I have been noticing several unfortunate problems posted here on the SD3109. I also noticed that one of them was posted on 'www.hometheaterforum.com' with the well-documented downconversion problems that get exhibited on 4:3 format televisions, but not necessarily the 16:9 tubes. To those having problems please try to list exactly what is your setup (TV format 16:9 or 4:3?, DVD Player location in reference to the receiver, do you regularly clean owned or rental disks before playing???
I have spoken with two fairly reputable home theater stores, they both asked if I had placed this DVD player in close proximity to the receiver (say right above it?)or am I keeping or cleaning the DVD/CD disks religiously.

I am not trying to downplay your problems since they appear real and disturbing to all of us, but try to follow the instructions listed in the Toshiba owner manual and if possible do the following:

Never put a DVD play "above" a potentially high temperature source (say a "space heater" receiver...)
Clean all disks and buy a quality disk cleaning package
Keep it out of direct sunlight and free of dust accumulation.

IMHO these less expensive DVD players are using cheaper electronic components that are more sensitive to heat problems (you get what you pay for....).

I do agree that it is very possible that a bad manufacturing run could of happen on this SD3109 model, so I am checking now if there is a "hidden" manufacturer's recall on these units say for the past one to two months. Hope this is a help to all SD3109 owners. To be fair to all I gave 3 stars for listing this post response.

I have owned a Sony DVP-S3000 for about two years, purchased when they first hit the street. I have been very happy with this player, only having problems with one disc (Godzilla, would not load.) I thought that the sound and more importantly the picture were great, that is until about one hour ago. I just purchased the Toshiba 3109 and after testing it on three discs I have revised my opinion about the Sony and now I think that the S3000 picture is OUTSTANDING. I can't believe how many people have praised the 3109 as the end all be all of DVD players. I can't comment on other things because nothing is more easy to compare than the picture quality. I purchased a new player for the better sound (DTS, ETC.) that has been made availible in the last year or so, and, the component outputs that I may or may noy use with the new TheaterWide 40" Toshiba. I was only 1-2 minutes into the first disc, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, when I noticed absolutely horrible edges on the Toshiba. If you watch the very begining with just the credits and the old lady sitting at the bench you will notice an incredible amout of edge (artifacts ?) problems on the bench. Go only a minute or so more when Cusack is walking and see's the guy by the car and you will notice even more,like on his jacket and the brick walls, they are all over. I never experienced ANY problems like this with the Sony. So I put in another disc, Air Force 1, and scanned around. I did not notice any situations that were as obvious but there were still many of them. I can't yet comment on the sound difference because it is not as easy to compare. I was able to get the Godzilla to run on the first try, but at what cost. I don't know if the Sony is just that good a player, or that the Toshiba is just that bad. The one thing I do know is that I am glad I bought the Toshiba at my local Best Buy and not somewhere online because this dog is going back to the pound right now.

Well, I posted a RX-V495 receiver review a couple of months ago and that package is working simply excellent. I now got the SD3109, hook it up a have played a couple of DVD movies. It has very decent video and 5.1 audio output and is affordable DVd player. After much web watching on www.pricescan.com and the usual ubid and webauction sites, I have noticed most people on the auction bids are paying about $20 to $50 dollars less than the best web prices available at earthstations, consumer-direct, and onecall. The best price on the pricescan search is ~$319 from either earthstations or consumer-direct.
Well, I just bought this SD3109 at Sears (of all places...) for $292.5 + tax ( it has to be charged on Sear's credit card). Got a two year extended waranty at $36 for a total of $353 plus change. They matched a another warehouse store's best price of $325 and gave me another 10% off that price because of their in-store special. Really close to most of the web auction prices I have seen the last 45 to 60 days. I guess I have concentrated on mostly price value on this post, but I believe this SD3109 can be had at local authorized dealer for under $300 if you watch for local sales and price dickering.

I've owned this player for 1 month. When I purchased this unit, I considered the Sony DVD-550. I paid $341 for the Toshiba and could have bought the Sony for $397. I strongly considered the Sony since I am using a Sony 9000-ES Pre/Pro.There are 2 reasons I went with the Toshiba. First and foremost, I love the zoom feature that the Sony lacked and second, I really like the enhanced black level setting (which the Sony also lacked). I have the player hooked up to a 35" Toshiba flat screen TV. Here are my impressions of the unit:
... I haven't noticed any artifacts when playing 1.85:1 and 2.35:1 DVDs.
... I don't have my TV calibrated, but I find the picture too bright without using the enhanced black level which gives the picture exceptional contrast and even more apparent detail. If you check out Sound and Vision magazine when they did the 4 unit budget face off, check out the video frequency response of the SD-2109 compared to the other 3 units and notice that it is almost competely flat all the way out to 6.75 Mhz. This matches the performance of the Sony DVD-7700 at a fraction of the price and results in an extremely sharp picture.
... The zoom allows me to create pseudo pan and scan if I find the black bars too obtrusive (especially on 2.35:1 transfers), however, I only step it up once or twice at the most since full zoom greatly distorts the picture. With each step up on the zoom, some resolution is lost but overall, I'd give up a little sharpness and picture cropping over watching 50% of my TV with black bars on it. Usually though, I leave 1.85:1 alone (without zoom) since most of the screen is intact and the picture is mesmerizing.
... The sound quality on both movies and cd's is outstanding with exceptional dynamic range and clarity.
... The remote control works well and the player is easy to operate with one big exception: The combined chapter skip and scan button was a horrible design decision. Skipping is easy but scanning is difficult since more often than not when you try to scan you end up skipping chapters. To get the scan to go on, you must make sure your finger is fully pressed on the button without letting go for about one second. This is a minor caveat in light of the overall performance and value of the unit.

