Time Display Toggle on Philips DVP 642

[deesto]

Just got this player, not bad for $47 USD!

It seems that when playing a VCD, SVCD, or DivX file, the elapsed time is displayed on the screen in the right hand corner. Since this is the same time shown on the player's LCD screen, it's kind of unnecessary, not to mention that it blocks part of the screen. I can't seem to turn off this display, and I couldn't find a solution in the manual or online.

Is there a way to toggle this display on or off?

[jman98]

My DVP-642 does not do this by default. In fact, it's really hard to display this info. I did it once by accident and got it turned off, but I don't remember how. Sorry. I think what you are seeing is a "feature" specific to a certain firmware version. I'm pretty sure this can be turned off, but unless someone here remembers how to do it, you'll have to do what I did - just push buttons on the remote until it goes off.

[jman98]

By the way, the DVP-642 is kind of antiquated at this point and for only about $10 more, Philips makes another model (5930 or something - I don't remember) that is similar but better. Be warned that SVCD playback on this model does not support multiple audio tracks or more than one subtitle track, even though SVCD allows for 2 separate audio tracks and (I think) up to 4 selectable subtitles. In fact, if the DVP-642 finds a subtitle on an SVCD, it will play only the first one it finds and you can't turn it off

In the past many reported quality problems with this model too. Mine is over 2 years old and working fine, but some here reported that theirs died after only a few months. Caveat emptor.

[Krispy Kritter]

That appears to be a bug in the "new" version of the 642. There is more information in this post: https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=317193

[deesto]

That appears to be a bug in the "new" version of the 642. There is more information in this post: https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=317193

Thanks Krispy... I wish I'd gotten alerted to your post, as I've been trying like crazy ever since my original post to fix this, and I just figured it out and was going to post the solution (DISPLAY, then down-arrow twice) ... but you beat me to it! Thank you.

And thanks jman98... I agree that this is an old version, but for the price now ($40) it's still pretty darned good.

[jman98]

I looked at this thread, which I contributed to, and followed the link. There's some talk on KrispyKritter's linked post about whether or not the DVP-642 stretches Divx/Xvid videos. It does. The problem is that many people don't notice it because it's not very obvious. Take a look at:
http://home.wi.rr.com/ntngod/dvp642_vs_dvp5140/dvp5140_642_p3.htm
towards the bottom for an example. It has to do with the different, older chipset on the DVP-642.

[deesto]

Not really on-topic, but I never questioned whether this unit stretched DivX playback; it's actually quite obvious when a video is played back by default that the screen is stretched. To be honest, I was more impressed by the quality of the video screen shots, and I must have missed NTNgod's description of how the playback screen shots were taken.