Toshiba SD-3990 Progressive Scan DVD Player

No longer turns on after only 3 years of light use. When it does turn on, the disc drive won't open. Don't waste your money.

This DVD player handles both Region 1 and Region 2 films, but the subtitle feature is a problem. Changing the settings on the screen during initial setup of the movie doesn't translate to changes while watching it - only pressing the subtitle button on the remote affects that. But more annoying is that often the subtitles appear too low to be read completely. Resizing the screen made no difference in my ability to see them. The same films work perfectly on my Mac, which is set to Region 2; the subtitles are clear and easily viewed. So I'm retiring this DVD player and trying a Philips DVP5990, which got better reviews. Here's hoping....

We bought this player a couple years ago and it worked great up until a month ago. Out of the blue it wouldn't power up if you pushed the power button on the unit. We had to use the remote. Then after a week or so it wouldn't power up at all unless we unplugged it. Then again after a few days I had to unplug it several times to get it to power up. Finally a few more days later it died all together.

We also have the sister model SD-3960 which works well except the door won't open on it's own most of the time.

This unit convinced me not to buy Toshiba ever again.

After about 6 months of infrequest use, it now will not load standard store-purchased DVD's or the DivX disks that worked fine a few months ago. It displays "Loading..." until the disk is ejected or the unit turned off.

Just prior to this, it would play, but hang-up abould 1/2 of the way through.

I feel I was ripped off. The purchase price of this unit new should give me more than a total of 10 - 15 hours of playing time.

I have owned this player for almost 2 years and have been very satisfied. Many other reviewers seem to have had a ton of problems. This player has played everything I have thrown in it, including downloaded .AVI files and PAL formatted DVDs from Europe. My DiVx DVDs play flawlessly. By reading these reviews, I am wondering if I got the only good one Toshiba made. Either way, I love this thing!

I bought this used and had to buy new cords to get it to work, 'cause it was on a setting that only allowed video to display via RCA cables. I didn't even know DVD players had a setting for such things...but anyway; just about everyone else is saying this player dies really quickly; the remote for mine doesn't do anything, and I can't figure out how to open the battery compartment...I'm not even sure if it can open...so it's hard to say if the remote is broken or if the batteries are just dead...so I guess it's just a matter of time before mine breaks. I shoulda read the reviews here before buying this, 'cause getting a remote for my other DVD player (Pioneer DV-333) so I could make that one play non-Region1 DVDs would have actually been $[...]+ cheaper...(most DVD players can be "hacked" into region-free players - [...] has info on that).
I've had this player for a couple months already. I'll let ya'll know when it breaks, supposing that happens before I end up selling it...

Ok, I barely watch DVDs at home, however it is always nice to have a DVD player to suite your entertainment needs every once in a while.

Please don't buy this one, you want something that will last forever and will not just break all of the sudden even if you don't use it. I used to think that Toshiba was that leader brand in "home entertainment" systems but not anymore. This DVD player was a tease, it looked perfect, simple and user friendly, but just the fact that so many people are having the same issue is an offense to all customers. One DVD player braking is understandable but when you browse in Google or just in this site and find out that many people are going through the same hassle, it says that quality control did not do their job.

I will stay loyal to other brands such as Sony, Panasonic, Samsung, Sharp or LG as a last resource.

Sorry if I am harsh but enough is enough.

I received this as a gift about 14 months ago and earlier this week I suddenly got the "No Disc" message everyone else seems to get. I searched every corner of the internet for a solution. I opened it up and unplugged things and replugged them (yes, I did the ribbon thing that worked for some people) but nothing fixed it, not even shaking it or hitting it. Because of this, I will never buy Toshiba. How about a recall???

The DVD player broke after one use. The DVD player reads no disc everytime i insert a disc. If you call customer service they will replace it with the SD 4000. Seems as if this was a common problem.

total piece of junk. It worked for a few months and then started to give the bad disk error.

Worst yet, too light to use as a boat anchor... so it is not even good enough to be used for that.

I've had this DVD player for almost a year and half and all of a sudden it just says "No Disc" whenever I put something in. Going through the setup menu I tried reseting it even went to Toshiba's website and found that a similar model number: the SD-3980SU2 reaches its life span after a short while and gives the "bad disk" error. They should extend that problem to this model number, because its the same problem. Needless to say I'll have to buy a new one for the holidays.

