Page 1 of Aiwa DV370 or Tosh SD210??
Hardware Forum
First up, I`m new to DVD technology and am buying my first player.
I`m aiming at around £200.
Having read some of the postings on this site, I opted for the Tosh. I spoke to someone at RicherSounds who said that the Tosh does not play RCE disks and that in the future this will become an issue. He then suggested buying the Aiwa instead.
Now I know Techtronics provide an RCE compatible Tosh though they seem to have stock problems, but apparantly this involves swapping around disks. Is this an issue (could it get annoying?)
I`ve read the review of the Aiwa 370 on the site and was a bit worried by some of the negative comments and the fact it seems like an old model (well year 2000 now sounds old!). However, I`vd found no comparison with the Tosh SD210.
Does anyone have any opinion on what some of the differences might be?
And (dare I ask!) which is the better player?
(Sorry about the xpost)
RE: Aiwa DV370 or Tosh SD210??
I bought the SD210 from RicherSounds last week after much deliberation & for the money you really can`t do better - best buy in 4 mags!
Haven`t tried any RCE disks myself but I`m pretty sure you can `hot swap` - put in any non-RCE region 1 disk, watch the FBI warning, eject, swap with the RCE disk & play (can anyone else confirm?)
Don`t know much about the Aiwa (except that it`s £20 more) but I can vouch for the Toshiba - use an RGB scart and sound & video are pretty damn near perfect
Whatever you do, don`t buy from Techtronics until you`ve read the Retailer Reviews section on this site. Do a search for Techtronics & have a look at what 99% of the people who contribute to this forum thought! I was tempted to buy a macro-free player from them but cancelled my order as soon as I found out about their customer (dis)service. Instead I went to RS, got the player, a decent scart lead & a 3-year warrantee for the same price.
My advice? Go for the Tosh (from RS or anywhere else but Techtronics) & you won`t regret it - I don`t. All I have to do now is persuade my other half that we really need that £1200 32" wide-screen TV to go with it...
If only `other half`s` could understand that food, water and a nice home are secondary issues - compared to a decent home ent system !
Thanks for the advice and the warning. I suppose the only question I have is that if it turns out I/we can`t play RCE on a RicherSounds Tosh, will this become a big problem in the future? That`s what the sales guy suggested when he said I should go for the Aiwa instead.
May I also ask how much one can expect to pay for the Tosh from Richer Sounds? Did you buy online or from a shop?
I`ve decided on the Toshiba SD210 but to my dismay found out that Richer Sounds seem to have ran out. They seem to do this pretty often. Looks like I`ll have to get it from somewhere else..and pay more..GREAT...NOT!!
RE: Aiwa DV370 or Tosh SD210??
Even the Techtronics website says that their chipped version of the 210 needs `preliminary checks` (ie hot swapping) before it will play RCE disks so I think you/we will have the exact same problem whatever. I`ve looked around in this forum & the general opinion is that this work-around does work, even tho it`s a bit of a pain.
(see http://www.dvd.reviewer.co.uk/forums/thread.asp?Forum=211&Thread=59408 for more on this)
I`ve been looking thru old dvd mags & the Aiwa seems decent enough, tho one thing you might want to consider is that is doesn`t output a RGB signal from its SCART socket - believe me you are missing out if this is true, the difference between RGB & plain composite is staggering! (DVD, issue 3, spring 2001 for the review of the Aiwa)
I paid £180 from RS in Leicester & was lucky enough to get the last one in the shop - some bloke ordered it, forgot to pick it up on the Saturday & they let me have it on the Monday. I also got last month`s What Hi-Fi with a £20 off voucher for the Tosh. Haven`t seen this month`s but probably worth a look on the off chance...