Philips 1080p Upconverting DVD Player w/DivX & HDMI

Pressing the back button once will take you back to the beginning of the current chapter, but pressing it twice will return you to the previous chapter. I’ve owned several Philips DVD players and they all work this way.

I’m sorry, this is complete and utter bollocks. DVDs aren’t 720p. You will see the difference.

EDIT: On larger 720p sets. If you’re talking smaller…you might be right. Sorry.

I happen to own an older version with the USB port and I’ve gotta say it is TOTALLY worth the very slight jump in price. I bought it about 3 years ago and it’s still working wonders - has no trouble reading multiple movies off my 8gig flash either…a bit slow to start (aprox 45 seconds from pressing power to actually “turning on”)

The up-converting quality is pretty awesome too - looks like actual 720p on my 32"

Just out of curiosity, have you tried? I’m a lighting designer so I have a pretty accurate eye for such things…and while yes, DVD’s are not in 720, this is a MUCH more economical way to get close without spending hundreds of dollars…plus it makes older movies that have not been re-released as Blue-rays look MUCH better on a high-def set.

Yes I’ve tried. I use a PS3 for upconversion, once of the best. Yes, the upconversion is very good. Yes it’s more economical.

There is no physical way to make a DVD as good as BluRay. Maybe there’s “good” enough for some people. But I disagree with the premise that 720p televisions aren’t worthy of a BluRay player.

This player does not impress me.

The first thing I noticed was how cheap the remote and its buttons feel. It’s hard to press the buttons, even.

It’s slow to turn on and open, although still better than the best Blu-ray players. Not good at all for a DVD player though.

The upconverting is poor through HDMI, much worse than the Samsung Blu-ray player my dad bought for his living room. It’s fine for 480i component output to a standard TV though.

The worst part is probably the analog to digital converter for the RCA audio outs. It’s bad - really bad. It masks all the fine details in sound, from the lows to the highs. The bass is muddy and everything sounds as if it is compressed like a poor bit rate mp3.

Now, I’m comparing it to a modded older NAD cd player and using high end separates, but it’s worse than the Sony portable I tried hooking up once. Definitely not for listening to CDs, although I hadn’t expected it to be good anyway. For movies it’s probably alright as long as you don’t have anything better than a HTIB.

What’s the point of DivX if there is no USB port? Half the movies we watch as a family are DivX but I don’t want to burn them all to a disk. Much easier with a player that has a USB port just to slap it on a thumb drive an away you go.

There is a multi region hack for it. I bought it for that purpose. I have never had a problem with any dvd playing on it. I paid more than 25.00, well worth the 25bucks!

I was wondering about the same thing, but I probably know less about this device. Compared with a media player (such as WD TV media player), can this thing play CD/DVD disks with supported media file types?

I guess I should clarify my previous scathing review.

This is an alright basic DVD player. If you’re expecting above average picture or audio quality, you’ll be disappointed.

If you just want a DVD player to get the job done with no frills, this is fine. It’d be perfect for sticking in the kids’ rooms or whatever. It just wouldn’t be my pick to pair up with an HDTV (or to good stereo speakers with the analog outs).

If you do have an HDTV, it really deserves a Blu-Ray player instead of a cheap upconverting DVD player like this. You can find decent ones for under $200, although the PS3 is probably the best value if you enjoy gaming at all and don’t want to spend the money to get a better player.

Contrary to popular belief, the PS3 isn’t the best Blu-Ray player out there though. It’s the fastest and has good image and audio quality, but the other $250-300 and up players generally will be better (especially with upconverting DVDs) and have more features - like 7.1 analog audio outs for your non-HDMI surround sound receiver (it’s the only way besides HDMI v1.3 to get lossless DD and DTS). You probably already know all this if you’ve got a home theater setup though…

Oh, and if you do have a PS3, make sure you keep the firmware updated to the latest version to get the best performance. It does make a difference.