On a side note, I wonder if anybody compared the SD-3109 with the Toshiba SD-9000 and noticed any performance differences with respect to picture/sound quality. Other than a better remote and more weight to the unit for the 9000, the specifications seem identical. Any comments?

Regarding Brian's post {a couple back}. Well Brian, i have the right to state my opinion. Btw, i share an old 2 story converted dorm style house with 14 other students. We share an Internet account {well 6 of us do}. I was recommended this player from one of them. In fact, she told me of this site! She {SLB} likes her 3109 and i dont share her opinion and returned mine.

I have been using the 3109 for about five months now and never have any problem with it. The player is great on DVD and good on CD. The remote is very functional and I particularly love the little beep that acknowledges the command is received. Picture quality is flawless in my system (Sony Trinitron 27 in.) The sound quality on DVD lives nothing more to be desired. I have it hooked to a Marantz dp-870 via optical cable and my speakers are AR 312HO front, AR 4C center and AR 308HO surround. Power is supplied by a Carver AV-505 bi-amping the front speakers with an Adcom 535II. The signal totally bypasses my AV600 pre-amp. Overall, the player does everything I was expecting of it very well.

This player doesnt live up to the quality that Toshiba usually brings. Its built very cheaply at any price. Picture quality was good in full screen movies but on widescreen movies, there are alot of artifacts a plenty. They really show up on scenes with brick buildings ect.While skipping thru chapters quickly, i noticed that the time frame displayed on the screen got out of sync. This happened when rapidly skipping chapters. This unit wont play cdrs. It only uses one laser {some units use two...one for audio cds and one for dvd}so, if you use this player for audio cds, its more wear n tear on the player. The subwoofer output is sub par. The player i previously had, had much higher subwoofer response. I had to really turn up my subwoofer to get it to respond even marginally like the old player. The remote is a total joke! Can we say "cost effective?". The front panel on the 3109 is very bare. You will be depending on the remote for most features. Sadly, with the lip sync problems that the Sony and Pioneer units have in this same price range, there isnt a whole lot of choices... otherwise the Sony 530 or 550 would have been a better overall choice. One plus is the price tag. Considering it has the 5 to 1 decoder built in and this player can be gotten for mid $300 range I will give it 2 stars.

Disregard the last post by Steve. Its pretty obvious he has a defective player or defective brain, since his post a few back under the name of SLB was a glowing one. This DVD player is rock solid and does everything it advertises very well. Dont forget to calibrate your system also to get the most of your sound environment.

I've had this player for a couple of months and I must say that so far I am quite impressed. Build quality does leave a little to be desired, but playback is crisp and the colors are sharp and the audio is superlative even when using built-in decoder. I do regret the lack of an advanced speaker setup. HDCD decoding is excellent, however regular CD playback is pretty much what you'd expect from a DVD player. One minor glitch I have noticed is that on some solid background during DVD playback there is a minor Pulsing or pixelating, for lack of a better word, that occurs. All and all, I'm very satisfied with this player.

After several months of checking various DVD player in the $500 price range, I ended up puchasing the SD-3109. Reason for my decision was there seems to be 3-LARGE gaps in DVD unit performance. The low-end RCA 200.00 machines that present a decent picture, but sound is not real crisp...esp. on regular CD's. The second gap is where (I feel the Toshiba ranks) MID to high 300.00 range. The Toshiba does sound and image real justice especially on DVD. Regular CD sound quality isn't bad for this price point. A big plus is HDCD which sounds GREAT! Problem is trying to find HDCD's. But back to DVD...the Dolby Digital sound is fantiastic through my Harman Kardon AVR 55 and AR/Boston Acoustic set up. On the high end ya got your Sony s7700 and Denon 5000...great units! But geez, not THAT much better for the extra nearly thousand ya end up spending.
I fell it may be worth dropping a thousand or so on a high end DVD player...but not yet! There will soon be DVD Audio and who knows what else evolving in DVD technology (Recording capability perhaps?) I ended up entering the DVD market kinda in the middle waiting for this technolgy to fully evolve.

I believe that the Toshiba is a great player to get at this time! In the future...who knows?