Pros: Downconverts PAL to NTSC, plays just about every CD/DVD format in existence.
Cons: PAL playback isn't mentioned anywhere on the outside of the packaging.
The Bottom Line: It plays almost every video format, all regions, PAL and NTSC DVDs. It's firmware-upgradeable too. Replace all your players with this Philips unit - you won't regret it.
I'll start this review by saying that neither of my DVD players had anything wrong with them, but a friend of mine recommended this Philips unit for one reason. We're displaced Brits living in America, and he told me this unit would play PAL DVDs.
I skimmed the reviews at various places on the net and decided to take the plunge. After all, it was only $60. A quick trip to WalMart later, and we had the unit home.
First impressions - it's tiny. Nearly wafer-thin, and very light. I've seen American breakfasts weigh more than this unit does. It comes in any colour you like as long as you want brushed silver, and has an uber-minimalist front panel with an 8-character display, an on/off button and an eject button. Everything else is done via the remote.
If you read other reviews here at epinions, almost everyone whines about the remote not having an eject button on it. Honestly, I can't see what they're complaining about. If you eject the tray, generally its because you want to change discs, and that rather does need you to get up out of the sofa and walk to the player. So why not just use the eject button on the player? You're already there.....
If you must be a lazy slob and save the 0.7seconds it takes to eject the tray, you can hold down the stop button on the remote for 3 seconds - the time it would take you to walk to the player. Go figure.
So what about features then? Well buyer beware. The setup of this unit is not quite so straightforward as I would have liked. All my video gear is connected with component video cables, so I hooked the player up and turned it on and everything on screen was purple. Figuring I'd misconnected the cables, I swapped a couple of them around. I got purple, blue, black-and-white, and no picture. This didn't bode well - I was beginning to imagine why this unit only cost 60 bucks. I disconnected it and reconnected my Sony to check my cabling - everything worked. Back to the Philips. Still purple. As a last resort, I start fiddling with the menu options, and that's where I discovered the problem. This Philips unit is the only DVD player I've ever seen where you have to implicitly tell it what outputs you're using on the back. It doesn't output video to all of them at the same time in the correct format. Buried in the menu options was a video-out setting which defaults to S-Video. I flicked it over to Comp/YBR and everything worked fine. I mention this because I use video equipment every day and it took me 20 minutes to figure this out. For Joe Average who just wants to hook up and play, I can imagine this unit going back to the shop.
Anyway, once it was all set up, I tried a regular Region 1 NTSC DVD - worked great. In went a Region 0 NTSC DVD. Worked. Region 0 PAL DVD - the first real test, and it passed with flying colours. The downconversion to the less-capable American NTSC video signal worked out pretty clean. There were some horizontal roping artefacts in the picture, but nothing I couldn't live with. So then I went to a full-on Region 2 PAL DVD - one of the collection I brought with me from England which has lingered in a box for 4 years. "Wrong Region" comes up on the screen. No problem. I used the widely-publicised hack. Eject the tray. 7. 8. 9. OK. 0. Power off. Power on. In went the DVD again and it played perfectly.
Now one of the features of this Philips unit is that it claims to be able to play almost any computer video format under the sun. There was a great documentary the BBC showed in England called "The Power Of Nightmares" about how Al Qaeda is a fabrication of the US Government. Of course it would never be shown on TV here but I managed to pull the video off the Bit Torrent networks. I burned an episode onto a CD-RW and popped it into the Philips player. It took a little longer than with the DVDs, but after a moment or two, the video started playing. This was a DivX-encoded PAL AVI file, and this unit tackled it with no problem.
Wow.
All the other formats I tried worked flawlessly. I couldn't find a video file I had that it wouldn't play, nor an MP3.
So the playback features check out. What about the rest of it? Well one nice feature I discovered by accident: If the tray is open when you power off, the unit closes it first. All my previous players would leave it open.
The picture from the unit is top notch - good colours and black levels. The sound from my TV was fine. I've not hooked it up to my full theatre system yet but I don't expect any foibles when I do.
The navigation buttons on the remote aren't as intuitive as some other remotes I've used, but that's not a reason to shy away from buying the product.
The amazing thing is that all these features come in a $60 unit that is branded - backed up by Philips. I'd expect to see this sort of stuff in a no-name Korean special, but not from a reputable worldwide powerhouse in electronics.
We're going out tonight to get a second one of these to replace our player in our home theatre system downstairs.
Not because it's broken, but for $60, I can't afford not to replace my existing players with this Philips unit.
Extra update
You know there's so many reasons to buy this Philips unit. We'd set our DVR to record the first episode of Alias on ABC and they pulled a bait-and-switch and showed two episodes instead of one. We missed the second episode. I went to tvtorrents.com and used a bit torrent client to suck both episodes off the 'net as .avi files. I burned them to a DVD and popped it in the Philips, and presto. We had the hour that we'd missed, and we didn't have to huddle around a 17-inch PC monitor to watch it.
Update 2
So I've now discovered that it reads AVI movies off CD's (all formats) and DVDs (all formats). This means I can start re-using DVD+RWs for my TV content. Furthermore, this player respects folder structures. If you put a couple of folders on a DVD, with a couple of movie files in each, then play it, you can hit the "DVD menu" button on the remote, and it auto-generates a selectable menu on-screen based on the folder structure and filenames available. It also tells you what the file is, eg MPEG4, DIVX etc. This player keeps getting better and better.
Update 3
I went and bought a second one of these players this weekend for the Home Theater upgrade. I've now discovered, having played with the entire menu system, that the player is actually capable of outputting a PAL signal too. So it can read any format disc, from any region AND it can output to a European OR American TV. Wow!
Measures 17.1 x 1.7 x 9.3 inches (W x H x D); Plays DVD-Video, video CD, audio CD, JPEG image CD, and CDs loaded with MP3, MPEG-4, or DivX 3.11/4.x/5....More at Amazon Marketplace
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.