Philips DVP642 DivX-Certified Progressive-Scan DVD Player
by Philips
|
List Price: Category: Home Theater See more product details |
|---|
(Click here)
Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Philips DVP642 DivX-Certified Progressive-Scan DVD Player
Customer Review: Things that others didn't mention
Summary: 5 Stars
Let start with the good part:
Things that amaze me:
- If you have a CD with a div-x avi file and one or more subtitle (text files) on that CD, you can select one as the subtitle. So you can have subtitles like for a DVD in different languages and with fonts for languages as Russian, Romanian,.. displaying specific letters found in their alphabet (of course if the text file has them)
- If you put a data DVD with mp3 or/and avi (mpeg1,2,4 div-x, PAL/NTSC ) or/and pictures you can play them all. I had a DVD back-up of my hard drive and I was able to browse , watch and listen all media files on that DVD. Imagine a DVD with mp3: to play all files once will take 60 hours of music! Or you can have six div-x movies with subtitles on a data DVD, all this with a PAL/NTSC conversion.
I will not repeat what others said about how good or great it is (it is true), I just want to say regarding affirmation made by others "this will play everything you put in it" this is not true it will play only files that are in specifications. That might be all that you have. If video or audio is not as in specifications then the file will not be played or it will be played without sound or without video.
Problems that I've noticed:
- On a DVD when jumping from the last file in a directory to the first file in the next directory with a lot of files it stopped taking commands - I had to press Stand-By. After powering up again everything was ok I could go select and play files from that directory. Maybe I didn't wait enough or the disc was dirty ?.
- On a certain CD with a div-x file in play mode at a certain time the DVD player will freeze (every time) and resets: "Loading disc" message appears. If 2 seconds before that time index I press play x2 and a few seconds later play normal everything was ok. Probably a disc error or a file error (downloading error ?) .
Overall this is a great DVDplayer and you can do and play things that you can not with others DVD players. I can achieve more only by putting a PC in my audio video center. Also is the cheapest div-x player that I found and it has a great video and audio quality. I think that people who complain about bad sound or image they have some wrong setting in audio or video - read the manual (could be a defective unit too).
One more thing: There are people charging you $50 more just because they made the unit region free: All they did was pressing a combination on the remote control I don't think you should give them that.
Customer Review: Not all audio codecs will play back with DivX video
Summary: 3 Stars
It's great to have an inexpensive set-top box that will play DivX video. A cautionary note: Be careful which audio codec is used for the DivX video files. MP3 seems to play OK, but I found that DivX files I had, with audio encoded in Intel dvi_adpcm (0x0011) (the default for Showshifter, I think), played silently. The file audio must be converted to MP3 before burning to a disk. I understand that a firmware update may be available for the unit, but I haven't tried it yet.The main detraction is that the remote control is just plain bad! I have to keep pressing buttons repeatedly to get the unit to respond. A programmable remote might improve this, but it could be the receiver on the unit that is the problem.
Sometimes the unit would get confused if I loaded a CD-R music disk, but this can be corrected by opening and closing the disk tray.
Just to see what would happen, I loaded a CD-R with only some RealMedia (.rm) files. The player became confused and kept trying to load the disk. I could not eject the disk until I finally turned it off and held down the eject button when powering back on. That got it to eject.
The file menu interface is very primitive.
Playback of DivX 5.05 video encoded at 800kbs played with "reasonable" quality. Sometimes it looked like the characters on TV were walking through some kind of clear gelatinous ooze but mainly if you are watching up close. This can be alleviated somewhat by the menu ajustments for picture quality for selecting a less bright picture.
I just used a regular TV. No Progressive scan HDTV montior to test. DVD playback quality seemed fine but using the crumby remote to navigate menus is a big detraction. It played my DVD+R and DVD+RW disks with no problem, although there is no mention of support for the DVD-R/W disks and I have read elsewhere that they do not play on this unit. That is unfortunate for the early adopters the spent a lot of money on DVD-R/W disks before the DVD+R/W format (a better format IMHO) became available.
There is a back-door hack on the remote to change the region code to make it region free (videohelp.com) but even BETTER is that there seems to be NO Macrovision on the unit, right out of the box!!! I ran it through a VCR and the image appears stable! This is great because if your TV doesn't have video inputs, you can plug the player into the VCR inputs and don't have to buy an expensive RF modulator and constantly swap cables between the VCR and the DVD/RF modulator. (Macrovision should be outlawed!!!)
Customer Review: Great buy
Summary: 5 Stars
I must be stupid, because I can't seem to train my cat to change out DVDs, which is something everybody here complaining about the lack of an eject button _on the remote_ must have done. Question: Who cares if the remote doesn't have an eject button? You have to get off your duff to swap discs anyway.
But, seriously, on to the review. I've tried in this player DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVD+R bootyped as -ROM, CD-R, and CD-RW. All worked.
In regards to formats, I've tried vcd,svcd,mpeg,avi,dvd video, DivX, Xvid. I'm not 100% positive that last one was in fact a true Xvid, but pretty sure. Of the DivX I've done two channel and digital surround. All worked with the exception of two of the PC's formats: one, encoded with 2-channel sound, did not play sound, and one played, but its video was funkily downgraded to 256 colors or something and all blocky. This is out of trying probably 15 movies (old and new). My guess is that those that didn't work were just encoded badly, so it was not the player's fault.
