Philips dvp642 $69 Divx player at Compusa - anyone knows?

[CrysDark]

Is anyone else having problems with this player, having the picture display beyond the bounds of the TVset, for instance with Anime the bottom of the picture cutting off and having the subtitles cut in half.

Or for other videos just generally looks like the unit is zoomed in a bit, all that would be needed for correction, is to zoom out.

This happens with divx movies I have tried, changing the aspect ratio makes no adjustment to the picture.

Do I just have an old TV or something?

[LisaB]

CrysDark, You're absolutely right that there is something funny going on with this player and its aspect ratio.

Of course, I'm sure you already know much about overscan, so that could always cause problems with very low positioned subtitles, but........

I have noticed an odd phenomenon with respect to low-res divx. I find that a 320x240 divx will actually have some small black letterboxing on the right and left edges! Now this is odd...divx is supposed to have 1:1 VGA Aspect, and there are no "aspect ratio" headers in a divx file that I know of...so 320x240 should fill the screen nicely.

On the other hand, I also have a number of 352x240 divx. For some odd reason, these divx *do* fill up the screen.

I guess the moral of the story is that it is impossible to have an avi which will display with proper aspect ratio on both TV and computer...352x240 always show up with slightly wrong aspect when played on computer.

Yes, I know this has something to do with pixel aspect ration of TV vs. Computer, I was just hoping that the divx player would be smart enough to scale its output when it sees a 320x240 divx.

[CrysDark]

it is not that I don't like the player, you can't beat that for 70 dollars.


Thank you for reminding me about overscan, I could not think of this term for the life of me. I think I will be able to communicate with customer service better.

Here is a little more research:

4 month old Divx 5 file from a Digi-Sub group (Anime) known for good quality encodes. Read or Die Episode 1 encoded my Anime-One. Freshly burned onto a Memorx 4x dvd-r. The play quality is Excellent. Which please's me, but alas:

File loaded into Gspot gives the x:y of 640x480, that should be perfect on my TV set (a 3 year old Panasonic 32 inch standard Set).

But alas I get that overscan issue. I can't verify if it's just like I mentioned zoomed in a little bit. or just the bottom of the picture cut off, but you can hardly see the subtitles at all.

Shouldn't the player be able to display this correctly.

I am going to try the player on different TV's to eliminate a possible issue with my television.

Does anyone have any recomendations for me, when I contact customer service (agian with this issue).

[junkmalle]

I guess the moral of the story is that it is impossible to have an avi which will display with proper aspect ratio on both TV and computer

Not really. The image can just be scaled while it's being displayed. The Liteon 2002 has independent scaling of width and height for it's zoom function. So you can make any xvid/divx/mpg file fill (or not) the screen.

[steelyken]

I have had mine 2 days and now it is locking up on me after 30 minutes or so of playing. It has happened with divx and commercial dvds. I have to turn it off and unplug it for a few seconds for it to work again, but then it only works for a minute or so at most. I have no choice but to return it now.

Has anyone else tried svcd on dvd with this player? I am wondering if my problem with these kind of discs is because of a faulty player or if it is a design limitation of the player. If is a design problem, I will get a refund.

[gaga]

Whoever wants to buy this player please note that it is width is 17" which is about 1/2" wider than the "standard" width. Another annoying problem is the short file length, and also my unit doesn't display the ID3 tags. The manual on the page 18 clearly states: MP3 files.. maximum 30 characters display. My unit only shows 11 characters, which is not enough to identify most of my files. Don't tell me it's only a $69 player. We are not talking about price. Philips is one of the electronics giants. Come on, you guys from Philips could have done a better programming job. This is 21 century! Please give us more characters to display!

Also I am unable to browse the MP3 directory while the file is playing. Very inconvenient.

Could anybody confirm that with the new firmware the problem doesn't go away.

[junkmalle]

Has anyone else tried svcd on dvd with this player?

I've tried several SVCD files on ISO DVD+RW. No problems, even after several hours continuous play.

