Philips DVP642 DVD Player

Applause to the engineers at Philips for getting this dvd player right and at a very very good price. This player is very well designed; it is for both the geeks who like to hack the machines and the casual everyday users. Since many reviews here have focused on Audio and video quality, I'll focus more on my experience with usability and the formats.

Overall : A
Excellent video/audio quality, excellent pricing, excellent support of various format, VERY EASY to use remote control. Sturdy build, good support. There are only two points which I wish they beef up a bit (Divx subtitle support can be made easier, no built in digital decoder). Read on for the detail.

Video : A
Excellent picture quality. Supports PAL/NTSC, 4:3/16:9 ratio. I've even put in a few divx that didn't look so good on my laptop and it render the picture very nicely.

Audio : B+
The sound quality itself is nice. However, I was a bit spoiled by my old Pioneer that came with digital decoder which I can just connect the speakers to the output jacks. Not a killer, but I just need to reroute the audio to my receiver for optimum sound quality.

Format support : A+
This is my 4th dvd player. I keep upgrading dvd player because my first couldn't play cd-r/rw. Second one couldn't play svcd. The 3rd one can't play Divx/Xvid. Well, guess what, this one can play almost all of them : MP3/SVCD/VCD/DIVX/XVID/CD/DVD, did I miss any other format? Oh yeah, and some picture formats as well (claim in the manual), but I haven't tested it; I'll take their word for it. Very nicely done. Now, with Divx/Xvid, be sure your Divx CODEC has the same encoder/decoder recommened in the manual. As for the media compatibility, I've tried CD-R, CD-RW, DVD, CD, DVD-R, DVD+RW, all passed with flying color. Another important feature, if you know how to create .srt (subtitle) for Divx, this player will be able to display subtitle (srt format works, not sure about other).

User Interface /Remote : B+
I could be giving them too high of a mark here. :) I am used to Pioneer remotes which was designed more for geeks than average users. Last count, my pioneer remote has 15 more buttons than the remote that came with this player. The remote of this player was compact, buttons were simplified and well labeled. It fits in my hand just right. System menu is rather easily navigated and self intuitive. Most avg users should be able to set up this player without any problem. Now, there's one feature that made this grade a B+ instead of an A. Subtitle display for Divx is not self intuitive to use. It took me awhile (10 minutes) to figure it out. Basically, you need to goto system menu and select the track you wish then start playing the Divx movie.

Support : B+
Already, a new firmware is out after I purchased it. Firmware site is a bit difficult to get to. It also seems this player is rather popular, which means you can probably find many special hacks. :) And from the firmware upgrade, you can start hacking this machine as Philips support give out some hints on how to hack this machine. :)

Price : $64 is the final price, That's right, SIXTY-FOUR when most of the player still sell for $70+ and that can't even support divx/xvid. This price, IMHO is a bargain.

Disc readability :
No grade here. It's just an extra comment I wish to add. Both of my Pioneer players can read poorly burned disc very well. This player is not as good as the pioneer players, but better than the Sony that my sister has.

Conclusion, this is a fine player that support many formats at a very very reasonable price.