Philips DVP5982 1080p Upscaling DVD Player
by Philips
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List Price: Our Price: $39.00 You Save: $50.99 (57%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Home Theater See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Philips DVP5982 1080p Upscaling DVD Player
Customer Review: You get way more than you pay for!
Summary: 5 Stars
I have been a happy user of Philips DVD players for some time, having at owned several models. Yes, I have had minor cosmetic issues in the past with the overly small and lightweight remotes, and the not-so-great on screen menu layouts and design, but overall they have delivered a quality image. I recently bought two Sony Bravia HDTVs and decided to go with this upconverting Philips model until I see how the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray war plays out. I have been astonished by the fidelity and quality of the image of regular DVDs played through this unit! Although my Bravia's only support 1080i (and not 1080p) I am still amazed by the detail this unit seems to tweak out of SD DVDs. Also, the footprint of this unit is tiny and matches the base of my Bravias in color and size, so it's a perfect design fit. I have not an issue with the on-screen menus. They are far better than previous Philips models. Also, the remote is the new-style design (where it looks like an actual product designer and not an engineer figured it out... but it's still small and a bit too light). My only complaint is that the upconverting happens only via the HDMI output. My Bravia's only have a single HDMI input, so I had to sacrifice that to the Philips DVD player, and use the component inputs for my DirecTV HD signal. I use quality cabling and could discern no difference to the DirecTV signal. I also used a quality HDMI cable and the DVDs I've played are pretty breathtaking with the upconversion. I watched Pan's Labyrinth recently and there was astonishing detail in the foliage especially. I plan to watch the (non HD-DVD versions) of the Planet Earth series and hope they are almost as spectacular as the Discovery HD Channel broadcasts. (Sorry, I just couldn't handle the Sigourney Weaver voice over on those, and had to get the original Attenborough versions!). Bottom line, if you want to wait out the HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray war, then buy this for $70 and enjoy what you've been missing in your SD DVD collection! Also, I receive and play a lot of commercially purchased DVDs from the UK. With a simple series of remote control commands, I was able to unlock this player and make it region-free. It even handles the PAL conversion flawlessly! Try doing that with many Sony and other models!Customer Review: Such A Bargain...
Summary: 5 Stars
All in all, I am super pleased with this player after about a week of use (bought it refurb $43.95 + 7.49 shipping). After using my Samsung HD-941 DVD player for 2 years ($200+ when it first came out), I figured that it was time to swap it out with something else after enduring a couple of its annoying shortcomings.
The most impressive is the crisp picture quality. The unit processes dark shades without the annoying pixelation, which bugged me to no end with the Samsung. Another observation is that my picture was much sharper with the new player.
For the more savvy in A/V electronics: So far, I have played Xvids, AVIs, Mpegs, and also normal DVDs. It plays just about everything except .ogm (I think there were a couple more formats, but I am not 100% sure). That was the key reason for me in purchasing the Philips. You can also unlock the player to make it region free. Just search the web for "unlocking dvp5982" and follow the instructions. Another cool thing is that the unit reads multisession discs, which saves everyone a lot of money in the long run if you are a burner like I am.
A small gripe that I have is that the until does not have optical audio out. Because of my strange A/V setup, I cannot use HDMI for audio from the unit. Just a heads up...
The Philips DVP5982 is tiny, which is nice. It feels a bit tacky, but Philips did a great job of using shiny plastics to spruce it up in the looks department. I appreciate that it does not have any annoying, super-bright LEDs on the front to distract you while viewing movies.
Another feature of note is that the player can process 1080p, which is great since videos are starting to be distributed in higher quality formats.
Now for the remote: It is laid out fairly well. The reason I say "fairly" is that when I do grab it in the right way, all the buttons are where I expect them to be. On the other hand, I have had occasions of holding it upside down (I think the jog buttons should have been on the bottom). I had read some other reviews stating that the remote does not have a button to open the tray door. If they would have read the manual, they would learn that the stop button doubles for eject.
Customer Review: Just might buy a second one...
Summary: 4 Stars
The Philips DVP5982 1080p Upscaling DVD Player has been a satisfying purchase for my HD TV. I have a Philips 32" 720p tv and have been able to recognize a clear difference in the picture of most of my DVD's.
