Space design with receiver/player Good picture

Doesn't play most CD-Rs

I bought this receiver/dvd player about 2 1/2 years ago and I have been mostly happy with it. It has a great picture and sound is ok for an average sized room. I use the system mainly for DVDs and attach a CD-changer for audio playback, which works well for my needs. One big problem with the system is that it doesn't play many CD-Rs, but it does play the "DigitalMedia" brand of CD-Rs, both music and VCDs that I've made. The DVD picture has locked up a couple of times recently, and now it doesn't read any DVDs at all, though it still reads CDs without any problem. If anyone knows how to fix this, please let me know. (davewarby@yahoo.com) I would appreciate it very much.

An enormous number of intuitive features. An easy component to add to make a complete home theater system. Toshiba DVD's are known for their quality products, and the 6109C is a testament to this fact.

An excellent array of features, with nothing obvious left out.

The remote needs some redesign, but the organization is decent. No other problems.

An impressive product. If you do not own a DVD player and receiver, strongly consider getting this valuable combination.

I bought it at Accompany with a sizeable discount, paying far less than what most ordinary DVD players go for.

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Seen a few DVD players, own a Sony receiver; Toshiba is highly rated.

Convenient & space-saving all in one design.

Busy remote control.

Got this unit brand new online for $297 shipped. Can't beat that price and get everything this receiver/dvd player has to offer. My main complaint is the remote. It has waaay too many buttons and they are small are hard to distinguish when you need to change settings. Otherwise a very nice unit.

Great video, sound, functions

Remote Control

As I used this forum to get reviews before I purchased my DVD player (helped me avoid some real stinkers I was thinking of buying), I thought I would go ahead & add my thoughts.

The loading takes about 6 seconds for an audio CD & not much more for a DVD. The video has bee flawless. On a great occasion I do notice some pixelation. This does not happen very often & if I notice it & try & reprodce on the same scene, it won't do it again. An example is in the opening act of the Matrix. When Trinity goes up into her kick & the camera does a 180 around her & then she kicks the cop across the room, the first time I played this it was great. The 2nd time I watched this scene was in the Cast/Crew commentary when this time it looked like he had a digital smoke trail when he flew across the room. I then backuped & re-played that scene several times & it would not happen again.

The pause some mention about DVD players when it "changes sides" has been barely noticable. In Saving Private Ryan where this happens in the middle of a scene (unlike the Matrix where it happens at the end of a scene, can still be noticed) you notice a pause of the movie for what I would say is about 1/4 to 1/2 second. Not very noticable.

The sound is great. I am using the JBL NSP1 bookshelf home theater speaker set. The 50 watts per cahnnel (250 total, 5x50 if you want to measure as some manufactures list their wattage) is plenty for my living room. The DVD sounds are great, so are CD's or the radio. Anything from Santana to Sade to SoundGarden or Ramstein is great. For the radio or CD I perfer the "party" sound mode. Good base boost.

A feature I would like would be the ability to load/unload a CD or DVD W/O the unit switching fron TV, RADIO, ... to DVD/CD mode. 1 other feature I would like would to have all output available via the S-video. I have an older VCR that doen not have a s-video out so on my TV I use the S-video for DVD's & Video1 for VCR. I have both RCA & S-Video outputs from the SD6109C going to my TV.

The remote could be better layed out, just like everybody else stated here & for the reasone they all stated. I am using the Marantz RC2000 MK1. I think the All In One A/V or Home producer 8 would also be a great choice & cheaper too (both are backlit). I did have a little problem programming the DVD/CD functions into the remote. What worked was to "blip" the functions to be learned intead of holding the buton down until the RC2000 said it learned the function.

I am very happy with the unit & I am not having any of the problems some have stated (noisy drive, slow loading).

Overall I think this is a very nice DVD/Receiver & would reccomend it to anyone looking to start a home theater & need a DVD player. Kills 2 birds with 1 stone.

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Creative Labs 6x DVD & Decoder card

I forgot to add to my review (below this one) that I got the SD6109C from onecall.com for $423 (inc shipping), the JBL NSP1 for $375 (inc shipping) from sounddistributors.com (OneCall wants 449.99 + shipping) & the Marantz RC2000 MK1 from EBAY for $107 (inc shipping). Overall I guess not too bad. The $800 MSRP listed here would be WAY too much to pay for the SD6109C IMHO.

Price, DVD+Receiver in one, Easy to setup.

remote like everyone says my only input is every button is the same size... hope Toshiba got a deal on 2mm by 1mm rubber buttons :)

Well I picked this up from ubid.com and paid ~350 for it which was more then I wanted. I saw one sell on egghead.com for 325 a week eariler, but I needed somthing this week as my speakers were comming :). So far its easily worth the 350 and then some. From pricing out seperate dvd and receivers I was looking in the 400-600 dollar range to match this one unit. Toshiba is my favorite DVD and CD-ROM and CDR maker by far.

I can hear a mild hiss from the reciever when I turn the volume up with nothing playing. This hiss is covered up when anything is playing though so it doesn't seem to be a problem. I have noticed no additional hiss when the dvd spins up.

I am using a set of Klipsch quintets and C1 center and It sounds good but a bit low on bass. I will have to add a sub that should work out fine. The center is a bit strong when I put the TV audio through it, but with the DVD it sounds great.

