I'm interested in buying a Toshiba 3109 DVD player. I saw it for sale online for about $299. Does anyone have any experience in how it plays back VCDs, CDs, & CD-Rs? Thanks.

-- Albert Wang (whackbert1@geocities.com), September 01, 1999

Answers

Toshiba has firmware problems with many DVDs. Toshiba can not play back PAL VCDs very well. Toshiba DVD players do not read CD-Rs OR CD- RWs no matter what brand. 3109 is the only unit with true VCD playback ability(i.e. stamped on the front). Lastly Toshiba 3109's $299.99 price can be bested by RCA 5210P or Samsungs 709 both at $249.99. You simply walk into a Best Buy store or Circuit City(if youlive in the U.S.) pay for one of these: get great VCD playback, excellent Cd playback, but lose the CD-R capability but get 5 free DVD movies in return(by mail of course). Samsung can also switch between PAL and NTSC so you can view PAL VCDs with no problems. I bought the RCA 5210P open boxed last month for only $199.99 and the slaesman left Volcano the DVD inside. I like the 5210P but it will not read CD-Rs and the PAL VCDs get stretched or cut off at the top. I do not really care as I also have a laptop and PC.

-- The Lone Ranger (rutger_s@hotmail.com), September 01, 1999.

Thanks for the advice. But what about DVD players that CAN play CD-Rs?

-- Albert Wang (whackbert1@geocities.com), September 01, 1999.

Get one with dual lasers so it can read CD-R. Best bet is Philips DVD825 which is feature upgradable. Only $299.99 or as low as $279.99 in some places. Plus some Best Buys still have the DVD825 with the free movie in the box(Batman And Robin, a cappy movie but hey for free who cares). Again buy it from a retail store so you get the coupon for the five free DVD movies. That means if you fidn the 825 with the free movie plus get the coupon you get SIX MOVIES ALL FOR FREE. I missed out on the five free movies and the DVD825 was my first choice but I could not pass up the RCA 5210P last month when it was only $200.00. By the way the five free movies are Six Days Seven Nights, Lost In Space, Lethal Weapon 4, Stargate, and Stepmom. A great deal and a good reason to buy retail if you ask me.

-- The Lone Ranger (rutger_s@hotmail.com), September 01, 1999.

I have been through five DVD players for the past two years and have retained and discarded some for reasons x, y, z. The one thing I've learned that I can impart to you is that no matter what ads about them claim, you still really can't be aware of any gremlin they refuse to tell you about until you go on and test them yourself. For example, for CD-R, most recent model DVD players read them. To be sure, I always arm myself with an audio CD-R when I go off to buy. Make or borrow one: it's a great tool. This is a dead giveaway: when it's super cheap (~$200) you know it's a first- or second-generation unit that almost certainly will refuse to play CD-R. The great exceptions are, of course, nearly all Sony and Philips models. Same with VCD. Buy or borrow a VCD; in most cities in the world with a Chinatown in them you can get them cheap. In Toronto for example they are lined up along Spadina. You will want to test a DVD player if it plays VCDs because abilities range in this area from total compatibility with VCD to downright DVD/CD play only. Generally DVD players in North America (region 1) are not optimized for VCD playback because VCD is not important here. The reverse is true, on the other hand, in places like Hong Kong & Singapore. The Chinese, bot wanting to be outdone, has upped the ante on VCD by producing SuperVCD, which as of now, can only be played by DVD players made by Konka (http://www.konkausa.com/) which is a mainland China brand quite naturally. It's hard to tell what a manufacturer's priorities are. But mostly they go with what is in style in a specific part of the world. In North America, Toshiba will naturally concentrate on optimizing DVD performance of its players. But in Hong Kong, Toshiba sells VCD/CD players that have all but guilded the lily on the formats, squeezing out just about all you can from the limitations of White Book.

-- EMartinez (epmartinez@hotmail.com), September 02, 1999.

I own a Pioneer DV-414, a top-rated model, which sells for under $300 at Best Buy, has most of the desired features, including component outputs, DTS, MPEG, digital optical and coaxil outputs, 96/24 AD converters, etc, missing only a build-in DD decoder and comes with an bonus of 6 DVDs and 18 rentals. While Pioneer does not specify capability to play CDRs and CDRWs I had no promlem doing that with any media I could record to, at least 5 different brands. The sound quality is superb, I use this unit as my primary CD machine.

-- Vitaly Krivoy (vitalysk@yahoo.com), September 02, 1999.

I once owned a DV414 Pioneer, too. It was nice in that it could play the VCDs I created, but sometimes the audio comes out of sync with the video. I know it was the 414 because when I played the same VCD on another Pioneer (DVK301c) and a Sony DVPS513 it was okay. I thought it was only with VCDs I created. But the problem comes up with other commercially available VCDs (not pirated, mind you) and, grasp this, DVDs. Yes. I first thought I was super-sensitive that I could detect that Mimi Roger's voice was out of sync sometimes in "Lost in Space" until a friend noted the same. But the same Reg 1 DVD was okay in the other players.

-- EMartinez (epmartinez@hotmail.com), September 04, 1999.