Great Picture. Great Sound. Zoom feature can be amusing.

Infrequent video problems (maybe four times in the last 13 months). No optical digital audio out.

I got this player as a gift at Christmas 2000. I've had freeze and pixelation problems a couple of times, and I think that there is actually a bad spot on my copy of The Matrix that is responsible for two of the episodes.

I haven't really auditioned any high end DVD players. But of the players I have seen, I haven't been as impressed with the picture as I am with this Toshiba. Not sure if this would be a good buy at the moment, but when I got it last year I don't think you could get anywhere near the quality of picture the 2300 gives you for the price. You had to spend a lot more money to get this kind of quality picture. In 2002 I'm sure there are better options, such as the second generation Samsung Nuon enhanced player.

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Various Sony and Panasonic DVD players.

spectacular picture

Lousy remote..weird, hard to push buttons..really annoying.
Slight pause between disc layers.

The picture quality of this thing is really great. Unit seems a little cheasy though - not well built.

Image quality, Nuon zoom, price (they're coming down - Best Buy had one for $185 down from $259)

Very poor remote control ergonomics

I've had mine for a few weeks and have seen a variety of DVDs on it (major studio releases, Japanese animation, and independent documentaries).

The image quality is very good... it handles gradients, subtle tonal changes, and atmospheric effects with impressive smoothness and clarity. Not the digital cable-style artifacting and pixellation of cheaper units.

The Nuon zoom is very useful for looking at the complete frame (even when watching letterboxed DVDs, you still lose the edges to a spherical picture tube). Other Nuon features seem kind of gimmicky to me, but the zoom is a wonderful feature.

N-2-2 Spatializer faux-surround is pretty nice, actually. As I'm slowly building my home theater, I opted for audio to be my last purchase, so I'm making due with bookshelf stereo speakers and a remote sub... no substitute for the real thing, but the 3D sound mode definitely adds to the experience, and it's not as over-the-top silly sounding as some of the other "expanded stereo" modes out there.

I have had a few strange artifacts on rental DVDs that I'll chalk up to scratches... on brand new DVDs, I've had no such problems.

I've also managed to crash the player once (total system freeze) when doing too many features at once... but I am tolerant of that. So long as the picture quality, audio quality, and range of features are satisfying me, such small issues that pop up sporadically aren't going to cause me to hate the device, especially considering the price.

Highly recommended if your objective is a higher-than-average viewing and listening experience on a tight budget.

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a few DVD players in the sub-$200 category

Just wanted to follow up my earlier review. I was out on Toshiba’s web site and noticed a software download for the SD2300. Hopefully should address problems expressed by other reviewers. Don’t know however. Toshiba lists a range of serial numbers and info on getting the software upgrade. I will be checking mine this weekend and looking into performing the upgrade if needed :)

Loaded with futures, plays CD-RW, HDCD, 16X Zoom, chapter preview function, convenient remote with joystick and Toshiba’s easy to read and understand on-screen menus, Virtual Light Machine, DVD/CD Text compatibility (it displays the title and artist text on DVD display and on TV screen), NAVI menu, strobe viewer, capture mode that you can use to take a movie scene and transform it into a background picture, screen saver...

Cheap looking. Even SD-1600 looks better.

I had the SD-2300 unit a little less then a month and have played about 25 different movies. Liked 95% of the futures in it especially 16X-Power Picture Zoom with Digital Filtering. I was watching zoomed wide screen movies on my 55” Toshiba HDTV ready projection TV and it was the best, because on many movies that are new and formatted only in 16:9 mode it was making my 55” TV look like 36”. But if you have zoom you can make it to be a full screen. Also it allows you to move around your zoomed area with remote joystick. I liked Toshiba’s on-screen menus (very easy to read and understand), I did not even had to open a manual to set it up accept the fact I couldn’t find how to turn on the Virtual Light Machine. It was really simple, just move the joystick on the remote control up or down and you are there (well, I was thinking there was supposed to be a button on remote or some thing in the menus, I was wrong). I was surprised when I found that it plays CD-RW disks recorded in DC-DA mode, which allowed me to play my favorite music and watch the Virtual Light Machine effects. The Virtual Light Machine is cool but it has only 8 different affects. It would be perfect if Toshiba made it so you could download more effects from Internet and install it.
The remote control is Ok, could be a little smaller and a light up buttons would made it complete (but SD-2300 have an on-screen remote, so all you need to remember is just one button to bring it up and then use the joystick). Still it’s better than PANASONIC RV-80's with stupid cursor light up buttons, not a control buttons.
Was not interested in playing NUON games, have a PC for it. But 128-bit Nuon media processor does make a difference and loads this unit with tones of futures and well worth the money.
In overall it was the best DVD I could find for $300. Even the $800 model from Panasonic and $1,500 model from SONY didn’t have that many useful futures.