The back of the unit was very complete for inputs and outputs and I easily set this unit up with 75' of 14 guage cable in about 2 hours. Toshiba included a Svideo cable and a RJ45 3-wire set which worked perfectly for my setup.

So far i've tried Saving private ryan with DTS. At first I just put the dvd in and started watching the movie. Which defaulted in dolby digital. It sounded pretty bad. I was starting to feel sick that I had just spent so much money when I switched it to DTS mode (a setting in the movie setup menu). At which point the bullets started flying around my living room and my wife litterly jumped up for a second before realizing it was just the movie.

I think the DTS version of Saving priavte ryan has a poorly mastered dolby digital track. In other movies Dobly digital 5.1 sounds fine, but DTS still sounds better since the 3d sound field in seems more full if even at some points a bit exaggerated. It was a pain to figure out what the difference between DTS and Dolby 5.1 is. So i'll mention what I believe it is. Tech wise DTS uses less compression then dolby digital 5.1, so DTS should be slightly better quality, but I feel that they are very similar overall. However I also think that currently more effort goes into creating the 3d sound on the DTS tracks then dolby digital and that makes the real difference between the two currently. DD 5.1 could be just as good though.

Overall I give this system a 4 1/2 for value and 4 1/2 overall (rounded up to 5) the DVD is great and the receiver is fine. The only value problem I see is I will have to upgrade to a progressive scan DVD when I buy a HDTV in a few years. I almost went with a better receiver with a seperate DVD, but I decided not too when I saw a few things about dolby EX and 6.1. I plan to use this in my bedroom after I go to progessive scan/HDTV and whatever audio is around in a few years. Who konws what will be around in a few years I can only imagine that by using 2 or 4 center speakers channels 0ou could get the voices very accuratly matched to the TV screen... but as i said who knows :)

Also I just wanted to thank Audio review. AR.com was the best source of research for buying this home theater. I hope consumerreview will creates a HDTV review website so I can have the same great info for that purchase :)

PRICE, picture, sound

yeah, the remote sucks

Over the last several months, I have been building my home theater/stereo system on a college student's budget. When I came across this DVD player/Dolby Digital and DTS receiver for under $400, I couldn't resist. You'd have a hard time finding a quality Dolby Digital receiver alone at this price.
As others have mentioned, the receiver on this model is manufactured by Onkyo, but Toshiba produces the DVD player, so they slap their name on it. Onkyo's DR-90 is pretty much the exact same unit. The sound quality is very good, and the dolby digital decoding is excellent. Unlike Dan, I have no complaints about the sound this machine produces and one of the first things I noticed was how pleasant it sounds at low volume levels. No hiss problems here like he reported. The somewhat modest power output might scare you, but I have really blasted some music and movies and have yet to turn barely past halfway. Don't be fooled into buying a cheap Kenwood or Pioneer, you'll find those units usually produce around 0.7% THD (Total Harmonic Distortion). This unit is rated at 0.2% THD, which may not be as good as some Onkyo, Denon or high-end Sony models, but it is certainly quite good.
The picture on the DVD player is spectacular. You'll notice that Toshiba's other DVD players also get superb reviews for their picture quality. The DVD player doesn't skimp on other features either. You'll find it has just as many options as any other model on the market and more too. In particular, the gold-plated component video outputs allow you to achieve even greater picture if you own a TV with these inputs.
Overall, I couldn't be happier with my purchase. If you are looking to buy a DVD player and a Dolby Digital receiver at any point in the near future, you should definetely consider this unit.

Value, features

Remote

Picked up a brand new one at accompany for $335 shipped. Unfortunately, I missed out on the $295 deal. Seems to be a great value still, probably as good as the $100.00 shipped Pioneer DVD-525. Sound quality is good, very easy to hook up. Remote, as everyone says, is a bit busy, but works ok. No problems with some of the more problematic dvd's (ie. matrix). If you have a very large room, I'd suggest a separate AC3/DTS receiver, but for my home, it works very well.

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Samsung DVD709, Pioneer DVD-525

All in one unit for the money just can't be beat!

Power, bland looking receiver

This is the ultimate receiver for the person who is looking to set up a home theater system for some where around 1K. At avg. $350, that leaves $650 for speakers and accessories.

I have mine hooked up to the Energy Take 5 system with a 10" sub. The only complaint I have is that I can max out the power on the receiver, and the speakers are still begging for more.

Question: Is it possible to hook up an equalizer to the 6109C? I have tried but have not been successful. Please email me (lrod@ev1.net). Thanks.

Good Playback. Component Video outputs. Decent Sound

Inputs, inputs, inputs. Low power

This is a great all in one unit for the price. The sound Is balanced and the DTS capability is out of its class.

The input scheme, however, is poorly done. Of course the unit is not designed to be a highend switching unit, but the number of in/outs on the back panel is deceptive as to the switching capability. Hooking up a CD player, VCR and DBS system is a chore and not trully effective.

If you have space constraints and only have a few sources this is an incredible unit. If you are expecting it to act as a fully featured reciever and DVD player ... it is not quite there. 5 stars for what it does.

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Various recievers an amplifiers