Recently I was in the market for a new DVD player to compliment my 26″ JVC iArt LCD television set in my room. It supports upto 1080i capability in terms of its picture quality. I went through 2 models :

• LDA-731 by LG ($129 + taxes when I bought it)
• SD-4990 by Toshiba ($99 + taxes when I bought it)

These two models have the following in common :

• Excellent HDMI upconversion (HDMI cable required)
• Slim design profile (but then all DVD players do these days so it’s nothing special)
• Able to play all formats such as DVD+R or -R, RW, etc. (we’ll talk about this more later)
• 1 Disk at a time (I’ve never been a fan of multiple disk DVD players - it makes it hard to keep a track of where your disks are, and it’s just an overkill for me, unlike on audio players).
• DivX enabled.

Now let’s get to the more serious parts that uncover the flaws of each of these models.

The LDA-731 by LG

This was what I bought at first. It had good price, and LG had a positive image in my head so I decided to go ahead with it. Further more, it had a memory card reader (14-in-2) which could also allow me to browse through photos in my memory card from my camera! I’m not sure how often I would use it, but for another $20, it seemed like a good bargain. The rest of the HDMI-Upconverting DVD players were around $100~$120, so it seemed OK to go with this model.

Another advantage of this model was that the buttons were located on the TOP of the player (of course near the front - click on the thumbnail to get more details of its shape), which was awesome for me, because my DVD player would be less than a feet off the ground because of the low-profile design of my TV stand. It made it much easier for me to press the buttons. Also, the button positioning was much more intuitive, and the remote control buttons were very well-designed and easy to understand.

The greatest disappointment was the way the card reader worked. My Toshiba laptop has a similar card reader on it. On my laptop, I would push the card in, and it clicks right in. When I want to take it out, I would simply press it in again, and it would pop it back out using the spring mechanism. But this DVD player did NOT have that functionality, so for me to take my memory card adapter out (Sony SD cards are so small that they always come with adapters so it can fit laptops, printers, DVD players) I had to use a tweezer!!! This was simply ridiculous. I examined carefully for any sort of an eject mechanism - nothing at all. This absolutely defeated the purpose of spending an extra $20 for the card reader function. The picture quality was great with either DVD disks OR with the photos on my memory card, but it was just too inconvenient to have to pull things out with a tweezer.

So I returned this model within a week, and I got the Toshiba SD-4990 instead.

The SD-4990 by Toshiba

The main difference between this model and the LDA-731 was the fact that this was $20 cheaper and had no memory card reader, so the price/value ratio worked perfect for me. And I did end up keeping this model, and I use it right now. But it’s not perfect, mind you.

As much as this model gave me great value with just the functions I needed, it had its problems. The design for one simply did not look as good as the LDA-731, not to mention the buttons were located on the front of the player. I think most people have their DVD players LOWER than their TVs, which would mean that top-positoning of the buttons would make it easier for pressing buttons. It’s a more ergonomic design. This model lacked that consideration completely, not to mention all the buttons were shaped the same in a row so I couldn’t easily figure out which button was which.

The remote control was also very crappy. The buttons, once again, are not positioned/sized uniquely, so I’m still having a hell of a time memorizing which button is which.

At the time when I bought this DVD player, I was too busy and I was in Las Vegas for almost a week, and I completely missed the return deadline. I totally would have returned this player to try another model, or even go back to the LDA-731 for the ergonomic design. But it was too late, so I’m stuck with this.

A Note on DVD disk types and playback

Both these DVD players advertised themselves as being capable of playing all the formats : DVD+R, DVD-R, DVD+RW, DVD-RW, and of course, regular DVDs. But in reality, there were problems with both players, and I’ve heared of similar symptoms from other DVD players as well - symptoms of pauses and breaks in the playback. It just stalls here and there, sometimes more often, sometimes not. Sometimes for long, sometimes for less.

I suspect it’s due to incomplete technology for reading different disk types (especially in the mid-range priced DVD plyaers like these), or it’s due to the quality of DVD R disks that you purchase.

But based on my observation, here are the rules :

1. DVD+R works better than DVD-R. I had HORRIBLE results with DVD-R - it was basically unplayable because it stalled so much. I made copies of those DVD-R disks on to DVD+R disks, and they played fine (or MUCH better).
2. When it comes to playing DVD-R disks or DVD+R disks, even the slightest specs of dust/scratches can affect it moreso than it does regular DVD disks. Keep them save, and if they seem to skip too much, wipe them with a soft, non-abrasive cloth and put it in the player again.

Hope this review was useful.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 15th, 2007 at 5:13 pm and is filed under Gadgets and Electronics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.