Home > Consumer Reviews > Philips DVP642 DivX-Certified Progressive-Scan DVD Player

Got it for $40(that is good price for a progressive scan DVD player).

Here are more details: IT SEEMS TO PLAY EVERYTHING. Here is a list of things it will do and will NOTS:

Wills(in addition to regular DVDs):
1. Plays DVD-r/rw dvd+r/rw. I repeat it plays DVD-R/RW.
2. divX all versions.
3. MP3 burnt directly to DVD.
4. mp3 on CD of course
5. multiple divX on dvd. gives you a directory
6. JPEGS. Even lets you rotate the pics as they slide by.
7. can upgrade firmware via CD-R (very kewl as always) never have to worry about not being able toupgrade unit.
8. plays regular retail music cd's
9. This unit is divX certified. www.divx.com/vod
10. this unit has component out for your 480p pleasure.
11. this unit has pre programmed settings for different audio settings ex. hall, studio, etc..
12. has pre programmed settings for video ex. soft, bright, normal etc. also has custom.
13. has ability to change region VIA REMOTE
14. Supposedly macrovisionfree except when transferring to dvd-recorder.
15. has a zoom to 3x and you can move arrows to move the pic around
16. Progressive scan and has beautiful Picture for DVD's

Ok heres the not so popular features.
1. divX quality lousey. VCD quality at best. I have tried 3.11 4 and divx 5.11 before and after upgrade
2. no open tray button on remote. Later found out just hold the stop button
3. 11 character titles
4. doesn't come with component cables just standard rca and a video.
5. when forwarding through chapters display on tv just says next without giving you a chapter number.

Last but not least, you can change the title on the DVD wallpaper(you can put your name, so if some one else steals it the name is visible after they try to sell it)

I only received this DVD player two weeks ago and I love it! Great quality, lots of features for the price, easy to set it up. I haven't had a DVD player before, so I am a first timer and it is very easy for me to use it! ...and it was very easy to figure out how to use the features too.
I bought this DVD mainly to play Region 2 (Hungarian) dvds and American ones too. I wanted it to be region free or at least to be able to play region 2.
I've googled it and what I've find was this:
It took 2 sec. to convert the DVD to non-regional and it works beautifully!

Here's how to do it:
1., Switch DVD on
2., Open tray
3., Using your remote press 7 8 9 OK 0
4., You will see 0 at the bottom of TV screen...and
that's it! You've done it! :) You can play whatever dvds you want now!

(The 0 makes DVD player non-regional, if you want it back to region 1 just press 1 instead of 0. If you need region 2, press 2 instead of 0, etc.)

I hope this helped!

I use Cicero DVD+R blanks and a friend uses Memorex DVD-R. Cicero is Future Shop's #1 selling blank so clearly it has a lot of users and support. Obviously Memorex is also an extremely popular brand. I'd have expected a top brand name player to be able to handle popular brands such as these. We each bought a 642 and neither machine would play our discs despite a very large claim printed on the box, that "If you've got it, we play it". The picture freezes repeatedly and very often and skips ahead. The Philips help desk stated quite flatly that these discs were incompatible and added to the sense of frustration by quite stupidly telling me I should transfer my discs to a brand name such as Maxell, Memorex, TDK etc (at this point he had no idea that my friend was having the identical problem with Memorex discs). What a good practical solution - copy $1000 worth of DVDs to another $1000 worth of new blanks to save the price of a $120(Cdn) machine! I wonder how many people take this advice? I also wonder how many other brands it won't play? We've both taken our machines back for a refund.

BUT ... it CAN be turned into a Region-Free player. As it comes to you out-of-the-box it has been pre-set at the factory to play only Region 1 discs. You just have to know what to key in with your remote to change the code from a "1" to a "0". Here's how to do it (takes just a couple of seconds):

1. Turn on player and open tray.
2. Use remote to key in the following sequence: 7-8-9-OK-0
(The number 0 means region free)
3. The machine is now region free ... go ahead and play something on it.

There is no "eject" button on the remote. Tip: Hold down the 'stop' button on the remote for a couple of seconds and this will open/close the tray.

It does an OK job with store-bought PAL or NTSC discs but I found the 642's picture not quite as sharp on PAL discs as on my old CyberHome 300 machine. After returning the supposedly more up-market Philips I went out and bought another dirt-cheap-but-does-the-job-really-well CyberHome (which can also be coded to make it region free).

This was one of the earliest units to satisfy two basic needs for owners of DVDs purchased from multiple countries. It offers multi-region capabilities (not quite out-of-the-box, but easy to set up even though I notice that some reviewers failed to do it) and it converts PAL DVDs to NTSC and vice versa. I own about one hundred DVDs from Italy and they all play fine. I have a multi-system TV so I was able to compare the unconverted PAL output with the converted NTSC output and they are indistinguishable. I have owned the unit for a couple of years and it hasn't given me any problem, although it runs quite hot and will probably fare better with plenty of ventilation. In most other respects this is just your standard inexpensive DVD player.

By now (1/2006) there are probably other units with similar features on the market, but I think that Philips deserves the credit for bringing multiregion and conversion at this price level.

I love this DVD player. I bought my first DVD player in 97 and have gone through many players for 10 times the price. This player is the only DVD player I have purchased with so much functionality (and its so cheap). Recently I've been enjoying PAL format movies and this player really handles them well. For region free playing. Open the tray and press on your remote 7 8 9 ok 0. Now you are region free as well. Enjoy