Very poor quality DVD player; it started giving the no disc error after only 3 months of very light use. I have to agree with the previous reviews that it's quite surprising from a good brand like Toshiba.

Toshiba US will only replace Region 1 DVD players so if it goes wrong, even after a few months they will not replace it.

It worked perfectly fine for the first 7 months. Then all of a sudden it has major issues. It will play original DVDs fine, but backed up DVDs and DivX will jitter and skip about every 30 seconds. It won't load a music cd, original or backup anymore. I'm guessing it is on it's way out and I'm in the market for a new player.

We bought this SD 3990 DVD player after Christmas 2006. It stopped working in May 2007. Even though it was well past the 90 day warranty period, I called Toshiba customer support in August to report the faulty player. They told me to send it back and they would send me a new one. Since they didn't have 3990s, they replaced it with a 4000. I only had to send the player and a copy of my receipt and pay about $8 to ship it to them. I got the replacement 7 days later.

It worked great, any region DVD's played without changing any settings. After 2 months though it broke on me and said 'no disc' whenever I inserted one. Too bad..

Just wanted to put my 2 cents in and let folks know that this machine just stops working for no reason. Sad cause it was great while it lasted....

I've owned one of these for just over a year. I've just replaced it with an upscaling DVD player, but prior to doing so, I watched hundreds of movies on it with no problems. This is a great, reliable player with a few minor quirks, but it played everything I ever put in it, which is a great big plus.

Quirks: The buttons on the remote weren't where I was expecting, but after a month or so, I got used to that.

I didn't like the fact that it only displays the chapter number on the display (not the elapsed time) but that's not really a big deal. If you know how many chapters are on the disc, you can still have an idea of how far through the movie you are.

Also, one big PLUS is the "Display" mode (on-screen). Hit one button and all the information you want to know is displayed on-screen at once: Time elapsed, time remaining, chapter number, total number of chapters, title number, bitrate, etc., etc., etc. Very convienient. By comparison, on my previous Sony DVD player, to find out the time remaining, I had to hit two different buttons (first "Display", then "Enter", then "Enter" three more times to get back to the time elapsed, then "Display" to turn the display off).

The biggest flaw in this dvd player (which cost it a star) is that the PAL playback would occasionally drop frames, causing motion to appear "jerky". Given that this model has no reverse 3:2 or 2:2 pulldown, that's not unexpected. It would typically happen 6-12 times over the course of a 2-hour movie. Not the end of the world, but mildly annoying.

Still, if you're looking for a bargain DVD player that will play anything you stick in it (NTSC, PAL, Divx, VCD, etc), you could do a lot worse than this Toshiba.

I agree with the previous reviewers comments. The screen says "bad disk" when you put in perfectly good DVDs. The same DVDs work fine in my laptop. The only reason we bought this player is that the salesman at Best Buy convinced us it is a wonderful player for the price. Since I was about to have a baby I didn't have time to research this more thoroughly. This is absolute garbage. Save your money for something better!

Just like a recent reviewer, the display went dim, and the next day it would not turn on at all.
It's dead. Had to open the thing to get my disc back!

This is the best player in its price range if the user has compatibility on their priority list. It will play DVD movies off of basically any disk, DVD±R, DVD±RW, Divx/Xvid on those disks or CD disks, MP3s, and probably other audio formats off of any disks. Additionally, it can play PAL DVDs in addition to the standard USA NTSC, unlike the 4 other DVD players in the house.

The image and audio quality is excellent, and unless you really want upsampling, it's hard to complain about the picture this player creates. It also has the ability to adjust the screen for the different formats you encounter, so you don't lose subtitles or the edges in your video if you don't want to.

It seems others have had bad luck with the player dieing in less than a year, but that surprises me, as mine has been a workhorse, and many other Toshiba players that were predicesors at both the store and relatives houses continue to work after years. I have had this player for over 7 months, no problems.

This player plays more than I expected, I bought it for Divx on DVD-R disks, I now use it for everything!

One week after the 90 warenty period ended, the player stopped being able to recognize when discs were inserted. In this case, you get what you pay for - a low price for a low end machine that broke quickly. Also, not intuitive to set up, you have to plod through an instruction manual, which was a pain.

While originally worked fine, after only maybe 12 movies, the unit would not power up. The display would light dimly but the disc drawer would not eject. Eventually, the display went completely dark and the unit was pronounced dead. Bought another brand, for less money, and ended up with nicer features. This unit did not set it's own time nor did the remote work the TV controls as does the newer unit.

