Philips 642/17 & 642/37 - What's the difference?

[prime.8]

I did a search but didn't find anything on this, so I apologize if it's been asked and answered already.

My brother bought me the one that came in the blue box that's in the living room, and I liked it so much I went out and bought one for my bedroom. The Walmart I got it from had five boxes for the 642 - three blue boxes and two white boxes. I just figured there was a new box style or something until I told my brother about it and he said there were actually two different models.

I went with the white box because it was really the only box that wasn't literally crushed and ripped open and re-taped and looked like it hadn't been jumped on and tossed around and used as crash test dummies, etc. These other boxes were in seriously bad shape, and I don't buy anything if the box is crushed.

So, now I think I might've gotten the 642/17 with the white box, while my first 642 is the 37. Are there any major differences between the models? They look exactly the same on the outside, but is there a FW update for the 17 that brings it up to "equal" quality of the 37?

Obviously if there are major differences, I'll probably just return the white box and keep an eye out for non-crushed blue boxes

TIA!

[hech54]

I had the same thing happen to me years ago with a Blaupunkt car stereo. I was having trouble with mine and called Blaupunkt USA.
The rep asked if I had the original box and if I did....what color it was.
My box was blue....which made it a European model....North American Blaupunkt units come in white boxes.
I lived in America at the time.
Not sure if it is the same scenario....but it could happen.
In my case....the "ground" (wiring) was different between European and American units.

[giannid]

the 642/17 and the 642/37 are the same machine but with different firmware. The /17 was pre 0531 firmware whereas from june of last year they started shipping with the 0531 firmware which importantly added subtitle support for divx/xvid files. Philips then came out with the 1109 firmware in november, but this was a sneaky way to add macrovision anti-copying software to the dvp642. The only positive thing the 1109 did was allow the tray to open by holding down the stop button for 1 second as opposed to 2 seconds in the 0531.

I seriously doubt you bought a dvp642/17 recently because they haven't made one for 7 or 8 months. You can look at the back of your dvp642 and it should tell you. Otherwise you can do the following:

open tray
use remote: 5,6,9,OK

your model version should appear.


You can update your firmware if you want to. I would definitely have 0531 installed, but not 1109 although you can put it in if you want though it really doesn't do anything for you that 0531 doesn't except the door opening a second faster.

[chas0039]

I have both and there are some models of the 37 that cannot reverse the firmware from 1109 back to 531. So far there doesn't seem to be any way to tell until you try.