Philips DVP5140 Multiformat DVD Player with DivX, MP3, Windows Media Support
by Philips
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List Price: Category: Home Theater See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Philips DVP5140 Multiformat DVD Player with DivX, MP3, Windows Media Support
Customer Review: Everyone needs a PAL
Summary: 4 Stars
For the price this really is a good deal, considering the variety of discs it plays. So far it has played all of my DVD-r and -rw discs, though the manual claims otherwise.
I have about 20 DivX discs most of them contain 10 plus titles on them, one title on one disc claimed improper codec so the audio was still heard but no video. The rest played flawlessly. There is even a title that freezes when I play it on my PC but NOT on this player. An on screen counter display shows time remaining and time in, and its small and suttle. Of course you can remove it just as easy. The manual claims it supports WMA but not WMV, I haven't tried either.
PAL/NTSC capable, your T.V. does not have to be a PAL T.V.(or vice versa) to work, all that is taken care of internally. I own two PAL/region 2 discs and again no problems playing either.(refer to H.A. Emet's review for directions to make region free)
Now for some reason it is very important that certain individuals have to have an eject button on their remote. As if some godly power is going to swap the disc for them as well. These individuals have given bad reviews based on their assumption that this player lacks such an option. As well as the lack of a fast forward or reverse. The remote is cheesy don't get me wrong, but if they had read their manuals it clearly states the existence of both options. If opening and closing the tray from your lazyboy is that important to you just hold the stop button for a few seconds and presto! Now you can get up and swap the disc, or have fido do it for you! As far as FFW and REV during playback, the left cursor (arrows surrounding the "OK" button) or right cursor perform these functions. Every press of the button changes the speed.
Another issue I've noticed, is people are confused when they get to the code entering portion of H.A.Emet's directions for making it region free. There is no PLACE to enter the digits, JUST DO IT! Some complain the tray opens too slow, or it takes to long to load a disc. There is a "lag" when you press open, but that only occurs when you first power up. And I'm only talking a few seconds if that. This seems to be a Philips "thing" since my other Philips player is just as slow.
I'm not going to address the picture quality or sound since numorous other reviews have already covered those. But I will say I own three players and a recorder, there isn't too much differences in sound and picture between them. Also this unit does not support s-video, only cheesy CVBS cables(yellow, red and white) or component video, I.E. Y Pb Pr (color stream for you Toshiba fans).
The unit measures 17 1/8" long by 9" deep by 1 1/2" tall(including the feet)
2/12/08
After trying other remotes I discovered it's the player that has issues with distance not the remote. Though the remote is still cheesy. A lot of people have had bad luck with play back after a short period of time. Luckly I have not. I also don't use this player as my primary one. Another thing I've noticed is some of my DVD-R's experince slight hesitation in the frame rate when the movement on screen is fast. But again this player doesn't claim to support DVD-R. I highly recommend you read P.Hooker's review before you purchase this player!
Customer Review: I wish my Sony could do what this machine can
Summary: 4 Stars
I got my first DVD player, a Sony DVP-NS50P, a couple of years ago and like most things about it- except that it cannot play PAL DVD's and cannot be "hacked" to do so. I wanted to get several PAL only titles and from reading here and elsewhere the Philips 5140 seemed like the way to go (I don't have DVD capability on my old computer).
I paid about $50 for the thing here at Amazon, set up wasn't too bad (you really ought to read the manual), and I left most settings just as they were right out of the box- it looks just fine to me. Just to be sure I've run a CD (I like Sony better for CD playback) and a Hogan's Heroes DVD (region 1, NTSC format) through it in addition to my PAL discs, all look good. The region hack, described in other reviews, is very simple- just set for region 0 and you can play anything on this machine. By the way, you won't see a box for hacking the code, just follow directions and the list of regions will come on screen. The player was default set for NTSC, region 1- I changed only the region code and it plays all of my discs just the same. I don't even have any of the other discs this thing can handle so I don't know what they'd be like.
I do have some complaints about the player however:
#1 No fast forward or reverse (APRIL 22 EDIT)- THEY ARE THERE if you read the manual closely enough. During playback < on the remote is reverse and > is fast forward, the up and down arrows do them in slow motion. My Sony is much clearer on this with labeled buttons for functions.
#2 The zoom function is strange to me- you go 2X, 3X, 4X (with a little diagram showing screen position, you can shift your location)and then to 3 reduced size screens (why them, at all?) and you have to go through the whole list (my Sony has 2X and 4X only) to get back to the regular view.
#3 To turn the thing totally off you apparently have to unplug it, otherwise you're on "standby", pressing the power button gets you fully "on".
#4 This one is minor but to open from across the room point the remote at the player and press "stop" for two seconds- that's kind of like clicking on "start" to turn off a Windows PC.
#5 If it's loading (starting up) it won't respond well to your remote, let the little icon on screen finish first. I had trouble getting the region hack to work- this may be why. I think you'll also want to be very careful to point exactly at the machine too, the more level the better.
In general I'd pick my Sony over my Philips but for PAL playback I'm satisfied.
Customer Review: 2 Stars. You can do better...