[tommyoz]

My unit only shows 11 characters, which is not enough to identify most of my files. Don't tell me it's only a $69 player. We are not talking about price. Philips is one of the electronics giants. Come on, you guys from Philips could have done a better programming job. This is 21 century! Please give us more characters to display

The character problem was the only thing I could find wrong with this player. I agree 11 is not enough. For my viewing purposes (Divx) it has done everything i asked it to do so far. I only view Divx encoded movies with this player. I watch DVD's on one of my other DVD players. That said, it has fit my needs just perfect and for only $69.

[junkmalle]

Has anyone noticed there is new firmware available at the Philips site?

I downloaded and performed the upgrade. Afterwards it defaulted to another model but I was able to use the remote to change the model to the correct one. Open the drive tray, Press 5 6 9 OK, use the up/down arrows to select the right model number (642/17 for me, USA model) and press OK.

It then defaulted to PAL not NTSC, so I had to use the setup menu to select NTSC.

Finally it was working properly again.

(edit) Sorry -- for those of you who saw my report that subtitles were supported, the files I was playing had subtitle in the video (doh!). I'll check for sub support and report back later. (/edit)

I've been having trouble reading a bunch of DVD+R ISO disks. Only one in five or so gives me a menu. Most just pop back out after 30 seconds of trying to read them. The update doesn't seemed to have improved on this.

[junkmalle]

I burned a new DVD+RW (I have no problems playing these) with a few AVI files and their SRT subtitles (same name except the file extension). I used very short names so namespace wouldn't be a problem. None of the subtitles are displayed.

On first inserting a disk and selecting a title I get a message onscreen that cycles between "Subtitles Off" and "Subtitles 1/1" each time I press the Subtitle button on the remote. But subtitles are never displayed.

If I then go back to the menu and select another AVI file (or even the same one again), the subtitle button no longer cycles through the two messages, it just gives the "can't do that" hand icon.

All of these AVI+SRT files play properly on my computer and my Liteon 2002.

[dun4cheap]

I don't know what chip it is but I bought one last week and it plays everything except wmv. I have played mpg4, mp3s, xvid, dvd, mpg2, avi, nAVI. Its small, mine is quiet and seems to load up quickly. It also plays the DIVX

[optimus]

So can anyone confirm if subtitles (srt or otherwise) are supported ?

[jtoolman2000]

I bought this player about a week and a half ago and love it so far. The only downer is that it will not play Nero Digital MPG4 files. SOOO, I fired up Dr.Divx and popped in my copy of DareDevil. This movie has a lot of fast moving action so it would be a good test for the prog as well as how it would play in the player. I about two hours I'm watching the Divx of it and I most say it really looks excellent. There is a little bit of compression artifactling in some dark areas but overall it looks excellent. The Phillips played it without any glitches or other problems often encounted even with DVD burns. Overall, it seems to be the answer to what to do with my old collection of Divs backups I had made before DVD backing up was widely available to the consumer.

[gaga]

Now that we know how to setup after upgrade, could you place the link for the new firmware again?

[junkmalle]

Here's the product link for the player:

http://www.consumer.philips.com/global/b2c/ce/catalog/product.jhtml?divId=0&groupId=VI...ctId=DVP642_17

And the direct link to the firmware (on the above page):

http://www.p4c.philips.com/files/d/dvp642_17/dvp642_17_fus_eng.zip

You'll probably want the upgrade readme file too:

http://www.p4c.philips.com/files/d/dvp642_17/dvp642_17_fur_eng.pdf

Before the update I had firmware ver 0113, after 0409. Wonder if that means Jan 13 and Apr 9?

[sushix]

Does the region hack work before or after the firmware upgrade?

1.Open the tray
2. Press "0000" on your remote
3. Press "0" for zone free or "1" for zone 1 and...
4. You can see the zone on the high left corner of your TV
5. close the tray

to verify:

1. Open th tray
2. press "display" on your remote
3. you can see on the 2nd line "REG 0" for zone free, or REG 1 for zone 1, and..

