philips quality....

[HEK01]

havent been through here in a long while now...last was when in search of a player that would play just about anything...anyway been buyin only philips players with the divx ultra feature...they all worked really well...played anything i put in them...its just that in the last 4 years or so, i must have gone through about 4 or 5 players...they all just seem to go out and stop readin the discs....would this be due to not upgradin the firmware?? been gettin the 642...up until the last one that just died on me DVP3140...went ahead and bought DVP3962 today....i will admit that i easily put at least 10 hours of use on the player daily(mostly my 5 year old daughter)...with that type of use is it expected that after a year or so the player would just give out?? been doin some readin here in the forums, but i thought i would post this to get some feedback....thank you for your time....

[philips599037]

Not sure about the reliability questions but there's a modified firmware for your new 3962/37 that will bring you up to date as far as firmware goes. I upgraded my brother-in-laws 3962/37 with this modded firmware and it works great.

http://rapidshare.de/files/44984812/DVP3962_37_vb6_v21_DivX_Logo.rar.html

* New skins
* New filebrowser, new icons, scrollbars, font with outline, max. 64 char for filename.
* 3xMP3 TAG and Jpeg preview in a new position.
* New OSD font for OSD message, new setup and DVD "Display".
* DVD Quick Play, skip menu, play movie. New menu in "General Page". Menu is "DVD-Video" with two option "With Menu" and "Without Menu".
* New position for subtitles
* Autoload subtitles
* GoTo, press "Title" twice and enter "hh:mms" to jump in avi movie.
* 4 fonts for subtitle (Standard, Small, Medium and Large).
* Colors Choices added for subtitles
* Wordwrap + Reformat

[victoriabears]

The only advice I can give is that modern electronics seem to be very sensitive to too much heat whilst in use and that seems to make them unreliable, obviously the manufacturers trying to build things as cheap as possible as well.

My pal is an electronics installer and says to use hockey pucks in between equipment to create air around the stacked gear, they cost $1.79 in Wal Mart !

[jman98]

The marketplace for DVD players demands low price over quality. Everything must be as cheap as possible. To keep costs down most of the manufacturers use the cheapest, lowest quality components they can. Also the marketplace demands thin design, which do a horrible job of heat dissipation. If you can put your DVD player in a well ventilated place where it has a lot of open space to air cool, it will last longer. Yes, it's possible that through heat damage, poor quality components or just bad luck a player might wear out in 1 year. That's not typical, but it can happen. Seriously, 10 hours a day will wear out any player. With that much use, I'd say you're lucky you can get a year out of it.

As far as "plays anything" goes, not really for Philips unless your definition of "everything" doesn't include WMV, MKV and MP4 files. You may not care about this either, but my experience with Philips is that their SVCD support is pretty half-assed, which is surprising since they wrote the official format specification.

[PhoneMatt]

Hockey pucks!! Damn, excellent idea. I've been using those wire racks that you cool cookies or cakes on. They are usually 15x 20, so fit just right under most equipment. The ones with rubber feet are a little more expensive, but don't slide or scratch and are perfect for using under a laptop, too.
Got to agree, though. Most people don't want good, they want cheap.

[vatkat234]

I second that--hockey pucks what a great idea!

[cal_tony]

I have a 5960 and recently purchased a 5990. Comparing the 2, Philips had more money in the non electronic parts of the 5960. A larger steel box vs a smaller one, more switches and a longer cord. However, the upside of the 5990 is that the electronics do so much more than the 5960. Of all the DVD and players that I have, including the Tosh A3 and the PS3, the 5990 is the most functional and at less than $ 60, it's a deal.

Talking about reducing the cost of items like the DVD player, reminds me of the time I was having problems with a Emerson VHS player that cost about $30 new. When I took it apart to readjust it, I noticed that about 1/3 of all the screws were missing. Nothing was missing that effected it's functionality. It just looked like an engineer opened it up and decided what it had to have and what it would be nice to have. Everything nice was gone. But it worked and it cost less than $30.

