Philips DVP642 DivX-Certified Progressive-Scan DVD Player
by Philips
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List Price: Category: Home Theater See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Philips DVP642 DivX-Certified Progressive-Scan DVD Player
Customer Review: Great player for the price
Summary: 5 Stars
I ordered the Phillips DVP642 a few weeks ago and I am very impressed with its performance. I actually received the 642/37 (some places charge extra for the region-free pre-hacked version). Here are the pros and cons:
Pros:
1. It plays DivX/XviD (without QPEL/GMC) and MP3 files with great quality.
2. It has progressive scan 480P output.
3. It is "hackable" to be region-free by opening the tray, pressing "7 8 9 OK 0", then closing the tray and powering off. It can play NTSC and PAL DVDs on NTSC and PAL TVs. I am buying a second one for relatives in South America for the region-free ability alone.
4. Great price tag (<$70).
Cons:
1. Only displays 8 characters of the DivX/XviD filename. "moviename part 1.avi" becomes "movienam.avi" then "moviename part 2.avi" becomes "movie000.avi" and is displayed BEFORE "movienam.avi" due to alphabetizing, making the play order the opposite of what it should be. This can be remedied by burning discs in ISO 8+3 mode renaming beforehand, but long filename support (Joliet or UDF) would have been a huge bonus. I find it no surprise because I am not aware of any DivX/XviD DVD players with long filename support for under $200,besides my hacked XBox ;)
2. Subtitle files (.srt and .sub) are supported, but don't always work unless named the same as the .avi (recommend 8+3 again) and selected before playing the movie. Many people in forums have reported issues with subtitles in foreign languages, but I only have experience with english subtitles.
3. When you insert a DVD+-R with DivX/XviD files, the player takes a long time to bring up a menu with all the filenames for play selection (about 20-40 seconds). This is enough of a wait time to be mildly annoying. Hint: Always use the "stop" button to return to the generated menu, not the "Disc Menu" button.
4&5. The drive can be VERY noisy when reading DVDs. Some people have returned their players for this reason. In my opinion, this is the player's biggest drawback as it can be very distracting while listening to the movie or music. No other player that I have encountered makes this much drive noise.
In Summary:
I recommend this player to anyone looking for a great priced progressive scan, DivX/XviD, or region-free DVD player with the only major drawback being a noisy drive.
Customer Review: Philips DVP642 Resurrected
Summary: 1 Stars
I have two of these units. One gets very little use. The other got used almost daily and it's the one that died with the standby light blinking. There's a capacitor (labeled c316 on the card) on the power supply board that is notorious for going out. This cap was bulging at the top upon inspection however, it can be bad and look just fine. This cap may go out instantly or it may go out slowly causing all kinds of problems. This cap directly affects the 24v output of the power supply board. The front of this board/card has a labeled connector where you can measure the 24v output. On the dead unit it measured only 3v. I went to RadioShack and got a different cap (pn# 272-1032) rated for 35v at 85c and the spacing of the leads matched the original cap. The temp rating is lower than the original but I'm not concerned about it as 85c (185f) is pretty hot. This cap is larger than the original but it still fit between the other components. This new cap (less than 2$) and a cheap soldering iron, also from the Shack, cost less than 10$.
The card is easily removed for the soldering. I held the old cap with some needle nose pliers as I heated the connections on the reverse side and rocked it side to side while heating 'til it was free. A third hand was needed to hold the card steady. There was enough solder already present that I only needed to heat it to hold the new cap. With the new cap in place the 24v circuit was back up to 24v as measured with a multimeter so I assume this cap is directly in the 24v circuit. The player functions properly now. It turns out the original cap was only rated for 10v (some poor QC there). If your player is acting up or randomly shutting off the 24v circuit should be measured to see if this cap is failing. If it's below 24v it needs to be replaced. If you decide to replace this cap yourself pay attention to the polarity. This board is marked where the cap sits with a circle divided in half. One side of the circle is empty and the other side has several lines in it and this is the side that gets the negative lead of the cap. The new cap will be marked on the plastic label which lead is negative.
This player worked well for me before it died and it was a simple fix for me but still it gets one star for the poor QC. A consumer should not have to do this shortly after the warranty is up.
Customer Review: A shallow and superficial review
Summary: 2 Stars
A lot of the other reviewers have focused on the technical aspect on this dvd player. I personally don't have much technical experience (I never bothered educating myself on the different outputs or even what progressive scan meant) so this review isn't going to focus on those elements. All I can really discuss are the more obvious aspects of simple play and appearance.
Appearance wise, this dvd player is quite attractive, setup was a snap, region coding wasn't an issue, and it played my divx recordings just fine. It has a very slim appearance and a conveniently sized display screen. When inactive, it even has a screensaver option. Not the colorful butterflies of some models, but I doubt anyone would let that be a deciding factor against it. The remote is small yet functional, but I didn't like how hard some of the buttons had to be depressed in order to activate. While this feature might be a good thing for those with children (who tend to slightly manhandle most buttons) I found it very inconvenient during late nights as I blearily tried switching it off.
