checked out the PCM and RCA outs perform.

So what's bad about this player? My remote quibbles are minor annoyances. But here's the problem: for whatever reason, it just will not play some DVDs. I started noticing the problem when we bought the new Beauty and the Beast special edition DVD for our daughter, two months after we got the player. I got as far as the menu, but the movie would never start, or the player would behave erratically. Since then, I've noticed about 30% of Netflix movies cause the same problem or won't play at all, which is what my copies of The Princess Bride and 2001 do. I have to resort to watching those on our old DVD player on our smaller, bedroom TV. Even Star Wars hangs up every third time I watch it or so. I don't know if the B&B DVD caused the problem or was just the first indication. All I know is that I feel cheated by the whole thing, since I'm well beyond all the warranty and exchange periods now. Buyer beware!

I have been happy with this unit, although I do not use it for much else than playing DVDs. One thing that really disappointed me is that the online literature promotes two features that this unit does not have. The first feature is "Paralle Video Output". This feature allows the DVD player to drive the Component Video and S-Video at the same time. My unit has a tiny switch in the back that I have to toggle all of the time. The other feature is "Bookmark". This feature is promoted as useful for demonstrating to friends. Well, the player does not have a 'Bookmark' feature, but it does have 'Marker Search'. Marker Search is useless for demonstration because the markers are cleared when the unit powers down and the unit powers down automatically after some time. I called Toshiba on this and their response was "All design specifications and dimensions are tentative and subject to change."

Toshiba did a decent job of providing a good DAC for their video and digital audio options for excellent sound. However, it lacks the intelligence that I think should be standard for a device like this. For instance, it does not seem to have continuous play (or at least I can't find a way to enable it). When playing CDs, it stops after each disc and you have to manually tell it to play the next one. duh. So, you press the "Skip Disc" button on the remote and it goes to the next disc (somewhat slowly) and then stops again. duh. You then have to press play to get it to go. Repeat the above after each CD. It's smart enough to know that it's a CD and not a DVD, but not smart enough to know that you want it to keep going. The only way I could find around this is to do a Program play and specify each disc. This is a pain to do every time I want to just dump 5 CDs in, press play and have music for ~4 hours. My current CD changer which is 5 years old can do this, why can't the SD2805?

From what I can tell after running it through the ringer for three days, it plays DVDs quite well. However, the purpose of this machine is to be multi-function device and be able to be a CD changer which IMO it fails at. Why else would you have the capability to hold 5 discs and be able to play CDs and MP3s?

I read the reviews and decided to get this player. I am really happy with it overall and would recommend it for someone who is on a budget but wants a solid unit. If you are really picky or expect the best, this player is not for you. There is one major thing I found lacking about this unit. When it finishes playing a given disk, it does not automatically move to the next one. This seems like a basic function for a disk changer? Not on this unit. I've gotten over it and have been enjoying the item. This is my first DVD player and I had a beaten up diskman attached to my stero for audio. So for me, this is a huge improvement. It was really easy to hook up and works great. Good player if you are on a budget or just don't think you need top of the line. It gets the job done, but not with style.

I bought this product when Amazon was offering a special back in Nov. About 45 days later, it began skipping tracks on DVD playback. At first, it wasn't so bad, maybe one track on a two hour DVD. A week later, it wouldn't play at all. So much for being able to watch some fun DVD's over the holidays! Took it to the shop at the end of December (since beyond the 30 day window for return at Amazon). Upshot, it's still there and is expected to be there another "couple of weeks" since the part to be replaced (the laser) is on "backorder". I'm guessing it's because so many of the ones that were DOA from Amazon are now being refurbished!

If you do buy this unit, make sure you play the heck out of it during your "30 day" Amazon window!