Philips DVP5900/37 DVD Player with Divx
The Player Appears to be Faulty--CORRECTED
I used an HDMI cable to hook up the Philips DVP5900 DVD player to my brand new Philips 42\\" widescreen plasma TV.  Unbelievably a bright green stripe appears down the right side of the display on the TV regardless of what DVD I play.  The stripe varies from as much as half an inch in width to almost nothing.  I thought the issue was possibly related to the player simply warming up, but I've had it on for three hours, and while the stripe starts out wide, and then shrinks to almost nothing at times, it does come back.  I can't enjoy a picture which has a bright green stripe of varying width coming and going along the right side of the display.  I've e-mailed Philips twice regarding the issue and received no response, and the problem is not mentioned on their online support page.  I checked the available firmware upgrade online too, and there is no mention of the issue or any fix for it.  I saw another review where the user refers to a green bar, so apparently it's not just my player--though it probably is related to the HDMI hookup and the use of a widescreen TV (i.e., you might not experience the problem with different equipment and a different connection--I just don't know).    While I'm here I'd like to suggest strongly to Philips that if they're going to sell their wares in the US market they rewrite their manuals and online support documents in comprehensible business English, dispensing of the mangled grammar, misspelled and missing words that tend to make it hard to figure out what's meant at times.    I'm returning the player to Amazon, and apologize to them for wasting their time on this one.  I'd suggest they consider not selling this player unless there's a resolution of this issue.    CORRECTION, as of 2/6/06:  I wrote an updated review, but the system wouldn't allow me to enter a second review of the same product, only to edit this original review, so I've added the update below:    I wrote the earlier 1/14/06 review suggesting this DVD player was possibly faulty because of the bright green stripe that appeared down the right side of the display on my plasma HDTV.  Since then I've replaced the player with a highly rated Sony HDMI player...and the green stripe has appeared again, though only about half the width--perhaps a quarter of an inch wide.    So the fault must be with the TV and not the DVD player.  I've checked the Philips online support documents for the TV, and there is a document that mentions the picture can be off-center when using an HDMI connection, though it doesn't refer to any green stripe on the right side.  What I've found out in the meantime is that the TV's picture format can be set to a fixed widescreen display when using a DVD, instead of the default automatic format, which will stretch the picture to fit the screen, and is useful when watching TV.  The other night I watched the entirety of National Treasure (a film I can highly recommend) with the TV itself set to the widescreen format, and there was no issue with any green stripe.  (The National Treasure DVD was also in the widescreen format by the way--it was not the full screen version.)    My apologies for the earlier review, but then it would have helped if Philips had responded to my questions or had online support that addressed the issue.  I don't think the Philips DVD picture quality was that different from what I've seen with this new Sony player, so this Philips player might work for you.