Philips DVP642 DivX-Certified Progressive-Scan DVD Player
Not entirely exceptional as reviewed by many...
I bought this as a replacement for my problematic Samsung 709. I like the price and it cost a lot less and I read numerous great reviews about the unit. It does play all the copied/ripped CD's that I put in it, and that's very nice. However, I noticed that it wont play some of the DVD's I rented (i.e. Lost In Translation, The Big Bounce etc). I keep getting either DISC ERROR or NO DISC. To eliminate the casue of the error, I retested the aforementioned DVD's on my Samsung and my PC DVD disc player. Lo and behold, it works fine which meant it's not the DVD discs but it does not on the unit itself. It seemed as though, this DVD's lens is very sensitive to even minute scratches.    This recurring problems can be very annoying unless you have a backup dvd player onhand. My verdict, if you want a DVD player to play your ripped DVD's, this is a best buy. If you want to read/watch your rentals, I would suggest spend a little more and buy a much better brand.    I still like it despite it's flaws simply because of the slim design and the price. I just make sure that the dvd's a rented aren't badly scratched. Note: I did apply all available required firmware patches and still does the same thing.