[tommyoz]

Does anyone know exactly what this firmware upgrade does?

[junkmalle]

sushix,

The instructions you gave did not do anything on my unit after the upgrade. After opening the try I pressed 0 four times followed by 0 or 1 or whatever. Every press resulted in the hand icon in the top left corner. Pressing Display with the tray open did the same thing.

But using the firmware check instructions listed at the Philips site (in the upgrade readme PDF file, tray open, press 5, 6, 9, OK) you can select from what appears to be several different model numbers and region settings. I'm using

VER0409 642/17 02 1

The last digit appears to be the region number (I'm in the uSA). I have a few region 2 DVDs and they would not play at that setting -- gave the message "wrong region". When I changed it to:

VER0409 632/05 01 2

It played my region 2 DVDs but wouldn't play region 1.

[LisaB]

Roosevelt Franklin claims this player will play RM (Real Media) files, but I am not finding that to be the case.

In fact, my RM files do not even show up in the file browser.

RF, did you rename your RM files before burning? Maybe give them an AVI extension? Could you look at your RM files with AVICodec and verify the version, etc. of the codec in the RM files that played. I have some RM files that use the RealVideo 8 codec, and they don't play or show up in the file browser.

[xtreemkareem]

Target now sells them for the same Price, and there they have a display saying it plays back MPEG-4 (DivX 3.11/4/5). Buy it from Target instead b/c the guys at CompUSA are the biggest ********!

[jliles]

I also just saw this player at my local Wal-Mart, for $69.98. Also a much better return policy than CompUsa!

Julie

[fantomasz@hotmail.co]

I bought this player today and I love it.I play all my divx3,4,5 movies.Also play Xvid movies.Only one Xvid movie won't play.Don't know why.Picture and sound quality is super.

You already know this is not multiregion player but this player play PAL dvd's.Dvd must be region 1 or 0 (no region).Also no problem to play VCD,MP3,DVD-R.

Now I want turn this player into multiregion player.

[jtoolman2000]

Just ran the firm ware update. All went well and player is running as normal.

Can any one shed any light as to what was gained from this upgraded. New features, more files can be played, stability??

[tommyoz]

Can any one shed any light as to what was gained from this upgraded. New features, more files can be played, stability??

I asked this before and have not gotten a response.

[junkmalle]

Can any one shed any light as to what was gained from this upgrade

I haven't noticed any differences yet. No long filename support, no SRT subtitles, still having trouble with some DVD+R media.

[fantomasz@hotmail.co]

I haven't noticed any differences yet

it's multiregion after firmware?
will play region 2?

[wulf109]

Just a guess,but it probably turns macrovision on. They never intended it to be macrovision free and being macro free violates the law.

[tommyoz]

Just a guess,but it probably turns macrovision on. They never intended it to be macrovision free and being macro free violates the law.

If that's true, that is why you don't upgrade without knowing what the firmware does.

[junkmalle]

I just added this to the region free hack page:

Not exactly region free but you can change regions between 1, 2, 3 and 4 after the firmware update at philips web site:

1) Open tray.

2) On the remote press "5 6 9 OK"

3) Use up/down arrows to select between model numbers (probably same player, different regions). The value at the far right is the region code. Choices (about 10) look like:

VER0409 642/17 02 1
VER0409 630/00 01 2

4) Power down, then power up.

I've played both region 1 and region 2 (both on an NTSC TV) using this method. I don't know if it works before the firmware update, but before the update the version (in the USA) was:

VER0113 642/17 02 01

Good luck!

[junkmalle]

re: new firmware, macrovision

A few caveats first: I don't know which of my DVDs has macrovision, and I don't know if my old cheap VHS player respects it.

I tried recording 3 minute segments of three American commercial release DVDs (Bladerunner, Lost in Space, Diana Krall Live in Paris) with my VCR and and the recordings looked fine.

I wouldn't take this a the final word in the matter, but the player appears to still be macrovision free.