I can’t say that I didn’t see any problems with the picture, I did, that is why I started to read reviews here.
On 2nd DVD disks out of 25 I played, I saw little pixelations and wasn’t able to reproduce them second time. On one of the rented movies I experienced picture freeze while sound was still playing, I checked the DVD and it was dirty. After I cleaned it, had no problems.
Than I have read those bad reviews down here got scared and returned it to Best Buy. After that I didn’t want to buy a Toshiba’s DVD player, so I got a Panasonic RV-80 with build in Dolby Digital and DTS decoder and 54MHz video processor for the same amount of money, this was the only 54MHz not progressive scan DVD player. I also like the way it looks compare to sd-2300. But from the very beginning of using it I was MISSING the 16X power ZOOM. There were no problems with video, but many futures were missing.
The build in DD and DTS decoder any way would be useless for me because I will buy a new Dolby Digital receiver soon.

Missing futures in Panasonic RV-80 are:
16X Zoom, chapter preview function, convenient remote with joystick and Toshiba’s easy to read and understand on-screen menus, Virtual Light Machine®, CD-R or CD-RW compatibility (didn't play ether), DVD/CD Text compatibility (it displays the title and artist text on DVD display and on TV screen), NAVI menu, strobe viewer, capture mode that you can use to take a movie scene and transform it into a background picture and screen saver.

Panasonic RV-80 Advantages:
54MHz Video Processor (all none progressive scan DVDs have 10-bit 27MHz Video DAC including Toshiba SD-2300)
Built-in DTS® & Dolby Digital® Decoder (useless if you have a Dolby Digital or Pro Logic receiver)
Dialogue Enhancer makes the dialog channel clearly audible over the other sound channels (good for two speakers setup and useless if you have a Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital ready or Pro Logic receiver, because you can use a center channel volume control to set it to +6 dB)

So my next move will be to return Panasonic and buy Toshiba SD-2300 one more time especially that Toshiba released a SD2300 Software Update (you can get it here: http://www.toshiba.com/tacp/dvd/SD2300softwareupdate.html) which I think should fix those video problems.
I wouldn’t want to recommend anyone anything because you should make your own choice depending on your needs. For example if you already have a Dolby Digital ready receiver, you may wan to save about $150 buy-getting DVD with build in decoder, or if you have 61” wide screen HDTV and all you care about is the picture quality – you need a progressive scan DVD player (Pioneer 434). But if you like to play with lots of futures like I do, you need SD-2300. Big deal, a couple of software bugs, we all use MS Windows and we all saw blue screen of death. At least Toshiba tries to fix them within a short period of time (about 1 month), not to make you to upgrade to new version next year.
I would recommend to every one to go play with DVD you like before you buy it. Browse through it’s menus listen to it’s sound if possible and make sure you like the remote because this guy you will use the most and in the darkness.
I would buy Toshiba’s products in the future.
PS. Very happy with my Toshiba 55-Inch 55HX70 HD Compatible projection TV (better picture, sound and on-screen menus than SONY 61” HDTV and $1,500 less).

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Panasonic RV-80

Trick play, HDCD decoding, good looking menus.

Only 1 digital out (coax), semi-quirky control (I have a tough time pressing down on the joystick without moving it in some undesired direction), menus are kind of sluggish.

The Bad: The first DVD I played was The Perfect Storm. There was some minor artifacts/pixelation in a couple of scenes but you could barely notice them. There was also a slight pause on the layer change. The second DVD I played was Gladiator. There was no pixelation or other artifacts throughout the whole movie but there was a slight pause on the layer change. From what I understand this is standard fare for sub $500 players. Compared to other players in this price range, however, the 2300 does lack some connectivity.

