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

I was looking for a good moderate to low priced player, preferably low, and had quite a bit of difficulty finding what I wanted. I was seeing lots of contradicting reviews on lots of players. I had just ordered an onkyo HT system (love it), and for ease ultimately just decided to go with the onkyo DVP 701(DVD Player) from the same site I ordered the surround system. It was a little more than I wanted to pay, but I found real good reviews on it in several many places. After ordering, I found the real reviews on an audiophile forum. Major picture and color problems. Thanks guys. Watch out! I'm sure you can guess, but lots of reviews are generated by reps. Anyway, I canceled the order, and started to look again. I found a site called VideoHelp (DVD Player Compatibility List), and there they have listed worldwide and national ratings, comments, and specs for just about every player ever made past and present, no kidding. I looked at just about everything from over the past two decades. It's amazing, but when you look closely at these products, the majority have some real hidden or not so hidden problems. Just as many in the higher price ranges as well, so there are few easy purchases. Two products ultimately caught my eye after many hours of crosschecking research. One was a sony. I can't remember exactly what the model was, but it was out of production, and was available nowhere. Then of course there was the Philips DVP642. The sony was rated just above a 9, but did not have any of the modern features of the philips, and was more expensive. It did not have zoom for instance, or slow mo either If I remember right, but had the great picture quality I was primarily looking for. It is of course all moot because there were none posted even on ebay. Anyway, the DVP642 rated very high itself. 8.4 out of 206 ratings, with 226 owner comments, mostly all raving about it. 8.4 is extremely high, particularly for so many reviews. Almost nothing reaches a 9. Normaly the only ones that get that high have very few ratings, and can not be judged accurate. I decided to go with it, and I am exceedingly happy I did. I payed $67 shipped for the first one I purchased, and I just bought 2 more as Christmass presents at $64 a piece shipped. Shipments go in and out quick, so you might have to call more than 1 or 2 online dealers to get them while ther in stock. It has performed flawlessly, and has all the options I needed and many more. Check them out for yourself. The picture quality is wonderful. That was the most important thing for me, along with digital coaxial,toslink and analog audio outs. My older TV does not have Component video inputs, but that option with progressive scan and S video as well were a must as I will surely upgrade. Without component or S Video in's, I am of course not getting the best picture available, but even with just a compressed composite signal that does not allow for progressive scan mode to be active, the picture and color qualitys are excellent. Can't wait to upgrade, though I love my TV. To sum up, I could not be happier for such a small amount spent, and I am almost certain you will be as well. Merry Xmass and happy holidays to all. GE

This dvd player has all the features I needed to play the region 2 dvd's from the United Kingdom. I can't say more than "This player will play any dvd's you can find in the world" I have tried everything and the picture and sound is beautiful. Great Value!

Yes, it plays everything I throw at it! Everything with the exception of RealMedia, QuickTime (.mov), WMA and DVD-RAM. The manual only mentions DVD+R support, however, I've confirmed DVD-R media also works flawlessly. It plays DVD-Video, VCD, audio CD, JPEG CD, MP3, MPEG-4, DivX 3.11/4.x/5.x, and XVid files. Its firmware can be easily upgraded by burning a CD-R with the appropriate downloaded firmware. However, if you simply want to play region-free DVDs, you can make the player region-free by punching in a combination of keys via the remote to enable the feature, so there's no need to flash the firmware. Search google for "dvp642 region code".

There are two knocks against the DVP642. The remote is not the greatest in the world and it lacks a eject button. You have to press the STOP button for a few seconds to eject a disc. The lack of support for long filenames can be frustrating if you have loaded a DVD with several hundred MP3s. And to a lesser degree, a DVD loaded with several DivX or Xvid movies. So you might want to carefully name your files before burning a disc (Hint: it only displays the first 12 characters of a file).

Overall, the DVP642 is an excellent DVD player that supports most media you can throw at it. It is also a bargain at less than 70-dollars.

I've had this player at least several months now and bought three of them from Amazon because it is well built, plays Divx encoded discs, sounds great with music CDs, and can be made region-free with a simple remote control code. To make the 642 region-free the method to do is: Powerup the system. Open the tray & keep it open. Press 7,8,9 - then OK - then 0 on the remote (7,8,9, OK, 0). That's it, your player is region-free. It will show a small 0 (ZERO) in the bottom left hand corner of the TV screen. Put in a DVD disc from anywhere in the world. It will play PAL or NTSC discs and automatically convert them to NTSC (American standard). Read the manual if you want to output a PAL signal to connect it to a European TV. Also read the manual for switching to 16X9 and component output.

You can find NON-region-1 discs at Amazon's other sites such as their France and Germany site. It's a good way to learn foreign languauges.

its a great DVD player for its price also there is a secret way to make it region free as i have read it in one of the reviews of Amazon well here goes-----
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.
this DVD player it reads almost every format but shame it cannot play divx encoded files from a DVD

p.s
i would like to thank J.Bryce for the wonderful tips