So that’s my little rant on Blu-Ray players - hope you found it useful.

Yes it can, I have 3 Phillips DVD players (647 & 5990) and other than an 8.3 limitation on file name displays, you can load up a disc and watch Divx movies.

While I like the USB feature on the 5990, I tend to stick several things on a DVD and go from there. I tend to like watching things more than once.

There are some rules for how the Divx should be encoded (and what to check for) and I’ve lost my notes. It plays back some WMV but I have never found an exhaustive list of whats supported.

This isn’t a super high end player, but at this price point it has many interesting useful features.

If your local authorities allow it, ripping 5-6 DVD kid movies to 1 disc keeps the expensive discs out of the dangerous hands of your kids. Remember its naughty to do if they say no, just because you bought it doesn’t mean its yours… blink

There is/was/still might be a group of skilled people who were releasing “updated” firmware’s that fixed some of the “limitations” (long file name support, sorting etc.) but your mileage may vary.

It is a sub $30 DVD player, it might not look that amazing on your $3000 HDTV system. But if you can afford a $3000 HDTV system why are you looking at the $30 DVD player?

This is a good price. A nicely functioning unit with a lot of features at a cheap price.

So why are people complaining that it doesn’t have X, and doesn’t do Y? If all these added functions are requirements in a sub-$30 DVD player, then you must not have any DVD players. Just hook your PC up to your TV, use ffdshow, and quit whining.

a friend of mine bought this model at wal-mart about 4 months ago. HDMI looks great, its worked great since she got it. No problems out of it at all. Only thing i don’t like is that the remote doesn’t have a dedicated RR FF button, you have to use the unnecessarily large menu control pad to do that. Also the remote has a very poor field of view for the infared signal. you have to be pointing right at the box, and not have the remote tilted in a certain direction.

If you take away the remote woes, the player itself works great, and i would recommend it as a cheap dvd player for a family member or friend.

I know very little about all these new movie players and TVs. What exactly does upconverting mean and what makes it better than my cheap, no frills DVD player? Am interested in getting one for the bedroom, but all these big words scare me.

I don’t have one of these, but I assume the answer is Yes, if you burn your divx file to a cd, it will play it. My bedroom player works that way.

One BIG difference in the WD TV Media Player is that it will play Windows WMV files. I have yet to see a DVD player that will do that. (The other big difference is the WD TV Media players don’t have a DVD drive; they’re strictly USB, or network for the Live model.)

I bought a similiar Phillips on Sellout a few months back. About 5 days after the 90 day return period large green chunks covering 75% of the screen started dancing around on every third frame. Turns out it’s a common issue that turns up in about 3 to 6 months. I never did get a reply from Philips, not worth the effort to follow up for $30. I just won’t buy a Phillips again, at least until i forget. Oh yeah, it worked great up until that happend.

I have this from a previous wooting. Two warnings:

  1. Check it out right away. The first one I received was dead. Exchange was free, and the replacement item works fine. The Philips help lines worked slowly, but eventually worked.

  2. It is an EMI/RFI screamer. I’m an AM radio junkie (sportstalk, usually), and my Philips has to be unplugged when not in use. Not a problem for me, but might make a difference for some.

I’ve had this DVD player for over a year now and it still works great. I don’t use it for anything fancy, I’ve just hooked it up to my TV by HDMI, and the picture is great. I think it looks a lot clearer than just the composite AV cables, but don’t expect blu-ray quality. For 30 bucks it’s definitely worth swapping out for your old DVD player.

What’s neat about this unit is that it actually remembers where you left off when you turn the power off. It even does this when you hit “play” from the DVD menu.

Got one of these Philips refurbs a few months ago. Didn’t work, froze with a DVD inside. Had to take it apart to get the DVD out. Sent it back and after a Looooong wait, got a replacement. The replacement is glitchy. I have to unplug it every time I want to use it. After I plug it back in it works fine.

Bottom line: Cheap but not recommended.