Toshiba SD-220/e Review

Overall Rating

Price. Excellent quality video and audio. Sleek modern design. Wealth of AV outputs.

Question-marks regarding the "Firmware" version.

DVD Player: Toshiba SD220 E (multi-region chipped) playing through a JVC AV28CT1 16:9 via SCART, alongside a Toshiba V-852UK VHS VCR.

For the money, GBP135, I feel I've got an absolute bargain on this player. It's the third DVD player I've owned, and by far the best in terms of image clarity and colour stability - essential for losing yourself in a movie, rather than being reminded of the limitations of your DVD player.

In particular, the Toshiba SD220 is very good at retaining colour and contrast across large screen-areas of similar colours, whereas less able equipment will tend to produce blocky and pixilated chunks of only one or two colours.

In keeping with my own varied taste in movies, the Toshiba SD220 has had to cope with all sorts of genres - and has done it with aplomb!

Where crispness is indended - say in something modern, like X-Men - the SD220 produces smooth, sharp images that are neither harsh nor hard-edged. On an old movie, such as The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, the subtleties of the image are rendered clearly without being glaring or looking "digital".

The highest praise I can give about the picture quality is simply that you don't notice you are watching a DVD! You are aware of crystal clear, quality images, but you are never brought back to reality by poor textures, or signs that the DVD player has reached its technical limits.

I dare say that true aficionados of DVD would tell you that "product x", or "product y" produces better picture quality. That may be so, but will the increase in picture quality be proportionate to the increase in cost? I suspect the latter will probably far outweigh the former...

In terms of sound quality - unfortunately I've decided that my TV doesn't possess the best quality sound output from its on-board speakers, so my point of reference is not be the best.

Hopefully someone else, with access to better sound equipment will be able to add some comments? But in the most general terms, the sound quality is better from the DVD than from the VCR or broadcast signals - as you might expect!

My player was purchased from Richer Sounds and has proved to be faultless. I am aware that there was an issue with RS off-loading older machines with known firmware issues (they were shipping machines with version 1.3 that would not play The Matrix, or Planet of the Apes without skipping. Try pressing "zoom 606 zoom" without a disc inserted to check yours, or, if that doesn't work, search the internet for the right code). The machine I purchased early August 2002 had firmware version 1.5 and has played The Matrix and all my other R2 DVD discs without complaint. As yet, I don't own any R1 DVD discs to try, so can't comment on the multi-region capability.

However, I have tried VCD, CD, and CD-R (not high-quality or well looked-after discs either) - all of which the Toshiba has dealt with without incident.

I hope to upgrade to 5.1 Surround Sound in due course, and this unit appears to provide an excellent upgrade avenue. There are numerous outputs on the back of the machine, including an optical-out that should allow me to make up for the deficiencies of my TV's poor speakers.

Interestingly however, there is no coaxial (TV aerial) output, so if you don't have a TV that allows either SCART, or S-Video input, the SD220 isn't for you.

But then if you used coaxial, you wouldn't be getting the best from the machine anyway, and in the case of this extremely stylishly presented and very high quality unit that would be a crying shame - because there's a lot here to be enjoyed.

Members' Comments onFly Boy.'s Review

• simo. on 20th Sep 2002

  Excellent review mate, I think i'll run off to richer sounds and get me one.
  
  thanks

• mark. on 22nd Sep 2002

  Excellent review mate, so much so i went out and bought myself one, really pleased with the machine. It`s played everything so far even region 1 enemy at the gates with no problems.

• Si. on 24th Sep 2002

  Thanks for the review.. mine is ordered.

• koi-boy. on 1st Oct 2002

  Thanks for the review , very helpful.
  I am about to purchase the same machine as mine recently blew up in severe power surge, so the electricity company will now be paying for a better machine to go with with my dd/dts decoder.
  Once again , thanks .

• tick. on 4th Nov 2002

  Good review, I am about to put this machine to the ultimate test and plug it into my NEC VT45 projector (using component in). I will post the review later. On your review, I am pleased you withdrew from being to techi and stuck to the facts, i.e. what do the pictures look like, I hate those reviews that are full of numbers etc. All we need to know is what is the machine like to live with and what is the value for money level. Cheers T

• Jo. on 16th Nov 2002

  Great review..thanks for the info. FYI...amazon are knocking these out at 119.00 so have rung RS and they will give it to me at 110.00 incl free delivery....bargain!!