The Good: Good color and detail through s-video. Nice trick play features (strobe, zoom, FF, RW, slow-mo, etc.), you can dim the display, and HDCD decoding.

The Eh: It plays games if you want it to. I haven't tried them, nor do I want to. Don't buy this thing because it can play games unless you are buying it for someone that lives in a cave and has not heard about PS2.

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None

real nice picture, deep colors

Haven't discovered any yet.

I've had this unit for about 3 weeks, and have had NO problems whatsoever with it. I've watched around 20 movies,
and have not seen any pixelation at all. NONE. I am really
surprised so many reviewers had this problem. Maybe I have
a newer or modified unit. I don't know. I only know that
I am very satisfied with it. I don't play video games, so
I can't review any thing about that feature. Over all, it's
well worth the 299 I paid for it. I have it coupled with
my Zenith 64" HDTV, a Integra 9.1 reciever, and Definitive
speakers. I just recieved an IMAX dvd-Super Speedway-that
literally blew me away! The 3d-like picture and awsome sound put me right in the movie. I'm looking at the picture
and having a hard time believing progressive DVD players have better pictures. It's worth what I paid.

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none. first DVD player

Great picture, Zoom.

none found

I have had this unit a little over a month and have played around 20 different movies. I have had a few issues with (I guess you would call it layer changes), however; most of the time (99%) the unit does just fine. I searched all over the other DVD reviews of other manufactures units and seemed to find about 80% of those with similar complaints. I am by no means an expert, but this unit seems to be just fine. Especially for $300. For us that have 4x3 tubes, the zoom feature is really nice. The virtual light machine and graphic eq are pretty cool. When using the slowmo, picture is flawless. Using the joystick can be a little slow sometimes, however, I really like it. Load times seem ok to me, however, I have no previous experience with other DVDs. Currently waiting on my Klipsch speakers and RXV1 unit to arrive so that I can do real testing J.

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1st one

All the outputs and standard features you want. Picture is as sharp as any other player i've seen.

I saw a lot of complaints about 'pixelation', however I've only noticed this once on my machine. i've watched several hours of movies and this only happened the 2nd week that i had the player (keep in mind that dvd is still kinda new and you can expect things like this to happen) the only other weakness of this player is its load times OR going from menu to submenus...it seems slower than other players

Audio is superb...upgrade your cables please!
I'm using S-video output to a panasonic 27". sharp text and the svideo definitely made a difference over composite...the colors are much more vivid and toned
for those of you still using composite, turn your SHARPNESS down and it might help :)
overall, this is a good player...the pixelation problem DOES SCARE me though and the fact that they praised this all-powerful 128bit processor in the machine and it loads somewhat slowly is, well...disappointing

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sony models (lip-sync problems)

Zoom Features, Sound Quality and Picture Quality...

Have to spend money on NUON controller to play games..

I thought long and hard on bidding on this DVD unit on uBID.COM and for the price it was going for, I couldn't resist... I couldn't wait to try it, since I never owned a DVD player, so I went to Costco and purchased the Jurassic Park set (1 and 2) as well as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. I had the kids put in Jurassic Park: The Lost World and couldn't believe the picture quality! It was awesome... About 15 minutes into the movie, it started pausing, then going on it's own. I remembered seeing something on the web about a patch so I checked it out and my unit did not fall into the list of S/N's provided by the Toshiba web-site. I figured it might be the DVD itself, so I contemplated on returning it. For chagrins, we watched Jurassic Park 1 and it went through the whole movie without a glitch! We put The Lost World back in and sure enough, same thing... 15 minutes into it. I managed to pause and start it with the remote to get past these "glitches". Since it seemed to happen on the same place of the movie, it reminded me of a dirty audio CD.. and since my son put it in (8 yrs old) I figured he might have smudged the DVD. After wiping it clean and re-watching the movie, it worked! And after quite a few movies later and showing my son how to put CD's and DVD's in... we have never experienced a glitch. Now I can't wait to try the games and experience a NUON specific DVD...

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N/A