Summary: 2 Stars
This is an incredibly mediocre DVD player. Picture quality is fine, but features are lacking. My biggest angry complaint is that if you leave a DVD paused long enough, the thing will simply shut off. Oh, it doesn't tell you that, it likes to pretend it's in "Standby" mode; fact is, it's merely in "OFF" mode with a red LED light on. It will NOT remember where you paused, either; you'll simply have to start over. If you are like me and tend to pause to go to the bathroom or respond to a phone call or such, this is an extremely irksome "feature". Other than that, it just seems to lack certain features. I couldn't get the subtitles on one of my DVDs to work at all, so, uh, go figure.
The remote control is absolutely awful. I'm only mildly annoyed by the lack of clearly labled ffw/rwd buttons (they are disguised as the left/right menu navigation buttons). I'm more annoyed by the lack of an eject button on the remote. I'm absolutely enraged by the placement of the IR diode (signal thingy). It's recessed under a little half-inch shelf of plastic, which makes the reception for the player sketchy at best. If it isn't aimed just right, you get no response. If you for some reason get this player, use a Universal Remote.
The region-free feature is nice, but I wish it was automatic. All I can say is that if you do order this, don't get angry when you see a big Region 1 code on the box; this is just the default setting. It takes a minute or two and a special code, but you should be able to play that obscure Chinese comedy series you paid a 937% markup for on eBay. So far, I have no complaints with the multi-region feature.
It can play a variety of formats; I suppose that's attractive to some folks. If that sort of thing gets you excited, then you might well like this DVD player. Frankly, I can play all of these formats as well on my new-fangled "computer", plus I can play games, draw pictures, and write smarmy reviews. So really, I personally don't see the attraction of multi-format playback.
Overall, this is a mediocre DVD player that happens to have an attractive feature (region-free playback). There are better players available for the same price or a few bucks more, and I recommend you shop around until you're sure this one is good enough for you.
***EDIT*** Ok, I guess you CAN resume playback where you left off, you just have to press play as soon as you see the "LOADING". Frankly, this is only mildly less annoying. Why couldn't they just AUTOMATICALLY resume play? Seriously, jeez...
Customer Review: Versatile & impressive multi-region dvd + media player. A bargain!
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this dvd player mainly to be able to play PAL and other region dvd's, which this player does perfectly after entering a quick region code that you can find on-line. You don't need a special 'PAL-format' tv, either, the player outputs PAL as NTSC with no noticable loss in video quality. When purchasing it, I realized that it had DivX support for a variety of video formats, but didn't know exactly what that meant until I actually started playing around with it. I need to view several different video formats (lots of archival footage from on-line sources) and have previously either viewed avi and mpeg files and the such on my computer, or occasionally converted them to dvd format to view on my tv, which is complicated and very time-consuming. I was surprised to discover that with this player I was able to play a DVD-R crammed with many hours of video in multiple formats. It even has full support for subtitles and multiple language tracks in most video formats with the DivX player. I have run into very few video formats which are not supported, and the quality often looks better than it did viewing the same media files on my mac. This player has actually saved me an enormous amount of time and lots of dvd-r's since I no longer need to convert different formats to full dvd's anymore in order to view them on a dvd player.
I have found this to be one of the most versatile dvd and media players I've come across. If you need to play PAL and NTSC dvd's, or dvd-r's in mutliple media formats via the DivX support, I highly recommend this player for the price. I also would note that the player is very quiet when playing all formats: dvd, dvd-r, svcd, etc. I've run into other players in this price range which are surprisingly loud, especially playing dvd-r's, and was happy to find this one is so quiet. Overall, I am very pleased with this dvd player and have no complaints.
Also, this was my first purchase of a new item directly from Amazon, and I was happy with the very fast, free shipping for this item, and overall quality of the transaction.
Customer Review: Great player and easy to use
Summary: 4 Stars
I've had this player for about 4 months and it's great! I've played CDs, DVDs, DVD-Rs, DVD-RWs, etc. Everything plays great with no problems. The discs load fast and the picture quality is great. I also like the fact that the remote control is easy to use. I've had a few that I had to get the manual out every time just to see how to use them. Having said that, I do have a few complaints which is why I gave it 4 stars and not 5.
1. When you turn it on and hit the open/close button, it doesn't open right away. It takes about 10-15 seconds to open. Not too bad; just a bit annoying.
2. When you hit stop or pause, you have 5 minutes until it goes into standby mode and 15 minutes until it turns off. I'm one of these people that just can't sit through an entire DVD, no matter how good it is. So, when I pause it, sometimes I may not come back until an hour or so later to finish it. But, I can't with this player. I contacted the manufacturer and was told this was the way it was designed and there was no way around it. It's apparently designed that way to prolong the life of the player.
3. As an extension of 2, I read in the manual that this player keeps the memory of the last 5 DVDs played in it and you can come back and finish any of them later. I have yet to see this player do this. Anybody else with this problem?
4. My biggest complaint (and one of the biggest for the other reviewers) is the poor reception of the remote control. About every other time I use it, I have to hit the button twice to get the player to recognize what I want it to do. And I'm pointing the remote directly at the player each time. This is very annoying.
But for the price, you really can't do much better than this player. It does just about everything you want it to do. If you're looking for an inexpensive, simple to use DVD player, this is the one to get.