Philips DVP642 DivX-Certified Progressive-Scan DVD Player
Got my money's worth
Bought this 9 months ago, and am extremely happy with it. <br /> <br />Can be picky about DivX/XviD files. But any file converted using AutoGK (w/ ESS standalone support enabled) will play fine. <br /> <br />Can be made region-free easily (see earlier reviews or Google for details) and I've been able to play German DVDs for my kid no problem - this is the main reason I bought this thing. <br /> <br />I burn DVDs and avi files onto DVD+R and have had no problems playing them back. <br /> <br />Remote is not the best, as others have noted, but it's hard to get too worked up about that. <br /> <br />Picture is not as good as with my 5-year old Sony DVD player. Dark scenes in particular do not look great, dark shades all seem to kind of blend together so you can't really see what's going on. <br /> <br />I've seen many complaints about durability, but you'll get none from me. My 21-month-old kid gets great pleasure out of opening the tray with the button and slamming it shut with his hand, over and over again, yet somehow he hasn't managed to bust this thing yet. And if/when he does, I imagine I'll just shell out $50 for another one. <br /> <br />While it's not great at anything, it does so many things pretty well that it's really a great deal for $50.