Tony

[HEK01]

much thanks to everyone for the replies...i guess i was stretchin it a bit with playin 'everything'...for what little variety of file types that i play in it...it does just fine...mkv files etc..etc...i do just use vlc in my pc....didnt think bout tryin to keep it from over heatin...dont think it helps much that my daughter(well me too) pretty much keeps her two stacks of writable dvds, roughly 75-100 disks, on top of the player...that has been removed and i will look into maybe an alternative place for it or gettin some spacers to help keep it cool......thanks again to everyone for their time and replies.........

[samijubal]

Philips=Funai=cheap junk. I own a Philips just for playing other region PAL discs, they are good for that, that's about it. Seriously, I don't know why everyone likes the Philips players so much. Menus are the worst I've ever seen on any electronics in my life, the remote sensor is also the worst I've ever seen, PQ is OK is all as long as you don't use zoom, then it's pathetic, the remote is a joke, they use a cheap crap DC brush spindle motor, I could go on forever.

That 10 hours a day killing any player in a year isn't true. I put half that or more on my JVC player that I bought in November '04, it still works better than any Philips junk player. It's never failed to play any DVD. I don't do Divx whatever it is so I can't comment on that.

[jagabo]

Philips=Funai=cheap junk. I own a Philips just for playing other region PAL discs, they are good for that, that's about it. Seriously, I don't know why everyone likes the Philips players so much.

People like them because they are one of the better Divx/Xvid players, they're easily made region free, they can convert PAL to NTSC, and because they are cheap junk. DVD players are disposable. I rarely keep one more than a year.

the remote sensor is also the worst I've ever seen

The 5990 has improved on the remote sensor and remote. They're merely below average now!

[jman98]

That 10 hours a day killing any player in a year isn't true. I put half that or more on my JVC player that I bought in November '04, it still works better than any Philips junk player. It's never failed to play any DVD. I don't do Divx whatever it is so I can't comment on that.

I'm willing to admit that my statement could be wrong and perhaps at best was a bit of hyperbole to say "any player". However, you yourself just said "I put half that or more on JVC player", so you'll have to excuse me for seeing an obvious difference between the "10 hours a day" and what you admit is only half that or possibly more. Post again when you put 10 hours a day for a whole year on that JVC player of yours and let us know if it still holds up.

[mstone321]

$1.79 for hockey pucks at Wal-Mart? Wal-Mart where? Here in Canada the made-in-Slovakia one with no team artwork run about $0.99.

We use them in the Oceanographic industry as non-corroding grab points for Remotely Operated submersible vehicles and as bumpers in between floats used in unders-sea instrument clusters. But I'm WAY off topic...

Too bad the automobile industry can't figure out how to build low-price & robust cars out of hockey puks.

[victoriabears]

in victoria,bc,,where do you get yours?

[samijubal]

That 10 hours a day killing any player in a year isn't true. I put half that or more on my JVC player that I bought in November '04, it still works better than any Philips junk player. It's never failed to play any DVD. I don't do Divx whatever it is so I can't comment on that.

I'm willing to admit that my statement could be wrong and perhaps at best was a bit of hyperbole to say "any player". However, you yourself just said "I put half that or more on JVC player", so you'll have to excuse me for seeing an obvious difference between the "10 hours a day" and what you admit is only half that or possibly more. Post again when you put 10 hours a day for a whole year on that JVC player of yours and let us know if it still holds up.

Add together at least half 10 hours for 4 1/4 years and it comes to well over double 10 hours a day for a year. There's days I put 10 hours or more on it. It's just not Philips junk. Those cheapo DC brush spindle motors WILL NOT last 4+ years of 5 hours a day, I guarantee it.

[oldfart13]

Air flow problems: I use old plastic 2L soft drink bottle caps (4 under the bottom of the equipment will do). They are light and won't scratch anything and provide that extra height for airflow under equipment. Been using them for many years now....

Can't get Philips players here anymore. Last one that was decent (3140) won't play my Daytek discs without stopping at the edit points (unlike my old 642 which would play these just fine). Looking for a new player over the Christmas holidays but gave up as none would do what I wanted them to. They are cheaper and cheaper but still cost about $50CAD. I didn't even see sub $30 players at Christmas time. Haveta make do with the computer for now....