I have never owned a Toshiba player before, but I have heard about their quality since I first got into DVD 4-5 years ago. I'd wanted to try one out, but always ended up selecting a different model (I've had 4 players) Finally, I decided to upgrade again and got this player because of the price. While it's MSRP is $149, it can be found at Amazon and other locations for $. Don't let that fool you. This technology gets cheaper and better every day, and I'd say this model is much nicer than a $400 player 2 years ago, and that it's easily competitive with players today in the $200 range.

I've got it hooked up to a Sony Wega via component cables, and the pic is excellent. Very detailed, no artifacting, no sign of the chroma bug. Blacks are there too, many players now days cannot really do a black properly, this player does it very well, and does it without muddling all the dark colors on the screen into 1 shapeless blob too. It's detailed enough to be dark without missing what's... Read more

I've been around the block with DVD players. First, I bought a Samsung which choked on playback and was incompatible with my TV, then I bought the Toshiba 2900 which worked but had an inscrutable interface.

This Toshiba 3900 really is perfect: the image is clear, sharp, and easily adjustable to any TV - even if you only have a regular-size old TV like I do, you'll notice that the image at first is weirdly vertical (like El Greco paintings) because the default output is for the slightly wider screen of the new digital TVs. Adjusting the output for my regular-size TV was easy, I just pressed "MENU", selected "Setup", and under "TV Display", I selected "regular TV", and the image output changed to be perfectly sized for my TV.

Clearly, Toshiba put some thought into the remote, which has the frequently-used play, stop, forward and rewind buttons slightly larger and centered nicely. The menu interface also is a breeze, in plain English without inscrutable icons or baffling... Read more

This player can play non-R1 DVDs. It also converts PAL to NTSC. Here's the hack:

1. Put in non-R1 DVD.

2. When the region whine message appears, press: [menu] [1] [play]. The DVD should play, but with region message still up.

3. Press [Marker] then [Clear]; Message is now gone.

I rated this player at less than five stars because it lacks the ability to remember the last-played location on a disk when the power is turned off.