Toshiba SDP74S DVD Player Review

Despite the best efforts from Panasonic, the idea of portable Blu-ray player has not really caught on the industry is too large – most brands are very happy with DVD drive and maintain prices at an affordable level. Toshiba is one such company and this year the offer is the SDP74 – the successor to last year’s impressive SDP73.

What we have here is a very stylish and very compact portable DVD player, perfect for keeping the kids quiet at the airport, while the volcanic ash, clear’ll wait. The built-in screen measures 7in and has a resolution of 480 x 234 pixels that do not like much, but from experience, a low-resolution screen is not necessarily a barrier to the DVD images may sound pleasant – especially with the causal, unreasonable public addressed is where the SDP74.

Toshiba takes a conventional approach with the SDP74 design with a flip-up cover to the picture frame style from some competitors, contrary busy. This makes it convenient for laptop viewing and keeps the LCD screen is protected when it is in your pocket.

On the outside of the unit sports an immediately eye-catching glossy white, contrasting nicely with the black finish on the lower section. Once opened, we were delighted to find that this white finish also adorns the top of the bottom section, embedded in a round disc holder cover and many round, clicky buttons, menus and disc playback. A full range of controls is provided on the included remote control.

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On the right side of the base is a basic array of sockets. The outstanding course is the SD card slot can play with the MP3 and JPEG files from SD or SDHC cards. The lack of DivX support for SD cards is annoying, but his ability is to play recordable DVDs and CDs a consolation.

If you want to view images from this device to your TV, then the AV output jack allows you to do so – albeit in poor quality composite. You get a mini jack to composite/stereo audio cable into the appropriate field. Despite its ability to decode Dolby Digital, there is no digital audio output for the supply of the bit stream to an amplifier, but that’s hardly an essential (or even most) function. Last but not least, a pair of headphone jacks, so two can hear Sprogs simultaneously.

Many portable players often come with a separate bulky batteries, but is encouraging the SDP74′s installed, which helps the unit lightweight and compact. The battery lasts for about three hours which is long enough for at least two short children’s film.

You get a few accessories in the box, including the aforementioned AV cable, a 12V DC car adapter and remote control. There is no carrying case and the lack of a headrest bracket means that you do not trust the children to drop it on the floor.

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Matching credit card sized remote control sports a white finish to the main unit and its size makes it natural to use fiddlier than a normal DVD player remote control. That is, the prominent placement of the menu control makes navigation an intuitive process, and although the keys are tiny, they are at least clearly marked. The need for a shift key to run some functions is never good.

The setup menu and other displays are expected to basic – and the use of white text on light blue boxes is doubtful – but they are easy to understand. Setup menu is scrolling slowly, but there is a good selection of things to adjust, including aspect ratio settings, DivX VOD registration for files and a variety of view modes that the displayed image to fit on the screen in different ways.

The image button on the remote causes a number of adjustments to the screen, such as brightness, color, flip screen and brightness of the backlight, which helps you squeeze the longest possible life from the battery. An Enhanced Audio Mode (EAM) button you can switch off the ’3 D ‘mode on and off, but it makes little difference to the weedy sound from the speakers produced.

The Display button provides a handy summary of the currently playing CD – time, chapter, selected audio tracks, bit rate, and so on. There are four different search speeds, and four slow motion speeds (activated by pressing the search button). There is also a three-step zoom, allowing you to explore the image more precisely.

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Digital media from the card or disc is displayed in neat folders, and although it slow to respond, you can find files easily. They are listed on the left, while a list of options and JPEG preview is shown on the right. On the downside JPEG files considered open to the soft and blocky low-res screen, which makes the feature rather pointless.

DivX files and immediately 7in screen is perfectly suited to this format as for the makeup helps block noise and blur in low-encoded files. We also have a few MP3 files via a high quality pair of headphones and the sound quality is very impressive. It is a nice balance across the entire frequency range with cheeky heights and a healthy dose of bass. The SDP74 will not play WMA files.

However, the SDP74S was primarily for DVD playback, and despite its obvious limitations, it does a good job with films designed. After loading up avatar, and tweaking the screen settings to make it less gloomy, we were very, how bright and vivid the picture looks very happy. It allows the film’s stunning CGI estimate from the bright blue skin tones of the Na’vi into living landscapes of Pandora.

But just as the implementation of this powerful colors that SDP74S makes more natural elements of the picture, like the human skin and spacecraft interior, with a convincing and balanced sound. The night scenes on Pandora are surprisingly good contrast so that blacks remain in the black and shadow detail visible. The screen also features a wide viewing angle, and therefore remains watchable even when you’re not on the screen.

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However, the low number of pixels on the background walls caused streaking and leaves look soft and jagged edges. Also, you can create a hazy, shimmering mesh effect that the impact of the film reduces complex CG detail, but these are for the course with a 7in screen par and probably unnoticed by the young audience. If you do not analyze it too deeply, the SDP74 provides very pleasant and images at this price you can not really ask for better than that.

Conclusion

There is nothing particularly new or original about the SDP74 and its low screen resolution causes some problems, it certainly is a nice portable DVD deck. It has bright, colorful movie playback, a stylish design and (limited) for digital media playback via SD card, but the best part is the price. On well under 100 means the SDP74 is a relatively inexpensive way to amuse the children.

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