electronicsme - Electronics / Video Components made easy

Print this page

Toshiba D-R560: Review

Posted to Video Components 2009-11-13

If you are looking for a DVD player that can do more for you than just play movies, then you may want to check out the Toshiba D-R560. With the ability to burn your most prized home movies to disk as well as up-convert your current movie collection to near HD quality, the Toshiba D-R560 packs a lot of functionality into a convenient package.

Measuring 16.54 x 2.32 x 9.72 inch and weighing only 5.28 lbs, the Toshiba D-R560 provides users with an affordable high-tech alternative to the standard VCR recording while providing the functionality of an up-converting DVD player. On the outside the Toshiba D-R560 may look like just your average DVD player, but a peek under the hood shows it can do much more. The player has the ability to up-convert standard DVD's to 720p, 1080i, or 1080p resolution while packing an array of ports. The Toshiba D-R560 comes equipped with a component output, HDMI out, S-Video in/out, RCA video in/out, analog audio in/out and coaxial out. The player offers users the ability to record in XP, SP, LP, EP and SLP formats similar to that of your VCR

Rating:

3.6 out of 5

Features

The Toshiba D-R560 comes equipped with ATSC, NTSC, and QAM tuners which allow users to pick up either over the air or cable channels. The player also includes an SD bridge that allows it to record data received from one of the built in tuners and copy that data to DVD in standard resolution. The completion of the recording process is made simple with the use of the auto finalize technology. This feature will automatically complete the recording either at the end of the disk or end of the recording time and requires no input from the user to complete. The player also has the ability to schedule up to 12 different timed recording in a one month period.

Those who are concerned about being restricted to a certain type of recordable media will be impressed with the array of media types the Toshiba D-R560 can handle. It can play and record on DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW. The RW, or re-writable disks, can be re-written on up to 1000 times before they are no longer usable. These disks can also be played on many pc's as well as DVD players. The Toshiba D-R560 can also do more than just play movies. It is capable of reading CD-DA, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-RAM, and VCD's disks as well as CD-R/RW disks full of either MP3's or WMA audio files. The player can also handle DivX and JPEG formats making it quite the multi-media package.

The player also has the ability to record 2-channel Dolby Digital audio which provides quality audio reproduction matched to your video playback.

Performance

The Toshiba D-R560 provides users with quality video recording and playback performance. With the ability to write to many different formats the player can provide quality reproductions of your favorite TV shows.

Those that may have a phobia of new technology have no need to fear the Toshiba D-R560. This player offers users an easy plug and play setup, and easy to navigate menus. In no time, even the average user can be up and running and programming a variety of timed recording so they never have to miss their favorite program again. One of the biggest gripes with this player is not the usability of the player itself, but the lack of user-friendliness when it comes to the remote. It is not backlit and the button layout hardly makes sense, with buttons utilized in common key combinations located no where near each on the remote. Most users get so frustrated with the poor layout that they end up swapping it out for a more user friendly universal remote.

Summary

In conclusion, the Toshiba D-R560 combines the best of both worlds when it comes to multi-media functionality. With the ability copy home movies as well as your favorite TV show to disk, the Toshiba D-R560 offers an upgrade to those still holding onto their old VCR. So if you are looking for a DVD player that allows you to do more than watch movies then the Toshiba D-R560 may be the recorder for you.

Pros

Up-converts to near HD quality
ATSC, NTSC and QAM tuners
Ability to handle multiple media formats
Quality video performance

Cons

Frustrating remote