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

Just received mine today, play everything I expected. The only drawback is no SVCD, but I knew that well before I bought it, what can I say ...

The picture quality is good, you know, digital products almost make no difference on signal quality. Composite output is a big plus! And 5 disks ...

So far no quality issue, dunno why the other guy complained, maybe he need a replacement.

A [$$$] carousel player? It can't be true! Well, it is and so far there are 3 of us with this player. One guy loves it, and says that the picture quality is a lot better then his old dvd player. Another person just doesn't care. But here's my detailed review:

1. Remote isn't that bad unless you have big hands. I wear large gloves, and it's fine. Direct Disk Access would be nice though.
2. Disk swapping is indeed slow. It's about 5-10 seconds and you do notice a 1.5 second of repsonse time before it does anything.
3. The drive is picky about disks. I've seen posts about how the dvd player has died. This has happend to me with a rental dvd that was scratched up. If you were spoiled by Pioneer DVD, then you will complain about every DVD player under the sun. This thing gets stuck easily when you fast forward at 100x. I recommend to use a dish detergent and warm water and gentle clean the disk, and dry with soft lintless cloth and try again. But avoid using the 100x scan if you are renting. If your player does 'hang' and get stuck (where power won't even work), then just unplug the power cable, wait for 5 seconds and plug it back in. Most likely the entire system is single board driven, and once one part of the system gets confused, everything goes down the tube. I haven't tested a badly scratched CDs though.
4. I'm in a midst of making a wedding vcd. And I noticed that some higher frequency cuts makes this bleeping noise. Well, if you are a vcd lover, this player probably isn't for you.

A single star for this, I think not. I think for a price, 4 stars. If the power button over-rode everything, it handles a scratched disks better, and there was a direct disk access, it would've gotten a 5 star from me. I have a Pioneer 440, and that plays everything I throw at it, but Pioneers are known for that.

On that note, I think Toshiba could've made this thing a bit more compact, and also the case is really flimsy. Make sure you do not drop this thing.

I bought this DVD player because of the super-low price. But, alas, better to have expensive and functional than [inexpensive] and dead. This player lasted--lemme check--25 minutes. It froze in the middle of a movie then simply refused to read any DVD after that...

Well, I would have tried a third time to get a working player, but Amazon.com has informed me that they are hesitant to send another since they seem to be encountering problems with this particular player.

1st shipment:
Although it would play cds, it wouldn't recognize any of the 5 dvd's I put in it.

Replacement shipment:
Upon opening the box, imagine my suprise to find the carousel door a bit open. I was hopeful that plugging it in and cycling it open and closed would fix that problem. No luck.

I have to say that Amazon.com has been very apologetic and courteous about the whole thing. From the other reviews, it looks like I might have thought this a good player if I would have gotten a working one.

Now the big question... Should I stay away from the Toshiba SD2815?

This unit is my first DVD player and will double as a CD player for
my home theater system. Has a beautiful picture and has worked
great. I do not have a CD burner so I won't be using the other
formats. I have rented several movies that have multiple disks so
the ability to store multiple disks is a plus.
The downside is the depth of the unit. Measure your shelf to see if it will fit.