Cons: Won't resume reliably; too long a pause returns it to start menu or powers off
The Bottom Line: Can't resume after pause or stop; won't remember last viewing position after pause longer that 10 minutes. Play after pause sometimes causes power off
taptapper's Full Review: Philips DVP642 DVD Player
I bought this 8 months ago and am now looking for a new DVD player.
This was a great DVD player to begin with; it certainly does play all formats.
BUT many, many of the DVDs I rent will not play; I've noticed that Sony DVDs made after Jan 07 will not play at all; this player will say "Reading" for 20 hours and never show a single image. The new copy protection seems to kill playback on this DVD player, but the cheapo built-in DVD on my TV set (as well as the other 3 DVD players in my house) can play these same disks just fine. This Philips will reliably play old, old DVDs, or things I record. Otherwise it's a complete toss-up. The more Macrovision or other copy protection icons there are on the DVD case, the more likely this thing is to blow up. Obviously Philips has gone overboard with adherence to copy protection, to the point that I can't even watch recent releases!
Often when a DVD can't play I get a menu tree that looks like my DVD Recorder: blue screen with little boxes to click. Too strange!
But the worst feature is that I can't stop a movie and continue it at another time. I've tried everything:
Eternal Pause (it won't resume play after 10 mins on pause: it remains frozen and I have to eject and start over)
Hit Stop, leave Power on, then hit play (remembers last location half the time, otherwise pushing Play makes it POWER OFF)
Hot Stop, power off, power on: back to intro, no way to resume.
I have 3 other DVD players from cheapo to relatively good, and an additional built-in DVD player in my TV set. ALL of them know where a stop point was! Although this Philips has never been able to resume a movie for me, at least it knew the difference between the Play and Power buttons for the first 3 months. Now, if I pause to go to the bathroom, come back and hit play, it powers off. Even if I use the buttons on the player and not the remote. It has never been dropped, wet, etc, it just doesn't know what to do anymore!
And this player isn't in a bad location. I have Bose and Onkyo home theater components and know about air flow, heat registers, component vents, etc. This thing is placed in a cooled, dust free location and every week it gets worse and worse. I always try movies in this Philips first because it will play through the surround speakers. Then, when it freezes/turns off/forgets my last viewed spot, I turn off my Bose system, put it in the DVD player in the TV, and finish the movie.
This player is a dud. It will play lots of formats, but I think the new copy-protection systems are bombing my viewing.
Measures 17.1 x 1.7 x 9.3 inches (W x H x D); Plays DVD-Video, video CD, audio CD, JPEG image CD, and CDs loaded with MP3, MPEG-4, or DivX 3.11/4.x/5....More at Amazon Marketplace
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