Philips DVP642 DivX-Certified Progressive-Scan DVD Player
Begin watching those DiVX movies in style
This unit is made for those electronics fans who want the most for the buck they spend like myself. This player is perfect if you have an average 25\\" tube TV, possibly with some stereo speakers and perhaps even with component video input. The player provides both stereo output, S-video output(which looks kinda like computer PS/2 mouse jack). Then there are 3 component outputs, which I didn't get to test, but you might be able to take advantage of. <br />Now, all the DiVX movies that I tried played almost flawlessly. One of the movies in DiVX 3.11 format showed notable image aberrations, with some parts of the frame looking as if they were shot on some grainy film. I guess the video chip couldn't keep up with the video bitrate, or the file encoding was corrupt. After pressing Stop and Play buttons didn't fix this problem, I tried pressing Menu button, then pressed Play back, and voila, the image became as clear as it was supposed to be. <br />One drawback I noticed is that version DiVX 3.11 movies support only 4x fast forwarding, while other DiVX movies(as well as DVDs) can fast forward at 8x, which is pretty good, but not as fast as the usual 32x for standard DVD players. <br />One time the player didn't want to read a CD-R with a small video on it, saying there was 'No Disc'. After I finalized the disk in Ahead Nero, the player was able to load and play the disk back.<br />I also tried a homemade DVD-R, which worked as expected, with all the menus/subtitles, you know, the whole \\"DVD Experience\\". <br />I have to add I was pleasantly surprised by how cool the player looked, with a nice bright LCD(which doesn't have a lot of information on it, just a playback counter; still, it's a nice improvement over my old cheapo Apex DVD player, which looks pretty dull without the LCD), a very thin sleek silver(though pretty large in width) case and a nice ergonomic remote control.<br />All in all, it's about time for you guys to shell out those $60 and start watching DiVX on a big TV screen. You won't regret buying this awesome affordable and quality gadget.