• Clizzywizzy. on 21st Nov 2002

  Hi, I am having real problems with this DVD player as I have a Region 1 disc which will not play at all. Has anyone had any success with Region 1 dvds on this machine?

• shezbabe. on 30th Nov 2002

  Clizzywizzy - is your tv NTSC compatable? as region 1 dvds will only work if you tv is NTSC COMPATABLE, hope this helps.

• albamoto. on 1st Dec 2002

  Good review of this machine and would like to buy one, but can it play s.v.c.d. disc's? Only thing stopping me buying one.

• Tick. on 2nd Dec 2002

  I have used both Region 1 and 2 disks in my machine without any problems, not only that, but I have also found CD Video disks and some video encoded onto DVD Rom disks plays fine. The only problems I have had is playing some DVD-R disks, however, the problem has always been traced to poor quality disks, re recording onto good quality disks has corrected the problem. Are you sure your machine has been chiped corectly? + you need to check the machine has the latest version of softwere (look on the net to find out how to check this).

• andre. on 5th Dec 2002

  Great review. I'm going to try and get one of these over here in the states.

• shezbabe11. on 5th Dec 2002

  Was going to purchase this dvd player but because of the RCE (regional coding enhancement) it stops some multi region player from playing certain dvds , they have started to put on dvds - especially region 1 dvds TOSHIBA seem to be the only player that needs meddling with so i have decided to purchase a PIONEER DV-350 one was for sale on amazon for £119.99 delivered but richer sounds will beat that by a tenner so purchased it from www.richersounds.com for £109.99 to view it on amazon click the following link http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00006AFW4/ref=sr_aps_electronics_1_1/026-7623565-6327631

• yogibear. on 14th Dec 2002

  Just bought a 220E from Richer Sounds and found the review and replies most helpful. As it's for the daughter at xmas I haven't yet tried it (multiregion version). How do I know if I have got the latest 1.5 firmware version and not the earlier 1.3. As this is our first dvd, still a bit green, what is macrovision and what are svcd's. What does pressing zoom 606 zoom do without a disc in (check firmware version?)and can anybody point me to the correct place on the net for the right code if the previous item dosen't work Best Regards yogibear

• TC. on 4th Jan 2003

  Thanks for the great review. I'm going straight out to richer sounds (I hear they do other fantastic deals!).Thanks again!

• Christian Kaiser. on 23rd Jan 2003

  My negative points: a) has problems with my VCDs: sometimes it hangs for a part of a second, sometimes compression artefacts are shown b) playing CDs (yes, the plain audio ones), it only shows the time played or the track number, by an old CD player showed both - the display has enough characters to display both at the same time. Thoughtless. c) Not a quiet drive. You can hear it still when you're a meter away. DVDs without problems yet, though. But when they offer VCDs and CDs too, it should still make sense. :) Christian

• Frédéric. on 2nd Mar 2003

  I've had my toshiba 220 for few weeks now and I'm really happy with - I was just worried once because zone 1 wasn't working, and a friend said it wasn't because of my dvd player but of my 20 year old TV (ntc...), just need to buy a new one now !
  About the sound it is great, I even listen to my music CDs on my Toshiba only ! very good product - only "bemol" I wish it was DVIX compatible, for easy copying, but I've heard copying is forbidden !!
  
  Fred

• jon king. on 18th May 2003

  Great review i've just got the toshiba 220e from richer sounds for £99 pounds (multi region).when you buy a dvd you never know if you have brought the right one,does it play all the discs you want to put in to it? picture and sound live up to what you read or what other reviews say.well i am pleased to say everything does.mine plays dvd-r, vcd,svcd and mp3 on cdr and the sound and picture are great for a hundred pound player

• stevie. on 29th Jun 2003

  i have an early model that is only region 2,
  does anyone know if i can convert it to multi region ?

• c2j2. on 30th Jun 2003

  just google on the net, and you'll find firmware for it.
  
  Ch.