Picture, ease of use, nice menus, good sound

Bit cold sounding,

I recently bought the Toshiba 2109e DVD player- amazing sound through my Audiolab 8000lx amp, really sparkles with dvds, especially the Matrix soundtrack, which had great dynamics.
The picture quality is pretty good although I have yet to test it with well produced DVDs. I hear Saving Private Ryan has good picture, along with A Bugs Life.
Soundwise it is pretty good with movies, allowing all the bass and detail of explosions I would
want. Although quieter passages there could be more ambience and warmth. It is however miles away from my Rotel RCD 991 interms of cd quality playback, which is to be expected at the price. I would recommend using this player with warmer sounding home cinema amps, like Yamaha as this will compensate for the cool tones.
I have no problem with the remote and I like the display off function for late night viewing. I have also not really noticed the noisy disc tray.
I usually take the Dynamic Range Control OFF as it makes a big difference to bass output- GREAT FUN.
Overall as good player a player as you are likely to get at the price range of £300. I would say that it beats most players up to at least £400 and rivals them at £550.

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Pioneer 525
Sony 325/525

Relatively cheap machine. Great picture and sound.

I have had this player for 2 weeks now and I have really enjoyed all the movies I have watched on it. Yes, all the complaints that have been raised here is true, the remote is not as great as one would like but sufficient, the reading of disc is rather slow and yes, it is rather loud when the disc is spinning, it does not play CD-R and there is no optical output. But then we all forget how much we pay for it. A backlit and nicer remote would bring the cost up and I am sure you do not want to pay more for just the remote? If so then go for the more expensive model. I personally think that for the amount we pay, it is a great machine and a really good machine for those who are looking at getting their first DVD player. Contemplate no more get one and enjoy!

component outputs, zoom feature, DTS/AC-3, price

cheap @$$ remote

I read a lot of good reviews about the 2109, and picked this unit up at Value America for 125.00 shipped. The colors are a little more vibrant than my Sony DVP-S300, and seems to pack more features as well. If Toshiba would have spent a little more R&D designing that damn remote, most of us would not have anything to complain about :)

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Sony DVP-S300

Component video out, plays cd's amazing picture, not loud when playing disks

Remote(no backlight)

This is my first dvd player and I love it! The picture is amazing, has GREAT features, and is in a reasonable price range. I picked this one up for 199.99 at amazon when they had the mistaked marked price. Look, if you can find this for under $300.00, get it! Also, I know that everyone here is going to kill me, but people reading this reveiw, I personally really like this remote. It just doesn't have a backlight that's all. After owning it for a while, you just get used to it. Thinking about jumping up to the Toshiba SD-3109? Don't! It costs $150.00 bucks more and it's no better. One last thing that I love about this DVD player is the zoom feature! It's 4x zoom is great on reading small words in movies that they don't want you to read! Thanks for reading my review! If you want to leave a comment, complaint, or agreement just e-mail me at pcgamer45@wa.freei.net!

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none

Easy operation, very smooth picture, zoom feature and 2x fast forward.

Remote, seems to load slowly

Very good machine, slim, fast, and easy to use.

GREAT Picture

No optical out

I have owned and used both the Samsung 709 and PhilipsMagnavox 825 and the Toshiba is far better. The picture is much sharper than the Philips and it doesn't skip like the Samsung. The Toshiba has only locked up once on me (on the movie Silverado) I hit stop and then play and it resumed without a hitch. The zoom feature is fabulous. I wouldn't have a DVD without one.

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Samsung 709; PhilipsMagnavox 825

DTS, S-video and component video, and price.

no optical output, remote is too small

Super unit. Great picture and relatively easy to use. However, I hate the remote because it's too small and hard to use in the dark. I have had no problems playing back any of the disks that I have rented so far. DTS encoded disks sound awesome. Got it for $237 at a retail store.

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Pioneer 525

solid dvd with good feature set at a great price

going from fast forward to play is not as smooth as it could be

got one from amazon for $199 for my family. didn't expect too much, but had gotten recommendations from friends more into audio/video than i. they said the quality of dvd's have pretty much peaked and that more money would only buy extraneous features. and with all the web deals this holiday season, it was hard to resist. great, fun features! won't want to ever rent tapes again! picked up one for myself using mercata.com for $190 shipped. great deal if you're wanting to add dvd to your home entertainment system...can't understand why people would want multi-dvd players.

Price, Sound Quality

downconversion, no optical output

This is a great player for the price (I paid $200 a few months ago). It doesn't have the same problems (lip sync, etc) as other units do and has been reliable so far. The only problem is with it's downconversion. I have a 27" TV and frequently notice problems (wavy lines, patterns, and frequent pixilization). I first purchased the Pioneer 414 and thought it was excellent (good picture, sound, etc), but got really annoyed with the "disc spinning" noise that was extremely apparent. I returned it and purchased the SD2109. Comparing both, the Pioneer excelled with picture quality (for those of us without WS TVs), but I chose to sacrifice that for a quiet player.

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Pioneer 414,525

Price (One of the cheapest models out there), sound quality

Small remote control buttons, no bookmark feature

I had originally purchased a DVD ROM drive to play DVD movies thinking that was adequate but the sound quality that came out was lousy. I looked around newsgroups and the Toshiba 2109 seemed to be the best entry level model. I've used it for about a month now and have no serious complaints. All my DVDs play great, and I don't hear any sound distortions or hissing noises that I heard on a computer drive.

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DVD ROM drive