Philips DVP642 DivX-Certified Progressive-Scan DVD Player
A shallow and superficial review
A lot of the other reviewers have focused on the technical aspect on this dvd player.  I personally don't have much technical experience (I never bothered educating myself on the different outputs or even what progressive scan meant) so this review isn't going to focus on those elements.  All I can really discuss are the more obvious aspects of simple play and appearance.<br /><br />Appearance wise, this dvd player is quite attractive, setup was a snap, region coding wasn't an issue, and it played my divx recordings just fine.  It has a very slim appearance and a conveniently sized display screen.  When inactive, it even has a screensaver option.  Not the colorful butterflies of some models, but I doubt anyone would let that be a deciding factor against it.  The remote is small yet functional, but I didn't like how hard some of the buttons had to be depressed in order to activate.  While this feature might be a good thing for those with children (who tend to slightly manhandle most buttons) I found it very inconvenient during late nights as I blearily tried switching it off.<br /><br />Performance wise, my biggest complaint was that it made way too much noise.  I bought this to replace my whisper quiet Panasonic (which fell victim to the infamous H02 Error) so this really started to get irritating fast.  Everytime it played, I would hear the disc spinning throughout the movie.  Also, the forward and backward search (helpful for skipping through the numerous intros on boxed sets) were impossibly slow and jumped rather than played through those scenes.  Which meant that you had to not only shuffle through disjointed images that looked more like a slideshow, but you could never pinpoint the location of where you wanted to stop.  As soon as you hit the stop button, or smash as it was in my case since the keys were so darn unresponsive, you'd never end up where you wanted to.  The result being that I've now memorized the theme songs to several of my favorite t.v. shows.  And don't dare try playing around with controls while watching, either.  I found that if I used the search or pause button more than a couple of times during the film, it would often simply shut off...so no easter egg hunts recommended.  Then comes the cherry on top:  it broke.  I've had it for a little over one year and it broke yesterday. Good grief.try playing around with controls while watching, either.  I found that if I used the search or pause button more than a couple of times during the film, it would often simply shut off...so no easter egg hunts recommended.  Then comes the cherry on top:  it broke.  I've had it for a little over one year and it broke yesterday. Good grief.