Philips DVP5960 DVD Player with HDMI, 1080i Upscaling, DivX Ultra, USB direct
Great for playing all formats.
I bought this DVD player in mid May and 3 weeks later with very nominal usage my player just died in the middle of a movie. I had it connected to a top of the line surge protector so the problem was not a power surge. I could not even get the disc out. When I took it back to Circuit City they assured me it was probably just a bad one and gave me a new one. I could have got another brand but for the features and price I could not find one I liked in the store. The new player has worked ok for the last month but it shows some jitters while switching from one HDMI set up mode to another and causes a 'green' screen to display on my plasma. Once I switch it off and then on again it has worked fine but I am prepared to have it die on me in just a few months. I did not notice any substantial improvement in picture using the HDMI cable over the component connection. In fact, if you have a progressive DVD player I doubt that you would notice too much difference in the image quality using this upconverting DVD player. I had it set to the 1080i resolution and also to the 720p and 570p. On some DVDs the 1080i performed better than the other resoulutions but on some others it did not seem to make much of a difference which makes me think that the image quality is very DVD dependent.<br /><br />The good:<br />Plays all discs - VCDs, CD-RWs, CDs, DVDs, MP3s, Div-X and just about anything that won't play on other DVD players.<br />It even has a USB connection in the front which you can use to directly plug in a zip drive or another device like a hard drive, although I have not used this feature yet.<br />The bad:<br />Remote is not at all user friendly. It is of cheap construction and buttons are not intuitive. I liked my Sony remote much better. Worse, the DVD player is VERY slow to respond to your pressing remote buttons. At times, I have to struggle to get it to respond.<br />While changing resolutions through DVD player set up it is better not to have a disk playing in the DVD player as that causes errors.<br /><br />Finally, for the features and price this is a good buy if you have a lot of Div-X, VCD, DVD-RW discs and copies of original DVDs as this player plays them all. However, don't expect this player to be a life-long purchase and cross your fingers and hope you get a good piece when you buy one. In fact, I recommend buying it from a store close to you so that the return is easier.<br /><br />11/06/06 Update: The player has worked just fine up till now but I hardly use it more than once a week.<br />11/16/08: This player is still working fine and plays all DVDs and home made movies without any problem. You can also make it region free if you like - just Google it. So I stand by my rating.ors.    Finally, for the features and price this is a good buy if you have a lot of Div-X, VCD, DVD-RW discs and copies of original DVDs as this player plays them all. However, don't expect this player to be a life-long purchase and cross your fingers and hope you get a good piece when you buy one. In fact, I recommend buying it from a store close to you so that the return is easier.    11/06/06 Update: The player has worked just fine up till now but I hardly use it more than once a week.  11/16/08: This player is still working fine and plays all DVDs and home made movies without any problem. You can also make it region free if you like - just Google it. So I stand by my rating.