Sound but no picture on my Philips 751 DVD player

[MaxCady]

Hi,

I wonder if anyone can help me with the following problem:

I have a Philips 751 DVD player that was meant to be multi-region - this is what it was advertised as - but I have found it does not play some region 1 DVDs, although it is ok with other region 1 and all region 2 DVDs.

Anyway, I decided to try the following 'hack' that I found posted on a forum:

Using the Philips remote, press [play] [1] [5] [9] in sequence.
The display should change to -----------
Key in 004001000140 (it will allow this 12 digit number even though there are only 11 spaces).
Press and hold [play] until the player reboots (screen will go blue).

Your player should now be a region 1.

To change it back to region 2, use the same procedure, just substitute 002000128156 for the code.

However, since I tried this, the DVD player does not have any picture - sound is OK though, I can hear the DVD menu music. I think there is a video signal (the TV detects scart/s-video) but the screen is blank - no DVD menu or default Philips screen.

I have since tried this hack using a One4All universal remote to see if it fixed things:

Set up the remote with code 0539
Press the 'Magic' button
Press 085. The display should now read '- - - - - - -'
Enter the following with the normal Philips remote:
222 222 005 255 followed by PLAY.
Your player is now multi region.

This didn't work either - maybe I should have tried it first???

Does anyone know what has happened or have any suggestions - is the DVD player permanently broken? Is there a way to restore the original settings - re-flashing the firmware, secret code etc?

Cheers.

[Krispy Kritter]

Its possible that during the region change, the video display options were changed also. Try using one of the other video outputs and see if you get a picture, then make the appropriate changes back to "normal".

[MaxCady]

Finally managed to get round to checking the video options and you were right - the region change had set the player to NTSC, switching it back has fixed it - thanks very much for the advice!

[Krispy Kritter]

you are welcome. :P

[MaxCady]

Hi,

Unfortunately, I'm still experiencing some problems - it appears that the digital-video output is still not working since the region change.

Switching the output from NTSC to PAL allowed me to get a display when connected to my Sharpe TV through SCART but when I try to connect to an amplifier/projector setup using S-video (this worked before), I'm back to the no-display problem..... I have checked the cables. Analogue video output also works.

Strangely, I also get the no-display problem when I also try to connect via-SCART to an (old) Hitachi TV - it worked with the Sharpe TV so I thought it must be a problem with S-video output but I guess it's not that simple....

So I'm a little confused - could the region change somehow changed the S-video/digital output settings?

Cheers.

[Krispy Kritter]

My experience is only with the DVP642. However, I seem to recall that you had to choose the output type in the setup menu. For example, default was s-video, but to use the component output, you had to enter the setup and choose component out, which then disabled s-video.

I would connect it to whichever output you can get a picture, then review all of the video/display settings, adjusting them to the type that you currently need.

I wouldn't expect region coding to affect any other settings, but anything is possible.

You may want to see if a firmware update is available and consider flashing the player. Just keep in mind that changing/updating the firmware often voids the warranty, but that was probably already voided when you entered the region free code.

[MaxCady]

Unfortunately, the 751 doesn't appear to have an option for output type in the setup menu....

Do you have any suggestions as to where I might be able to find a firmware update?

Thanks.

[Krispy Kritter]

If there is one, it would be on the Philips website. That is where I found the upgrade for my DVP642 before they stopped allowing upgrades to that player.