Important Notes: The quality of the picture does not improve if you are not using a HDMI cable - that is standard regardless of the player you purchase. Some movies may not appear noticeably clearer if the movie is an older movie and not digitally remastered. Upscale is like makeup: there is only so much you can do for an ugly date. If you have a Philips tv, the remote for your tv may or may not control the DVP5982 - mine doesn't. Even if your tv will receive a 1080p signal but can only display a lower resolution, the player will only upscale to the level your tv will display. If you connect with a HDMI cable, some DVD audio may not work. Simple fix (I learned this after I returned the first one and had the same problem on the second):
1) Press "Setup" on your remote
2) Press your Right Arrow button one time until the Audio Setup Page appears
3) Press your Down Arrow until you highlight "Digital Audio Setup"
4) Press your Down Arrow until you get to the "HDMI Audio Setup"
5) Select "On"
6) Press your Back Arrow until you can navigate the icons at the top of the page and "Exit" Setup, OR just press the "Setup" button (the easy way)
Other Points of Interest: The remote is small and must be pointed directly at the player in order for it function. The player tray does feel cheap, but then again this isn't a $1,000 player either. It plays movies burned with iMovie and iDVD flawlessly for me.
Bottom Line: It was the lowest price mainstream 1080p Upscaling DVD Player I found, and it has performed better than I expected for a player that costs less than $100. While its quality will not equal that of a Blu-Ray, it just might keep you happy until the Blu-Ray player prices go down and the bugs get worked out. Just in case you were wondering, I'm planning on purchasing a larger 1080p LCD and I will most probably purchase a second DVP5982 while I wait out the Blu-Ray/HD birthing.
Customer Review: Easy set-up, excellent viewing for HDTVs
Summary: 4 Stars
My review cannot include a lot of jargon, as I am no technofile. I wanted something easy to set-up and pretty to watch. The DVP5982 is essentially plug and play. I connected the power cord to the wall, plugged in a single HDMI cable to my HDTV, and off it went. Awesome.
The menus and remote docked the player of a full star. They are tough to navigate, and are very confusing. The instructions don't help much. Basically, I figured out how to change the video setting to tell the player that my TV was 16:9, and to do virtual surround for the audio. I also have it doing 1080i all of the time instead of automatically choosing how much to upscale. That's my personal preference.
Thankfully, after this, it has done whatever it needed to do on its own. It automatically scales movies to best fit the screen, which is incredibly cool.
I decided to try out the player for purposes of this review on three standard DVD offerings: Star Wars Episode III, Superman Returns, and the BBC version of Planet Earth, episode one. My findings:
The opening ten minutes of SW 3 are visually taxing, and the player blows the image up to 1080i (my TV's limit) beautifully. Viewing it in both 720p and 1080i, I noticed little difference but preferred the 1080i. In fact, I could find no ghosting at all. Stunning, really.
Superman Returns looked better than on my standard TV, but ultimately lacked the quality of the Star Wars presentation. It wasn't terribly sharp. Good, but not great.
Planet Earth was mind-blowingly beautiful. I could find little to no difference between a true HD signal and the upscaling transfer from the 5982 -- perhaps only the glassiness that true HD brings to the table. Unlike the other two movies, it also fills the screen. Again, the other two are movies, shot in widescreen, and it knows to letterbox them slightly. This, shot for HDTV, completely fills the 16:9. It looks amazing, and worth the price of admission right there.
Recommended, especially at the price.
Customer Review: Very basic
Summary: 2 Stars
Had a lot of hopes when I bought that they would have improved on their earlier model, returning it for the following reasons:
Cons:
- 8 char DOS names: horrible & cryptic dos-like file/folder names, no case sensitivity, I had no clue what I was looking at, this was reason enough for me to reject it, as I mainly wanted it for its USB capabilites.
(only FAT32)
- inability to browse after 4 (or 5) nested folders
- agonizingly slow response to remote key press
- agonizing to browse photos, no control over slideshow time limit, and (-->next) button takes forever
- takes very long to render hi-res
- arrow buttons moves frame in zoom mode (which is ridiculous, as in the case where it renders some movies in small frame, for which we have to zoom, then we cannot ff or rw)..there should have been an option to bypass this, or tell the video to stretch instead of zoom
- unintuitively designed keys, you need to keep looking at the remote everytime..even a chimp cud've produced a better remote.
- no s-video, no digital sound ?? ok, i may not have an HDMI capable tv everytwhere..I dont want to be stuck with composite quality
- photos have warped edges
- slow indexing during beginning of divx video, those in a dvd disc are even slower to get recognized at all (takes 10 seconds)
- have no confidence philips will ever fix any of this in an update in future, and their support website had nothing to fix the above, and the instructions for updating said nothing of using the usb, we must still burn a cd ?? wtf ??
- not as small as some commented, it is sleek no doubt, but still standardly wide.
- apart from all else, the other main reason I had bought this was for the upconversion, and for me, since I have all my data in external drives, it makes more sense to go the PC way, where upconversion has always been a standard function.
Pros:
Looks good, remote looks good
video excellent quality, very fast recognition of usb drive