Toshiba SD-330E

Bought my Toshiba SD-330E from Amazon in September 2003 for £80. My 4 year old son uses the remote control with ease by himself so clearly simple to use. Would definitely recommend and now they are even cheaper. Have had no problems whatsoever.

I bought this player in Safeway for £55 as a replacement for my Alba DVD103 (which cost me £99 at the time) which had broken down, and I was immediately impressed by the Toshiba player. The picture/sound quality was good, the player had a very well set out remote and was very easy to use. It plays back all of my DVDR media, VCDs and of course, retail dvds flawlessly, even dvdr media that has not been written very well that some other players struggle with. I am very satisfied with this product and am confused at one shop I saw selling it for £120 in a "showroom clearance".

I bought one of these Toshiba SD-330E DVD Players when they were first offered at £80 at Amazon. At first I thought it was great but it didn't take long for the problems to become apparent. Firstly there were sync problems with svcds. Later it stopped reading dvd-rs that initially it would work with. Then when playing low bit rate dvds I found it had a lot of artifacts and pixellating on screen. Basically the dvd drive was failing on mine and I had to send mine back for a refund. I wasn't happy with the build quality of this player. Not the main electronics but the actual dvd drive built in was very slow and frankly rubbish. Its also crude and slow in operation compared to some of the really cheap chinese players. Others have reported frame skipping problems with this player. Thats not something I've experienced when I had mine but again points to a rubbish dvd drive fitted to these.

Basically the Toshiba SD-330E is very good DVD player..cheap as chips now for decent quality. Plays VCD/SVCDs mp3 and JPEGs. I have noticed though that mp3 and jpeg compilations placed on a DVD dont work which is another annoyance (firmware update ?), placed on a CDr/RW they are fine. Guessing it maybe a file system restriction but even if I put one or two JPEGs or MP3s on a DVDr it wont read it.

This Toshiba SD-330E plays every type of disc so far, but i find the picture too dark, there is settings to brighten it but not enough. Even brightening the tv doesnt help.

The DVD market is now very competitive. The new Toshiba SD-330E DVD player, multi region, for just under £100 is an absolute bargain for any first time buyer. The picture and sound quality are equal to many other players costing much more.