Philips 642 - Horrid pixelation (and fix), No Dolby Digital

[falz]

I've just picked up a Philips 642 based on the fact that 1) I needed a progressive scan player, 2) it plays DivX, 3) The player it's replacing (Apex 600a) can play any region disks, so the new DVD player had to.

Problem #1: Normal DVD's work great thus far. However, with Xvid, I get HORRIBLE pixelation, incorrect colors in "blocks" - it's unwatchable. I hadn't heard that from anyone else on this forum (or anywhere online). I was messing around, and hit the "menu" (for the dvd player's options) and return to movie- and that fixes it! Tried this with four .avi's, and it worked in every case. I guess I can live with that, but has anyone else experienced this? I was running the original firmware, but I updated to the latest on philips site (1109, I think)

Problem #2: Simply enough, I'm not getting Dolby Digital when playing back from Xvid/Divx. DD works fine (optical) from a DVD. If I take the same Xvid/Divx movie and play it back in my Xbox (XBMC), I get DD. I can't find mention if it's supposed to pass DD when playing an AVI. I see some notes of DTS, so I don't see why this wouldnt work. Can anyone confirm if they can get DD/AC3/5.1 from the 642?

--falz

[junkmalle]

Problem #1 shows up all the time in these forums. If you search you'll find the solution. It involves pressing a key (video?) on the remote a few times.

[Soopafresh]

https://www.videohelp.com/dvdhacks.php?select=Philips+DVP+642

[oldfart13]

Ac-3 audio can be selected on the remote by pressing the audio button and cycling through until you get to 80. You may have to go use the disc menu button first and select your clip if you have no authored menu.

[giannid]

About the horrid pixelation and blocks of discolor on xvid's. Yes they can be corrected by double-clicking the system menu.

I noticed this happens with some of my older files that were encoded with an earlier version of xvid (koepi's xvid 1.0 or 1.01) and that I used an earlier version of AutoGK.

I haven't had any problems lately with my new xvid's with koepi's xvid 1.02. Also if you are doing your own encodings with AutoGk, when you install it (AutoGk) you should definitely tick the option for "ESS support". ESS is the chip in the DVP642. There is another option for bitrate spike control. I would check that option too.

[falz]

Ac-3 audio can be selected on the remote by pressing the audio button and cycling through until you get to 80. You may have to go use the disc menu button first and select your clip if you have no authored menu.

I saw this mentioned in another thread. When I choose the audio button, it doesn't allow me to cycle through anything at all. I simply get "Audio 1/1". I see that elsewhere the options "80" and "CE" (or something) are available. Is this only in the older firmware? I've tried the Audio button both while the file is playing, and at the menu. Thx.

--falz