DVD players have become something of a disposable commodity in my house these days. The feature I need most - the ability to play a variety of DVD formats, including discs from outside the U.S. geographical region - is, for the most part, found only in very high- or very low-end players. Like most folks, my budget only supports purchases on the low end, usually in the $50 - $100 range. The result is a parade of no-name DVD players (Cyberhome? Akai? Norcent?) that develop quirky, annoying behaviors (overheating and skipping are common problems) and eventually die, only to be replaced by another region-free player with similar issues.
A recent search of videohelp.com’s hack database, however, revealed the existence of the Philips DVP642, one of a series of units from Philips that supports multiple regions (use the code on the remote control to activate this undocumented feature) at an attractive price point. Even better, it supports some of the newer video compression protocols to be found on the Internet, like DivX and its counterpart XviD. Gone are the days of downloading a video file (of some legally distributed independent film, naturally) and the lengthy process of converting it to DVD-video format before burning it to disc. Just download the file, burn it to disc, and pop it in the DVP-642. Voila! It plays. An annoying step eliminated, time saved. Even better, you can fit many more DivX-compressed movies on a single DVD than when they’re stored in the DVD MPEG format.
As an added bonus the unit is sleek and attractive, and supported by a warranty from a company of which you’ve actually heard. Kudos to Philips for providing this ideal player to the film geek crowd.
Other features and such, as mentioned in the official product description:» Plays DVD-Video, video CD, audio CD, JPEG image CD, and CDs loaded with MP3, MPEG-4, or DivX 3.11/4.x/5.x files
» Progressive-scan output for seamless, flicker-free images on HD-ready TVs; SmartPicture and 4x video upsampling enhance all outputs
» Optical and coaxial digital-audio terminals pass Dolby Digital and DTS surround signals
» PAL-to-NTSC format conversion–great for viewing non-region-encoded European discs |