vanderneut's Full Review: Philips DVP642 DVD Player
Unlike most other reviewers, I didn't care in the least for the multi-format playing (Divx, etc). The reason I bought this DVD was to be able to play my European DVDs (particularly British comedy). After having entered a 'secret' code on the remote, it did that very nicely: no problemo playing back any NTSC or PAL, no matter what Region coding was on it.
I was in heaven. Until I started getting bugged by the various cheapo aspects of this player: totally horrible remote that is so badly designed it's frustrating to use (that problem was solved with a nice universal remote from Logitech), the onscreen menus were abysmal as well -- really gives you the impression of the cheapest poorest design. But, who cares about that, right?
Well, the image sometimes had weird distortions in it as well... Like some quick green horizontal lines for a split second, just once or twice in a full feature movie. Not a terribly big price to pay for a region free player, I figured.
Now I have the notorious blinking power light problem (just do a quick Google search for "DVP642 blinking power light" and you'll see what I mean), and my Amelie DVD is stuck inside! I haven't figured out how to get that disc out now. Some other people seem to have managed to get their discs out, but what a pain in the neck this is!
Now I am going to look for another region-free player. Any good suggestions? I don't mind paying a good price, as long as the darn things lasts.
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, ...More at Amazon Marketplace
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