Philips DVP642 DVD Player

Pros: Plays nearly all DivX codecs. Inexpensive Very easy to use. Light.
Cons: Remote poorly designed. Poor quality. Essentially disposable.

As many others have pointed out, this is a player with some truly great features.

Unfortunately, good quality and durability aren't among them. My first Phillips 642 lasted a month before the firmware crashed. It was still under warranty, so the company sent me a replacement. The replacement lasted nine months before the firmware crashed once again, right in the middle of playing a DVD.

At $69.00, I sort of shrugged and figured I'd gotten my money's worth, and set out to Best Buy to purchase a new one, because I really liked the features.

I ended up trying to hook up three different players. All of them had defects in the component video inputs (after the second one, I double-checked my cables against my Sony DVD player, and no problem).

At my fourth trip back to Best Buy, I discovered I'd worked my way through the available stock, and settled for a comparable JVC player with DivX capability. It's really too bad.

My new JVC player doesn't support nearly as many codecs as the Phillips 642 DVD player did, but I'm hoping will last longer than nine months.

Pros: Easily plays foreign videos
Cons: Can't think of any

I recently purchased this for viewing of both US and foreign DVDs. Much to my delight, it seems to work fine. Popped a Hong Kong video in and it played right away. Did not have to mess with any settings at all. Worked just as well for US format.

Since I do not have top notch equipment, I can't adequately rate picture and sound quality. Similarly, since I just bought it, I can't adequately rate durability.

Pros: True multi-format; plays 95% of everything I've thrown at it.
Cons: Navigating the menus is rough and displays like Time Left are hard to get to.

This plays virtually everything. I've owned it for a year and it's the most tolerant DVD player I've ever seen. On top of that, it's cheap! (price) I say virtually everything because there are a few Xvid files it has choked on. The ability to upgrade the firmware with new codecs would be nice. But for a play everything solution, this is excellent. It plays PAL too!

Pros: 1. Plays Xvid, Dvix and avi formats, Price
Cons: Dimensions, Refinement

I download quite a bit of asian movies and drama online. These come in multiple formats like XVid, DVIX, AVI etc., Until now, I used to play them in my home theater by connecting my laptop to the receiver unit.

But, this DVD player changed my life!! In addition to all the regualr formats (DVD /- R, RW, CD, MP3, Picture CD etc etc..) that other DVD playes can play, this one can play DVIX, AVI, XVID files like a dream.

There may be a couple of tweaks that could be required when one changes formats. The tweak is to slightly change the Video output setting. If you can figure this out - you are all set.

By the way, i paid $44 incl. taxes at Circuit city for this unit.

Hope this helps.

Pros: Very easy to install and operate
Cons: Cannot register on line.

I was very pleased with the ease of installation and the ease of operation of the DVP642. However I was surprised that the only apparent method of registration is by filling out a paper card and mailing in by post. As advanced as Phillips is I expected to be able to register on line.

Pros: Sleek, up-to-date looks. Very capable at accurate reproduction of DVDs and other media-types.
Cons: A little on the noisy side, but this is being nit-picky!

I hooked the DVP-642 up to my HDTV using component video cables and was very satisfied with the resulting picture which was crisp with bright, brilliant colors. It seems to be a little noisy, but you can't hear it with movies playing. Would recommend if you have a small space but want a modern-looking, capable DVD player. I got mine at Fry's Electronics for $69.99--they had a whole pallet of them.

Pros: Very Good Value
Cons: Non learnable remote

It's small and lightweight. And looks good in the company of a HDTV and DVR.
It is a big improvement over my old RV-31S
It's mp3 playback menu is simplistic and only shows 8.3 filesnames, but hey my old Panasonic had none-at-all.
A few people mentioned no eject button, but I figure you have to go there to take out the disk anyway.
Remote is el-cheapo, but I was hoping to program remote from my Onkyo Receiver (R392) to do everything. But alas, it can't seem to "learn".
The only relief is that remote from Sony Grand Wega is able to control it.
Has anyone run into similar troubles? Do I have go and spend another $30 (almost 50% of this players cost) on a universal remote)? Let me know if you have suggestions
And also I had some MPEG4 files I tried to play, and player said "unknown codec"

Pros: Plays a lot of different formats.
Cons: Problems from the very first day. Truly pathetic customer service.

