DVP642 - Did they ever update the Firmware?

[kelemvor]

Heyas,

I know that 3 years ago or so Philips released a couple firmware updates for this player that really didn't seem to do anything except something about subtitles and one with Macrovision. I just checked mine and it's on the 1223 that it came with.

Did they ever release any useful firmware updates or were the ones just those that I remember. Not sure if I should bother to go hunt one of those down or if I really won't gain anything from it.

I know we were all hoping they'd release something to make it compatible with Divx6 and things but I don't think I ever heard of that happening.

Thanks.

[jagabo]

Divx 6 decoding is exactly the same as Divx 5 decoding. It even uses the same fourcc, DX50. Any player that can play one can play both.

Divx Ultra certification adds menus, chapters, subs, etc. Since the player wasn't sold as Divx Ultra Certified you can sure it will never support those options.

It sounds like Philips finally got most things right with the 5990:

http://forum.videohelp.com/topic351069.html

[jman98]

One of the firmware updates made a change in Cyrillic subtitle support where it could support KOI8-R subtitles where it previously required either CP-866 or ISO-8859-5 (I don't remember which). I'm sure improved Cyrillic subtitle support is real high on your want list

I don't remember a Macrovision firmware change. If Philips released any firmware update related to Macrovision, it would not be consumer friendly.

They haven't released a firmware update for the player in years now. A Brazilian guy hacked one of their last firmware updates to add better Portuguese support (some of the characters like ^ over vowels weren't supported very well), but that is all I know of. Nobody, not Philips nor a hacker, ever made any substantial changes in terms of supporting some video format that wasn't previously supported.

[Krispy Kritter]

And don't confuse the firmware for the new version of the 642 and the original version of the 642.