Philips DVP642 DivX-Certified Progressive-Scan DVD Player
It can't play a rental disk in good condition; why bother?
I've been looking for a decent DVD player since I discovered that my Sony player (about 4 y.o.) does WORSE on reading / playing rental disks (e.g. NetFlix, Blockbuster, etc) than the cheap-o Apex 1500 I bought for my son 5 years ago -- and at that time, that Apex was the cheapest thing on the market, scarcely over $100. <br /> <br />Well, I want to go fairly cheap since I expect I'll be upgrading to HDMI and HD but not for another year or two. So, I tried a Toshiba DVD player, very similar in features and price to this Philips unit. Watching a rental DVD of The Big Lebowski, a good, not heavily scratched DVD, the Toshiba got hung up around chapter 17 -- almost to the end of the movie. Same symptom as the old Sony -- it just can't read the last part of the movie, for some reason that part is more challenging on the laser tracking mechanism than the beginning. <br /> <br />Well, I returned the Toshiba unit, as I'd only had it for a couple of weeks, and then got this Philips unit. SAME PROBLEM! Almost identical in behavior in re tracking this particular DVD. <br /> <br />Of course, I can take this DVD into my son's room and play it on the old, beatup Apex 1500 and it plays it flawlessly all the way through. <br /> <br />So, this Philips unit will be going back, too, for a full refund, and I guess I'll have to keep looking for a decent relatively low-cost DVD player. It sure as heck ain't this one. <br /> <br />