It allows my dvd's of family I brought from England to the states on DVD to play on a USA TV. It has progressive scan and auto detects if TV is PAL or NTSC so no tech tweaks needed. V Good picture and plays DIVX \ XVID format clips and films no problem out of the box and could you not want for more for price.

I bought this DVD player to play DVD's from Australia. It worked great for about 10 months with very light use. However, it started freezing up and not reading discs. After doing research, I learned that the laser lights on these machines are very weak and don't last long. It's cheaper to buy a new one than to get it fixed.

Hold out for a better product.

I spent $60 on this and it broke after 6 months.. I guess the old saying, "you get what you paid for" is true.

:(

So far, this unit has outperformed every other DVD player I have when it comes to reading different downloaded file types. If your main concern is compatability, this is the one to get. This feature sets it aside from all others. Otherwise, seems fine as far as picture and sound.

Past cheap Toshiba players have had reliability issues. If yours is making noise, unplug it, take off the cover and re-seat all the ribbon connectors, solves most problems with this and prior units.

If you have a standard definition TV, that is not capable of anamorphic squeeze, this player is your best bet. For some reason, the basic players from Sony, Panasonic, Philips, low end Dennon and even Oppo, display pictures full of moire, jaggies and motion artifacts. This Toshiba does not. Granted, the front panel sucks, the tray is flimsy...but if you are looking for a unit that plays DVD+R, DVD-R and DIVX, and has a really solid widescreen picture on a standard def TV, this is the only one I could find!

I bought this to play DivX movies, and needless to say, I wasn't expecting a whole lot; this is an extremely inexpensive piece of hardware. All-in-all, I've been pleasantly surprised, for it has been the perfect solution for playing DivX movies through my home theater. It has even gone beyond the call of duty regarding storage media, for even though the manual states that the DivX files need to be read from a CD-R or CD+R, I've been using DVD-R discs without any issues at all (this lets me store 5-6 DivX movies on one DVD disc instead of 1 movie on a CD disc). I haven't tried using a DVD+R yet - I'll update this if I can remember to do so. Hope this helps. (Five stars for the function to price ratio)

**Update 2/2/07
I used a DVD+R with the unit today, and it worked just fine. The media manufacturer was Verbatim, and I used Nero v6 to make the disc. Hope this is helpful!

it is user friendly just enough buttons as to not confuse/hookup was simple quality is great overall positive system

Two big problems with this DVD player. One, based on experience I stupidly assumed all DVD players display elapsed time while playing disks. This one just shows the track number. If you want to know how much of a movie you've watched (to mentally calculate how much is left) you're out of luck.

Two, this thing STINKS for playing music. Regardless of how your CD is encoded, it will pause two seconds between EVERY TRACK . . . which can be irritating when you're playing a CD of allegedly-continuous music, like an opera or the White Album or Dark Side of the Moon. I called Toshiba to ask about this, and they were confirmed this. They said ALL Toshiba DVD players pause between music tracks, and that basically I was stuck.

So, I'm warning you, and frankly I think they should print a warning on every box. (Something like "Won't play music properly! Just going to make you mad!") And I'm not buying Toshiba again.

I bought this DVD Player 18 months ago and after rarely using it, it has stopped working. It will load the DVD but will not read or play anything. What more can I say? Its Junk.

I bought this as a basic DVD player and it lasted only a few months. Freezes up, won't play and generally frustrating. I am throwing it out since it works only intermittantly. I thought buying Toshiba would mean it would perform for a few years at least. Waste of money. Don't buy it.

This is a low-end product, but performs well. Has played everything I've fed it so far. Problem with blank screen cited by another reviewer is a Catch 22. If you hook-up component video out of the box, you may get a blank screen because the unit is not set for component output (a selection you make during setup). I hooked up S-video which gave me a screen, made the component selection in setup, and reattached the component cables. Works fine.

Tried to hook up the component video to two tv's.
Neither worked.
Both come up with a blank screen.
The instructions say to turn off the progressive scan, but that doesn't work.
Taking it back.

UPDATE:
After going online, I found out how to get the component connection to work:
connect the s-video, set connection to component, turn the dvd player off, connect the component cables, all set.

This is a no-frills functional dvd player. I've had it for several months now, and it's working great. The LCD display is minimalist, which I'm fine with. But for those who like to see playing time and other information of that ilk, you might want to look elsewhere. The tray seemed a bit flimsy at first, but as long as you take the necessary caution with electronics such as these, you'll be alright. All in all, a good player at a great price.

