Toshiba Multi-Region DVD Player - SD5010KA

 (3 customer reviews)

This is NOT a Multi-Region player, at least not originally. The one I received is a REGION 3 (this is clearly indicated on the box and in the instructions).

It has been made into a Multi-Region player by opening the box and hacking the player to make it Multi-Region.

This, of course, voids the warranty and makes it impossible to have it fixed by Toshiba, should the need arise.

However, the player I received would not even play Region 1 DVDs ("DVD not formatted for player" appears on the screen).

Conclusion: Will be returning the unit.

Previous purchases include several region-free DVD players without HDMI output and upscaling as well as a Panasonic BluRay player with HDMI output and DVD upscaling.

Although a BluRay player plays DVDs very well it takes ages to load and respond to commands, and navigating to the various disc menus is very awkward. These are the downsides to using a BluRay to play DVDs.

For these reasons, I wanted a dedicated DVD player with HDMI output. Region-free was a must. I decided on the Toshiba

The Toshiba player reproduces DVDs in a quality comparable to how the same DVDs are reproduced by my Panasonic BluRay. However, on the Toshiba, material mastered in 1.33 aspect ratio (4:3) will be output in 1.78 (16:9) in all upscaled resolutions. There is no way to have upscaling and native aspect ratio. This means that with 1.33 material I let the display do the upscaling instead of the player. Not a big deal as the display seems to upscale as competently as the DVD...Read more

This is a simple plug-in and play unit. Ready to play dvds from any country or any region right out of the box. Plays both NTSC & PAL dvds.