Philips DVP642 DVD Player

Even though we rarely watch DVDs, we've gone through five* (hubby had to replace his PS2 once) different players over the past five or so years. My husband initially dragged me into the DVD world by buying a PlayStation 2 and persuading me that we'd watch movies together on that contraption rather than him playing video games for hours at a time. Right! We bought a decent progressive scan Samsung (to go along with our TV) that we ended up never using because it didn't read many formats. Then we had a cheap Apex that read lots of formats but was of really poor quality. About six months ago, we bought this Philips DVP642 player at Target based on a recommendation from a friend, who claimed it would play "everything."

THE BASICS
The Philips DVP642/37 is a progressive scan DVD player that can read a slew of formats and provides sharp images without any flickering. This super-thin player measures 9.3" x 17.1" x 1.7" and weighs about 5 pounds. It has component, S-video, and composite output ports that allow it to be connected to just about any TV. Although it is a single-disc player, it has a five-disc playback option that allows you to go back to where you were on the five most recently viewed DVDs (I've never used this option). I believe there's a 90-day manufacturer warranty on this product.

CONTENTS
DVD player (AC power cord is attached)
Yellow video cable
Red and white audio cable
Remote control (w/2 AA batteries)
User manual (in English, Spanish, and French)

READABLE FORMATS
DVDs, video CDs, super video CDs, DVD R, DVD RW, CDs, CD-R with MP3 files, CD-R/CD-RW with JPEG pictures, CD-R/CD-RW with MPEG-4 files, CD-R/CD-RW with DivX.

SETUP
I honestly only remember sticking the batteries in the remote and plugging the cables into their color-coded ports and plugging in the AC power cord into the power strip we have behind our TV. Flipping through the instruction manual now, I notice that Philips also wants you to set up the language and select a color system, which corresponds to your TV. I don't think me or my husband did this, but it still works. It is possible hubby did this when I wasn't looking. The only problem we encountered with setup was that the power cord was pretty short so it didn't reach through the back of our entertainment unit to the power strip on the floor.

MY EXPERIENCE
I didn't expect much from this DVD player. It cost about $70 and all I wanted it to do was play the discs that my other players couldn't read. I wasn't looking for any pretty design features or fancy extras. I just wanted decent sound and image quality and to be able to watch movies in whatever format I received them. That said, this player can read dual layer discs. Yippee! Personally, I know nothing about burning DVDs, but I do know that I couldn't view dual layer ones, which are a newer type of disc that allows for two layers of storage, on any of my other players. The other neat thing is that the instruction manual provides a Web address for playability upgrades so that this DVD player won't become obsolete overnight like my other ones.

The player itself is much slimmer than the other DVD players I've owned. It's very sleek and attractive without looking like it's high maintenance or hard to operate (few buttons—all of which are large, symmetrical, and clearly labeled without looking garish). There are only four panel buttons (standby/on, open/close, play, and stop), the disc tray, and a small output window.

The remote also has a simple design (power in the top-right corner, numbers next, directional keys and OK button in the middle, and play functions/zoom on the bottom). It reminds me a lot of the remote for our older (about 8 years old) Philips/Magnavox 28" TV, so perhaps it's a Philips trademark style. Regardless, it's pretty fool-proof. I haven't had any problems figuring it out. There are two menu buttons, which threw me a curve at first, but after a momentary lapse I saw that they're labeled differently (one is for the disc and one is for the system itself). The Samsung DVD player we have in our room came with two remotes, which to me was overkill. I like this one better.

The on-screen menu leaves something to be desired. There's no friendly interface, it's just folders and boxes. It reminds me of a simple PC root directory and BIOS menu. That said, it serves its purpose and isn't too confusing to navigate.

The playback image quality for this player is fairly good for such a low-priced piece of equipment (I've seen it for as low as $55). I've never had any problems with graininess or color bleeding. There's no lagging or flickering. Our cheap Apex player would leave some videos looking dull and gray, but I've never noticed that with this player. Most images are fairly sharp.

The sound quality is adequate. I'm no expert on acoustics, but it's definitely better than my old Apex player, which reverbed from time to time. We don't use any special stereo system so the sound is just through the speakers in our Samsung 47" projection TV. There's never any weird booming. But it does seem like we need to raise the volume a bit when we watch videos versus watching TV. But that could just be the quality/nature of the videos themselves.

We use this DVD player once or twice a month and so far we haven't had any problems. It's been a little more than 6 months and it's still running like the day we took it out of its box. No repairs or need for disc cleaners.

I can't comment on this player's ability to view photos or read music files since I've never used it for that.

OVERALL
For my purposes, this is a four star player. It's easy to operate and plays all sorts of formats and media. It doesn't have any high-end, glitzy features, but I wasn't looking for any.

www.usa.philips.com
For online help and upgrades: www.p4c.philips.com
1-888-744-5477