So far it has been working fine. Its size and thin style is very convenient especially if you have little room for it.

After a month of use, I am very satisfied with this player. It has a few faults, but on the whole has performed exactly as needed.

Cons: No time counter or title/chapter display on the front panel. Sometimes rejects discs burned on low-quality media. Does not fast-forward well on some discs burned with high compression ratios.

Pros: Plays absolutey every brand and format of recordable media I can throw at it. DVD+R, -R, -RW, and +R/DL all work like a charm, even the cheapo 35 cent discs which give other players siezures. This is what I purchased the player for, and it delivers. Well worth the $50.

I think there are some unlucky people and some impatient people purchasing this unit. I sincerely could not believe how low the average score was for it. I wonder if some of the reviewers are getting their products used / already defective from dodgy sources online. It's amazing how many people still assume they are getting new product when it could be an auction for something that has been sitting in someone's garage.

Anyway, on to the player:

First, to respond to some of the complaints:
It is annoying to have to hook it up via composite to see anything before you turn on the component output. However this is sadly not unique to Toshiba. It is also annoying that no remote region hack seems to have slipped out the back door for this unit. I'd bet almost anything that one exists. So for those two faults alone I dock one star.

Otherwise, I am completely happy. Picture and sound are great after nudging the brightness one click to better match my already calibrated tv. This is coming from someone admittedly a little picky. I was coming from a Yamaha with great pic and sound; I just didn't feel like dropping another 150 on a player when I hope dvd recorders with ATSC tuners will be available soon. I tried a Philips for one day - returned for sucking, just so you know I'm not easily pleased.

It looks good, sounds good, loads fast, runs quiet, doesn't lock up, plays a ton of formats, and can be had for fifty. What else do you want?

BTW a video store near me uses one of these thirteen hours a day.

See my review of the Philips DVP642. I've owned both of these players, and they're both the same -- essentially useless for watching rental DVDs (that are confirmed to play just fine on other "cheap-o" DVD players like the APEX 1500).

Don't bother with this one.

This player was to replace a 5 year old bottom of the line Toshiba player, primarily used for living room viewing (versus my home theatre/reference player). The five year old player out performs this brand new one on all levels. Motor noise is terrible. The display on the player is pathetic, only showing the chapter (what no title? No counter?). Not to mention that this player, touting progressive scan and coming with component out, is SET TO COMPOSITE OUT! You have to hook it up via composite outs in order to set it up to utilize the component out, otherwise you will get a blank screen. I have had this player for 45 mins and back it will go. If this is for your kids' room, I'm sure it will be fine.... unless your kid is older than 5 and knows the difference. AVOID.

My husband purchased two of these players. Both of them are now going into the garbage after only 5 months. We had never purchased Toshiba products before, but we had always heard they made quality merchandise. Well if these players are an indication of what they call quality, I will never buy another of their products. The players stopped playing any DVDs after the first few months. Whenever you put in a movie, you get a message that says "bad", which I guess means the dvd is bad. We have tried at least 10-12 different discs and always get the same message, so we have finally given up. The two players we have are going to the garbage man this week. DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THIS ONE!!!!

I just needed a DVD player for my basement for kids, so while i'm doing loundry, they could be entertained near me. SO i would use it one or twice a week. It worked when i turned it on, but when i put the next DVD it just showed me "loading" message forever and then - "bad". So it never realy played a single disk and now i have to waiste my time for tuturning it. I will never EVER go with TOSHIBA again!

This was a great DVD player while it lasted. Had digital audio and S-Video out. Had lots of nice features to play discs and display info. But after about 6 months it just stopped playing any disc. Kep diaplaying message 'bad' for any disc I put in. ever going to buy anoter Toshiba product let alone another Toshibe DVD player.
It reflects very poorly on the quality of products Toshiba makes.