I have a poorly burned DVD movie on a disk that was very jumpy on my 9 month old koss player, and in such bad shape that my nec 3500 burner would not even rip from it (I wanted to rebuild it), no matter what I did. I was going to use it as a frisbee. However, this Philips player played it and there was zero sign of stuttering.
Three complaints I have about this are:
1) X8 is the fastest FF. In reality it seems to go faster, ie. it does not take fully 10 seconds to get through 80 seconds of footage. Still, I don't know why they had it go so slowly.
2) Seems that pressing display is temporary. I can't leave it on to see the time on the disk if I'm forward winding through it. You can see the time on disk on the display on the player, but that's still a bit silly.
3) Remember disks...if you press stop, you can resume later. However, if you take out the disk and put it back in, the player will lose where it was. My old cheapy 9 month old Koss (mentioned above), would remember disks. In fact you could watch disk 1 half way through, watch disk 2, then it would resume disk 1's spot. This player is supposed to remember as far back as 5 disks, but mine doesn't.
All in all a great deal though, especially at Amazon's prices. Not spending the 1-2 hours required to convert a DivX into DVD format is _very_ convenient. If I wasn't so cheap, I'd buy a second one.
Customer Review: Updated review: plays Divx fine, but has trouble with VCDs
Summary: 5 Stars
This Philips DVD player not only looks good, weighs little, but is one super hero of a DVD player. Everything you've read or heard is true: it can play not only video DVDs, VCDs, CDs, and JPEG pictures, but can play DivX and MPEG4 files with grace. In fact, with the latest firmware, you don't even need to navigate any folder menus to play DivX files: just put in the disc and the DVP642 will automatically start playing (after about 30 seconds to a minute, though).
And, yes, this player can play DVD-R and DVD-RW just fine, even though the user's manual only mentions DVD+R/RW compatibility.
The user's manual is one of the better ones I've seen for a DVD player, even though it's printed in China. At least the writer could write in proper English. Best of all, this manual explains pretty much everything about the DVD player, except its video upsampling capability.
The remote control is minimalistic and as other have pointed out, lacks a dedicated open button, although you can just hold down the stop button for 2-3 seconds to get the same effect.
When I took this player out of the box, my significant other, who's more of an artistic bend but ignorant of technical details beyond "put-in-the-disc-and-it-should-play" variety, was wowed by its super-thin profile and general good looks. This player is so good, that I'm getting a 2nd one just as a backup.
Highly recommended. Cheerios.
UPDATE
I would have changed the rating to 4 stars, but Amazon doesn't let me. Two areas of disappointment after some heavy usage:
1) The dvp642 has trouble with many VCDs that play fine on other players. A friend of mine recent returned from a trip to the Far East with dozens of VCDs. I thought I was going to have kungfu filmfest, but was disappointed that almost 25% of the VCDs couldn't play at all on the dvp642, even though they played fine (albeit with hiccups) on my Cyberhome DVD300 and even my 6-year-old Panasonic. The dvp642 is also not gracious if your DVD is scratched. This is NOT one of the more forgiving DVD players out there.
2) If you have an HDTV monitor, you'll be disappointed at the image quality, or at least it didn't meet my expectations. The Denon 755S, costing just $200, gives great video quality, but the dvp642 is definitely not a "high-end" player. Its 4x upsampler doesn't seem to improve video output.
Customer Review: Built to last -- up to 90 days
Summary: 1 Stars
I purchased the DVP642/37 player in January and lately I've been having some weird problems with it. Every so often, maybe after 10-20 hours of use, the player will show solid thin horizontal white lines on the screen (the quantity of lines varies). The movie still plays behind the lines and pausing will hold the lines in place. Hitting play again will continue the movie with the lines still there. Only pressing stop once and then play again will resume the movie normally. I thought it odd at first, especially with a new player, and blamed the disc. Then a second one did it. I went back in the movie and replayed the area I thought bad but it was okay and the problem didn't return for that movie, or the ones to follow. Then it occured again and I was annoyed. I never know which movie will bring the lines but I know they will appear at some point. It progressively gets worse.
Lately something else has been happening too. With some movies, when clicking a menu item, the player will just shut off. I've seen it happen three times so far, different movies and I couldn't duplicate. This, of course, began after the 90 days ran out. There is also sometimes a high pitch whine coming from the player as the disc decides to spin as fast as it can, like it's running away. The only way to correct it is to shut the player off and start again.
So, I tried to run a cleaning CD/DVD and it takes several cycles of powering the unit off and then on in order for the cleaning CD/DVD to run (maybe to the tune of 20 times). I tried it again last night after the horizontal white lines appeared again and the cleaning CD/DVD would not run. The ironic part; the cleaning CD/DVD is a Philips products too. Needless to say, I am not impressed with this product. I've had other Philips products for years and have never had problems. I sent a similar post to this to Philips about a month ago and have not received a response.
In the Philips documentation is states: "A small amount of distortion may appear occasionally. This is not a malfunction."
My guess is that this is a standard feature with the product. So stay away from this player unless you can afford to waste the money and don't mind replacing it shortly after. I'll suffer with it until it either makes me mad enough or dies completely, then I'll go for a different brand. One that lasts longer than the warranty.