Toshiba SD-3990 Progressive Scan DVD Player

• Slim-profile, single-disc multiformat DVD player; measures 16.9 x 1.65 x 8.2 inches (WxHxD)
• Compatibility with DVD movie, CD audio,CD-R/CD-RW, DVD-R/RW, and VCD discs; DivX, JPEG, MP3 and WMA files
• 3:2 pulldown detection adapt 24 frames-per-second movies to 30 fps progressive scan video
• Outputs: 1 composite, 1 S-Video, 1 component
• DVD offer Dolby Digital/DTS decoding; coaxial digital audio output

First of all, let me say that this unit is very well worth the money. As "just a DVD player" I give it FIVE over FIVE points (or ten/ten if you wish).

The unit comes as Region Free DVD Player. Professionally modified to play any region out of the box. This feature makes it most versatile player as this player can play any region 1,2,3,4,5,6 PAL or NTSC on regular American TV just out of the Box It just works.

Good things:

it can play NTSC and PAL DVD, VCD. and when it plays PAL VCD, it will fit the image so that the image is not out of proper aspect ratio. You can even easily choose the left or right audio channel which is typical of VCD. Further, this DVD player can play DivX, MPG, mp3, jpg. It can play DivX with subtitles. When fast forwarding, it can go up to 30x and 100x (seems like not 100x but maybe 50x). When you step frame by frame, it works flawlessly. It's a great player for the price, considering all the media it plays (ours played DVD+RW too) and the quality of sound and picture it produces.

As a straight DVD player, this player excels. It has an absolutely brilliant progressive picture, with rich colors, and no prog-scan artifacts whatsoever. There are also a couple of nice digital touch-up controls, sharpness and brightness which can come in handy to boost dark images.

As a DIVX/Xvid player, also excellent. Highly compatible with divx 4/5 and vxid, not at all with divx 3.11 or ms mp4 v2 according to my testing. plays ac3 audio on these files too. Interesting problem with divx subtitles. Very compatible, yet places them in the middle of the screen, which is weird, but oddly workable. The menu system for avi files is intuitive, but only captures the first 16 characters of the filename.

As a dvd-r player, it's also solid. It has played all media I've thrown at it (-r, -rw). The only problem is that it's picky about flaws. In fact, I have dozens of labeled dvd-r's which will break-up and not play past a certain point. unfortunate, but after I removed the labels (not an easy process) they played to the end.

Now for my favorite feature, the coup de grace: auto aspect-ratio. I have a 16:9 set. When I enable this feature (default), anamorphic titles will fill the screen, 4:3 titles will be in the middle (though zoomed in ever-so-slightly) and non-anamorphic letterbox titles will be zoomed in to fill the width of the 16:9. It makes this adjustment for dvd and divx content. And it gets it right 95% of the time the other 5% you can adjust manually.

Buy Toshiba SD-3990 Progressive Scan DVD Player Now

This is a very nice small, cheap, functional Toshiba DVD player that has been modified to play PAL and NTSC dvds irrespective of their region encoding. It does all these things perfectly, and produces high quality output. A very useful product if you want to play Asian or European discs in the US.

Read Best Reviews of Toshiba SD-3990 Progressive Scan DVD Player Here

This is a solid DVD player without all the bells and whistles. I purchased it specifically for its multi-region capabilities. There are websites a plenty that tell you the secrets to unlocking the codes on almost any DVD player, however you do this at your own peril as I rendered my previous player completely useless by trying a hack. This player has been modified by a third party to achieve multi region and comes with its own guaranty. Simply, it works. Pop any DVD in from any region and it accepts and plays it.

Want Toshiba SD-3990 Progressive Scan DVD Player Discount?

The Toshiba Sd-3990 appears to be a replacement for the Toshiba Sd-3980, with the same great feature set, small cosmetic changes, and a reduced MSRP. The picture and sound are both excellent, and the progressive scan via component jacks looks amazing on my 32" Sharp Aquos. It has been very reliable so far (and I've never had a problem with Toshiba products before), and it's played everything I've tried on it. It has all the proven features I wanted, without some of the questionable features found on some more expensive players. It blows away my previous player, which cost me more than this 4 years ago and had half the features at twice the physical size. Plays every Disc I have from Region 2, and 5 Plays PAL on NTSC TV like Charm.

Great Buy ++++++++

I will give 9.5 out of 10 ++

For three months this DVD player worked fine. It's made by Toshiba but modified by a 3rd party in this case, Northstar Electronics. They modify it so it will play all regions. In the first 90 days we used the player about a dozen times when it suddenly ceased to operate for no reason whatsoever. I tried to use it one afternoon and it just wouldn't work anymore. The player turns on, and the drawer can be opened and closed, but otherwise it will not play any disc from any region, nor will it play CDs. After some research I discovered that faulty modifications often result in this kind of problem with a player. I cannot recommend this product or Northstar Electronics. I suggest spending more and getting a player that has not been modified in-house, but instead was manufactured specifically to play multiple region DVDs.