Home > Consumer Reviews > Philips DVP5140 Multiformat DVD Player with DivX, MP3, Windows Media Support

A good work horse; I have only one minor agitation with the Philips DVP5140, the tray is slow to open, but I can live with that. I made the purchase to replace a high end multi-disc Sony DVD player, that had too many bells and whistles for mom to feel comfortable using.

If there was one thing I would add if the price would remain the same, it would be an S-Video Output connection.

The DVP5140, is a simple straight forward unit that gives a good picture, and plays a lot of formats. I had no problems playing NTSC/PAL DVD's right out of the box. It's a good product for the price. I may add one for the playroom.

E. Taylor

I got my first DVD player, a Sony DVP-NS50P, a couple of years ago and like most things about it- except that it cannot play PAL DVD's and cannot be "hacked" to do so. I wanted to get several PAL only titles and from reading here and elsewhere the Philips 5140 seemed like the way to go (I don't have DVD capability on my old computer).

I paid about $50 for the thing here at Amazon, set up wasn't too bad (you really ought to read the manual), and I left most settings just as they were right out of the box- it looks just fine to me. Just to be sure I've run a CD (I like Sony better for CD playback) and a Hogan's Heroes DVD (region 1, NTSC format) through it in addition to my PAL discs, all look good. The region hack, described in other reviews, is very simple- just set for region 0 and you can play anything on this machine. By the way, you won't see a box for hacking the code, just follow directions and the list of regions will come on screen. The player was default set for NTSC, region 1- I changed only the region code and it plays all of my discs just the same. I don't even have any of the other discs this thing can handle so I don't know what they'd be like.

I do have some complaints about the player however:
#1 No fast forward or reverse (APRIL 22 EDIT)- THEY ARE THERE if you read the manual closely enough. During playback < on the remote is reverse and > is fast forward, the up and down arrows do them in slow motion. My Sony is much clearer on this with labeled buttons for functions.

#2 The zoom function is strange to me- you go 2X, 3X, 4X (with a little diagram showing screen position, you can shift your location)and then to 3 reduced size screens (why them, at all?) and you have to go through the whole list (my Sony has 2X and 4X only) to get back to the regular view.

#3 To turn the thing totally off you apparently have to unplug it, otherwise you're on "standby", pressing the power button gets you fully "on".

#4 This one is minor but to open from across the room point the remote at the player and press "stop" for two seconds- that's kind of like clicking on "start" to turn off a Windows PC.

#5 If it's loading (starting up) it won't respond well to your remote, let the little icon on screen finish first. I had trouble getting the region hack to work- this may be why. I think you'll also want to be very careful to point exactly at the machine too, the more level the better.

In general I'd pick my Sony over my Philips but for PAL playback I'm satisfied.

Recently I have bought divx format items on Ebay which I was told would play on computer dvd. Some of these came from overseas. I took my discs to a computer store, and had to try several before I found one that was compatible. Even then i could not get the video aspect working properly on all my discs. Buying a new computer was an expensive option.

In the end after research I bought this machine, and fortunately my divx discs work very well. I was even able to set the machine so that it works without interfering with my existing video dvd set up because it does not need to connect to the tv using your antenna.

If you want to play your computer dvd's or divx, I recommend this machine. Can you think of a cheaper alternative, under $50? Also, the remote from my other Philips dvd player works on this machine which is cool.

When I first opened the box I was pissed as I once again had purchased a dvd player from Amazon that was advertised as multi region yet only played Region 1 (US) dvds as the box clearly states that 'this DVD player only plays US DVDs'. But after reading the review from Emet and spending no more than 2 minutes to complete the setup and enter the code to make it region free it now plays all DVDs without a hitch.
So if you want to buy an official multi-region DVD player that comes ready to play any region DVD then don't buy this, but if you don't mind spending 2 minutes to configure the player then this product is a great buy.

I purchased this multi-region DVD player because I wanted to watch some British programming not available in the States. It was simple to install, even for a Luddite like myself. It was up and running in 10 minutes. The menus are intuitive and the picture is crystal. Well worth the very reasonable money.