It was a nice affordable player while it lasted but today it suddenly stopped being able to read any disc. The message reads 'no disc'. This is my second encounter with a bad TOSHIBA DVD player. The other one, owned by my relative is just fussy and stops whenever it feels like it. No more TOSHIBA DVD players for me!
UPDATE: Customer support recommended to unplug the player for a few minutes but that didn't solve the problem. Being too stingy to pay for repairs or buying a new one I opened this player and 1) cleaned the lens with a fine paintbrush and 2)disconnected and connected back a flat flexible cable that goes from the dvd drive to the 'motherboard'. One of the things or both did the trick and the player is working again so I can give back a few stars and reserve a star for myself too :)

I read the reviews of this item before I purchased it. Several were bad but I decided to gamble on it anyway and I'm glad I did. I don't remember where I read it but somehow I got the impression that this product had been upgraded (?) after a certain date. I must have gotten one of the newer ones because I have not had any of the troubles that the bad reviews spoke of.

I ordered this DVD player to play several region2 DVDs that I had purchased by mistake and it played them flawlessly. As a matter of fact it gobbles up anything that I put in it and plays it to perfection.

After I figured out how to hook up the component video cables (DUH!) the picture was excellent. Sharp with beautiful color - couldn't ask for a better picture. Yes, the controls are small but you just have to suck it up and get used to them - so what?!?! Great features - even more than any other DVD player I have found.

The only drawback that I can find is the weight of the product. It is very lighweight to the point that the weight of the cables used to hook it up drag it backward and pushing buttons sometimes pushes it backward. I solved this by putting a heavy cable box on top and now have no problems.

It has gone on sale since I purchased mine and I would say that it is a great buy. Snatch it up!

I bought this DVD player because I trusted the Toshiba brand after owning 2 Toshiba TV's over the years and being very pleased with them. Needless to say I have owned this DVD player for only 4 months and now it refuses to play any disks. I have put in several brand new DVD movies into the player and it keeps saying "Bad Disc" on the screen. Or, it will get to the main menu and then freeze. I've tried everything I can think of to make it work, but the machine is clearly broken. I only watch about 1 DVD a week, and am very gentle with the player so I can't imagine why it suddenly has stopped working (other than poor craftsmanship). Of course, the Warranty is only good for 3 months, so I've just wasted $60 on a player that I now have to replace. I am very disappointed with this product, and definitely DO NOT RECOMMEND it.

this player is not bad when it 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.

can be improved:
DivX subtitle is too high on the screen. it is somewhat obstructing the picture. and there seems to be no way to adjust the subtitle so that it can be lower and bigger. the subtitle is pure white with no outline color, so if the movie happens to have a white patch of area, then the subtitle is not visible. furthermore, the subtitle being supported seems to be the text file (.srt) but not the bitmap subtitle (.sub). also for some files, when i fast forward it, it will all of a sudden go back to the beginning of the file and even to the previous files... so it seems like a bug. another thing is that there seems to be no way to make the player "region free"... so if you go to europe and buy a DVD and bring it back home, you can't play it.

Never in my life have I despised a mere machine as I do this dinky thing.
Bought it (via online auction, you know the one) because I have a Toshiba TV also with what they call ColorStream.
Where do I begin?
The tray release is eensy-weensy and must be pressed and re-pressed before it deigns to open or close.
In fact, all the controls are eensy-weensy and irritating to finagle.
Gimcrack is the word for this item, a thing so cheap and flimsy it will hardly sit down on a shelf.
But then, I despise the accompanying manual just as fiercely.
Some labor group must have PAID Toshiba to deliberately mislead and confuse and omit information from the defenseless consumer.
The front panel lights up and says "NO" instead of "ON."
That really sums it up.
Next time I see a Toshiba product, I too will say NO NO NO NO, and a thousand times NO!

We bought this DVD player because it boasted the ability to play Divx and it was affordable, and carried the Toshiba name, which we have had good luck with in the past. The first one we got, we had to return because it did not work. Better luck with the second one. We mostly wanted it to play downloads and Divx material, although we use it as a regular DVD player too. It works GREAT. It has a beautiful picture, and lots of neat little functions. All the divx stuff we have downloaded works except we get errors about not compatible with HD.

As for the person who wrote about it stopping after each song, if you want to play the entire disc you can. If you choose to play one song, it will play only one song. You can, however, choose random mode or repeat mode too. So I'm not sure why they couldn't get it to play CD's all the way through.

It definitely feels a bit flimsy and is not as sturdily built as some of the more expensive players, but as long as you aren't throwing it around, it should hold up just fine. I like the remote and all the functions that it includes on it. Honestly, I am not sure what half of them were, at first, but by pressing the buttons I found out rather easily.

I am wondering about the region free aspect that someone mentioned, unless they bought one that is hacked. Ours is not region free.

I gave it 4 stars because I think 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.