philips DVP642 - onsale bestbuy.com

[kingpinxB]

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp...=6373827&type=product&id=1077624500910

i bought this last year for $62. it's only $7 off but this DVD player is worth its weight in gold.

why?

it plays DivX and XviD files burned as data.

please excuse the crap phone cam pics, my digicam is out in the car and i'm feeling lazy, but as you can see i have several DivX/XviD files burned as data on a DVD and the quality is *almost* DVD quality. the only problem is occasionally i see very feint vertical lines through the picture... if you can look past that it's an amazing piece of A/V gear
http://www.lazyforums.net/uploadfiles/03-13-06_2259.jpg
http://www.lazyforums.net/uploadfiles/03-13-06_2300.jpg

 

[masterxfob]

i bought two of them and they play everything i put in them. i got them for $30/each, but i'd gladly play triple that knowing they work so well.

 

[vtohthree]

Super hot, I'll have to pick one up.

 

[ericlp]

Pretty good deal...

The keyword here is... DivX Certified

 

[Vasp]

Got one along with the PNY 1 GB DDR2 RAM $79.99 from the other thread. Got 10% off for online orders

 

[numatrix]

this is a great player, built quality is top notch...had mine for almost 2 years, no problems....verus a Norcent upconverting player that crapped out within 6 months :-(

 

[Cal166]

I got two of these at home. Brought one refurb for my parents on Amazon, $43shipped. Its like brand new.

 

[BKCalvine]

I can only vouch for the great play, I've purchased like 3 in the past -- all of which have played well. Beware of the "No Disc" issue that has plagued some models (ie. keep them away from other electronics).

 

[addikt1337]

Walmart carries them brand-new for $57.84..FYI

 

[conehead433]

I have a couple of these and they are very good players and will play almost anything thrown at them. That said, they won't play QPEL encoded divx files. I have to use my HTPC for those.

 

[metallrulz]

Great DVD player. I picked one up for Christmas and it plays all my burnt DVDs.

Just beware that there must be some type of magnet in it. I didn't have a entertainment center yet and put the DVD player on top of my TV. It messed up the screen of my TV that it was close to. It make the color all swirl and crap like when you put a magnet up to a TV.

 

[jhigh2000]

How's video quality on regular DVD's? Is it good enough for home theater?

 

[kingpinxB]

Originally posted by: jhigh2000
How's video quality on regular DVD's? Is it good enough for home theater?

just fine. it's also progressive scan.

 

[epofhouston]

It plays most of my DivX movies. One complaint, the fastforward is only 4x and it seems to be more jerky than my Norcent DVD player (

 

[nomadh]

They say this plays everything basically but how true is that really. I download or trade files and it seems every 4th or 5th dl I need a new codec. I get divx and it works then my next divx movie doesnt work. I check out the errors, run gspot (usually tells me nothing) I then go get an update and then I'm ok until the next xvid gets me again. I have 5 or 6 viewers with what must be 20-35 codecs. I'm loosing track because many were installed as a bundle Klite pack etc. Anyway getting to the point. I have a very hard time believing that any hardcoded appliance will play more than 20% of my media. Hell the latest version of gspot can't tell me what half of my files even want. Does this think have a upgradable firmware I can update every month or so? If it hit 80-85% I'd be pretty happy but as it is now I think I'm doomed to watching all this stuff on my pc monitor or at best on the pc through tv-out.
Anyone else running into this or am I just lucky?

 

[Davinci]

is it unlockable for region free ?
Does it play PAL (4:3 pull-down) ?

indeed, I watch DVD's from all over the world, and DIVX/XVID too.
How about the new codec h264 ? does it play those too ?

 

[jono8]

Originally posted by: nomadh
They say this plays everything basically but how true is that really. I download or trade files and it seems every 4th or 5th dl I need a new codec. I get divx and it works then my next divx movie doesnt work. I check out the errors, run gspot (usually tells me nothing) I then go get an update and then I'm ok until the next xvid gets me again. I have 5 or 6 viewers with what must be 20-35 codecs. I'm loosing track because many were installed as a bundle Klite pack etc. Anyway getting to the point. I have a very hard time believing that any hardcoded appliance will play more than 20% of my media. Hell the latest version of gspot can't tell me what half of my files even want. Does this think have a upgradable firmware I can update every month or so? If it hit 80-85% I'd be pretty happy but as it is now I think I'm doomed to watching all this stuff on my pc monitor or at best on the pc through tv-out.
Anyone else running into this or am I just lucky?

Have you tried VLC media player? it's played everything I've thrown at it

 

[Mustanggt]

When my $300 Denon Dvd player died I picked up one of these and It does play everything and DVD pic Quality is very good. never will I pay top dollar for a DVD player again.

 

[chinkgai]

this thing has been around for a very long time, too long...without being updated at all!

quick things i can think of:

no open disc button on remote
fast forward/rewind limited to 8x
myriad other functions on remote that other entry level dvd players have


dont get me wrong, i got two of these...but i really wished there was an updated better version.

 

[Teraman]

Mine has a fast forward of 8X, but many players have a faster rate.

 

[addikt1337]

Yes, you can region-unlock the DVP642 with a simple sequence on the remote.

 

[ir0nw0lf]

Originally posted by: chinkgai
quick things i can think of:

no open disc button on remote

If you are referring to using the remote to eject the tray, press the stop button for ~2 seconds to eject the tray, works great. Does anyone RTFM anymore? :Q

 

[bigrash]

awesome player. i bought this last year and it plays everything!

 

[jfunk]

Great player for the money. Philips refrub site has these regularly for $30 too.

One major issue that a lot of people seem to have is there is a crappy capacitor that blows on a lot of them within 6mo-1yr. There are instructions on videohelp forums with pics for how to replace it. Takes 10 min and $5. Not sure if this issue has been resolved in later runs of them or not.

I've had mine for about 9 months without issue. I've played maybe 100 DivX files and so far I had 1 that said unsupported format, but that's it.

It's hard to beat for the money.

 

[NarsDaD]

Has anyone did a firmware update on these? I got one of these for a friend's son because he uses a lot of divx files. I don't have this and if there are updates i would like to point him to the correct one so he does't make it a doorstop.
thanks