Performance wise, my biggest complaint was that it made way too much noise. I bought this to replace my whisper quiet Panasonic (which fell victim to the infamous H02 Error) so this really started to get irritating fast. Everytime it played, I would hear the disc spinning throughout the movie. Also, the forward and backward search (helpful for skipping through the numerous intros on boxed sets) were impossibly slow and jumped rather than played through those scenes. Which meant that you had to not only shuffle through disjointed images that looked more like a slideshow, but you could never pinpoint the location of where you wanted to stop. As soon as you hit the stop button, or smash as it was in my case since the keys were so darn unresponsive, you'd never end up where you wanted to. The result being that I've now memorized the theme songs to several of my favorite t.v. shows. And don't dare try playing around with controls while watching, either. I found that if I used the search or pause button more than a couple of times during the film, it would often simply shut off...so no easter egg hunts recommended. Then comes the cherry on top: it broke. I've had it for a little over one year and it broke yesterday. Good grief.
Customer Review: Bites the dust
Summary: 1 Stars
Had this unit for 1 year 7 months and it just died. At the time I purchased it the cost was ~[...]. I have an Orion DVD progressive scan player that's ~2-1/2 years old and cost [...] at the time. It still runs. I bought this Philips one because it handled other formats, but now I realize I don't need them unless I'm into video... Not! Others I see give it 4 or 5 stars. That's great, but they just bought theirs and hooked it up. These units should work and should provide a good picture brand new. A [...] unit provides all this. So why review saying it does this? And I can really care less what system the others have, mine is just for watching movies. A TV and DVD... SIMPLE!!! Anyway, here's some of the problems I had since FIRST hooking it up;
- It can't handle fingerprint smudges on a DVD. It pixelates and takes an ungodly long time to get through this. Make sure you clean the smudges. My Orion has no problems with the same smudges.
- Sometimes it's not the smudges! It just does the same as above, maybe from oxides between the layers of the DVD? But, then why would it continue to work on my Orion?
-Sometimes the unit just shuts down when you select a remote option. Ugh! Very irritating when viewing interactive DVDs!!!
- Sometimes the unit jumps back to the main menu. Another Ugh!
- Sometimes after insert the DVD the unit just continues to search for it. Probably because the player doesn't center properly. Remove DVD and try again.
- Had rental DVD that popped out of the holder. Had to open the unit to remove the DVD.
- The remote's buttons are not layed out well and are too close to each other. When I go to press FF I might accidentally hit the move to end button. Then I have to wait for the menu and restart the movie and find where I was. The same mistake happens on pause.
- The zoom only works when the unit jogs forward. If you jog backwards it won't zoom.
There's probably more, I just never wrote them all down. I'm sure someone is going to say I should have performed a firmware upgrade. Why? Shouldn't it work right to begin with? My TV's work! My VCRs work! My other $20 ORION DVD player works! None have I had to upgrade!!! Then none were Philips! Why should I upgrade the Philips? I paid for a working DVD player, not some Review: Not the Best, but Worth the Money (and you can make it Region Free)..
Summary: 4 Stars Picture quality is not great, but the feature set is pretty impressive, and using simple remote control hack (7, 8, 9, OK, 0 with an open tray) you can make it Region Free. Enjoy!!!
Now, a bit more detail:
PROS:
Format Support - This alone probably worth all the "stars". It supports virtually all formats, including Divx. And it DOES support DVD-R's as well, although it's not documented anywhere. MP3's, Picture JPEG's, original DVD's, burned DVD's with AVI's, MPEG's, etc. - I have tried it all, and it handled everything without any problems. Add the NTSC/PAL conversion capabilities to that (simple "7 8 9 OK 0" remote control hack with an open tray will make it "region free"), and you've got yourself one hell of a DVD player. "You have it, we play it" is the slogan of this player, and it is, indeed, true.
Design - I like the nice and sleek design of this DVD player. It's thin, and the nice matte silver color nicely compliments my Sony Wega TV that I connected it to.
Price - Just as I mentioned before, I bought this player for $50. I think it's well worth it, especially if you have a lot of "homemade" DVD's.
CONS:
Picture Quality - One word to describe it - Average... at best. My 5 year old Sampo produces a better picture using S-Video, and without Progressive Scan. Cyberhome is better too, when using component connection. I'm not even going to mention Oppo.
Support - One of the worst I have ever had to deal with. First of all, Philips website has very minimum information about this player, and not a word about firmware updates. I've tried to contact them by phone, but only wasted my time pressing buttons and holding for "available representative". I finally decided to send them an e-mail, but have yet to get a response back after two weeks of waiting period.
Summary:
If picture quality is what you are mostly looking for in your DVD player then this one is not for you (if you own or planning on buying an HDTV with DVI or HDMI inputs, then I strongly suggest you check out OPPO). On the other side, if you are not too picky about picture output, but do care about various format support, and don't want to spend too much money, then this player certainly makes a good choice.