From the first day, it started giving "No Disc" errors on all the DVDs. I was about to return it when it started working fine. It worked OK for a month or two and then the same problem again. I called Philips customer service (after the warranty period of 90 days had expired) but they said they can't do anything and the best they can do is do offer a replacement at a reduced cost. A major company like Philips should be ashamed of this type of customer service where I was clearly sold a lemon and they don't want to do anything about it.

Just to compare their customer service with Sony. My Playstation 2 had a similar Disc Read Problem, 3 years after I bought it and well out of the warranty period). They fixed it for free. Philips would rather keep my money instead of trying to keep a customer satisfied.

Pros: Worked well before it died.
Cons: Died after a year...which is not uncommon, as it turns out.

I had this machine for about a year and it quit on me. The standby light blinked, and that was "game over" for the player. I had to pry the DVD out of it. As you can see, many other customers have had the same problem.

This is a piece of junk and it's the last thing I'll buy from this company.

Pros: Best DivX player
Cons: Codes for universal remote hard to find

This player can play almost every DiVX file except the latest XVid, mkv, ogg. There are some ways to fix that.
It doesn’t have options that more sophisticated players do such as buttons on a remote, some functions, etc.
It doesn't have to.

It is cheaper than my LiteOn, it doesn't choke on DVD-R disks like my Norcent, it plays DVD+R unlike my Sony.

It is made by Phillips which means future updates unlike RJ Tech.

Thanks to Phillips: now I can watch DiVX on a large TV screen for a very reasonable price of $66.49 free shipping from Amazon.

Pros: Plays burned cd's and all dvd's.
Cons: Only works well for maybe 6 months

I got this because it was a reasonable price...not the cheapest but not the most expensive. Plus it seemed to be what I needed. It worked really good for the first 7 months or so. Played burned cd's and all. Now I'm lucky to be able to watch an entire 60 min movie without it pausing or stopping. Of course it won't play at all after it starts acting up.

Pros: plays Divx, XVID VCD, SVCD, AVI and other. Inexpensive, sleak
Cons: Remote layout, always could use more bells and whistles

I just bought one of these over Christmas and was amazed with its versatility. It plays almost all formats, and on many different types of media. I was able to but 100 episodes of one of my favorite shows on a dvd and play it without a hitch. Like other reviews about this product, I dislike the remote layout, but it's not that horrible. Also though it wouldnt allow it to be streamline, I would like to have seen more buttons on the unit itself. I constantly loose remotes and this machine would be very difficult to use without. All and all a great product

Pros: Easy setup, nice sleek design, works logically.
Cons: Remote button icons for FF, REV, Slow, Eject, not the industry standard

I purchased this player this morning and am already in love with it. We owned an Aspire DVD player that had a mind of its own, did all sorts of whacky things, wouldn't read slightly imperfect discs, and took forever to load. The Aspire also took something like an hour to set-up and was difficult to program its remote buttons in to our universal remote. This Philips DVD player has none of those issues. Right out of the box it worked like a charm. It reads problem discs, I don't see any random digitizing of the picture (as with the Aspire), and it's pretty user friendly and intuitive. It seems logical and I only had to do minor set-up.
Others have mentioned the remote doesn't have an EJECT button, the manual says to hold the STOP button for 1-2 seconds - works like a charm.

Pros: Worked well while it worked.
Cons: Died 6 months after purchase. Philips customer support was worthless.

This DVD player is not worth one red cent! I bought the Philips DVP 642 in February 2006 because of its ability to read DivX format. It stopped functioning properly by August 2006!!! Problem was consistent regardless of which DVD was played (screen would randomly scramble, turn green, freeze, then player would turn off). No improvement with either cleaning or unplugging the player for 10min as the Philips support center suggested. THEN Philips wanted us to pay $40 for a replacement with an additional $10 shipping charge- for a DVD player we paid $70 for 6 months ago! Philips refused to budge on their policy so we gave up. Just got back from Best Buy with a new Toshiba DVD player.

p.s. our 2y.o. Philips TV also just died on us and we paid $150 to get that one fixed (only 2 weeks before the DVD player went!) I sure won't buy anything made by Philips again!

Pros: Good quality and plays a multitude of formats
Cons: The eject button is so hidden it took me 6 months to find it :)

This is a great player, have owned it for 6 months and it plays just about anything you throw at it.

After these 6 months of ejecting the disk tray from the main unit, I discovered, after watching a movie that if you hold down on the STOP button for 2 to 3 seconds the disk ejects. Kinda cool, but would have been a lot better if it had it's own button