Philips DVP642 DVD Player
 I
love high-end video gadgets. The best of ’em perform superbly, look good, and just
make you feel special when you caress ’em. They ought to, considering what you pay
for ’em. Ouch.
Don’t get me wrong -- it’s not that I consider
big-bucks A/V products rip-offs -- after all, the high-end companies don’t exactly
hold guns to our heads. And, Lord knows, there are a whole lot of reasonably priced
options out there. Heck, a British friend recently told me that there’s a chain of
video stores over there that’s giving away DVD players as a bonus when you buy five
DVDs.
Yup, you read that right: buy five DVDs, get a player for
free. It can’t be any good . . . can it?
That got me thinking. Not about the freebies, but about
some of the super-affordable DVD players. The scales having fallen from my eyes, I looked
around and noticed that Philips makes a progressive-scan player that lists for $79.95, but
seems to sell everywhere for $69. At that price, ordering a review sample through the
normal channels was more trouble than it was worth, so I exercised Amazon’s one-click
option and was hooking up a DVP642 two days later, ready to savage it grievously if it
didn’t measure up to the models with the fancy faceplates.
Success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal
The DVP642 is a slimline design (17.1"W x 1.7"H x
9.3"D) and, at less than six pounds, it’s pretty light compared to most high-end
players. Does that mean it’s flimsy? Not so you’d notice, although I was
startled by just how small and light it seemed after some of the bruisers I’ve
reviewed.
But the question wasn’t whether the DVP642 is built
like one of the big boys, but rather whether it acts like one. Toward that end,
it’s an extremely versatile DVD player that not only offers progressive scan, but
also plays MP3- and JPEG-encoded recordable CDs, and MPEG-4 and DivX video (3.11, 4.x, and
5.x files). The DVP642 will also convert Region 1 and All Region PAL-formatted discs so
you can watch them on NTSC televisions.
The DVP642 offers 4x video upsampling to give you extremely
smooth, detailed images when playing interlaced signals through its component-video,
S-video, or standard composite-video outputs. Further, it has what Philips dubs a
SmartPicture feature, which provides optimum picture settings for color, brightness,
saturation, contrast, and sharpness.
Unlike a lot of high-end players, the DVP642 plays JPEG
images, automatically sequencing them one after the other, zooming in on them, rotating or
flipping them vertically or horizontally. When playing back MP3 tracks, the DVP642
displays track time, album, and track-selection information. It also reads DivX
MPEG-4-based video compression, allowing you to view large files, such as films, movie
trailers, and music videos saved on recordable media.
In other words, this budget player does stuff that more
expensive units don’t. And, exactly like the high-priced jobbies, you can download
firmware upgrades off of Philips’ website.
The DVP642 includes many functions that you do find
on many other mainstream DVD players, such as "five-disc resume," which lets you
start your five most recently viewed DVDs where you stopped them (though it won’t do
this with MP3 or JPEG CDs). It also offers parental controls.
The player’s rear-panel output connections include
two-channel analog RCA, S/PDIF, and TosLink optical audio, as well as composite video,
S-video, and, of course, progressive video (Y-Pb-Pr). The player has a hardwired,
polarized, two-prong AC cord.
The DVP642 comes with a remote control (what DVD player
doesn’t?), batteries, a fairly comprehensive (and comprehensible) owner’s
manual, and a gimme audio/composite-video interconnect.
Sometimes the one who turns back soonest is the most
progressive
I added the DVP642 to the HT system I’ve been using as
my reference recently: Anthem AVM 30 preamp-processor, five Musical Fidelity M250
monoblocks, SIM2 HT200 DMF projector, Paradigm Reference Seismic 12 subwoofer, and
Magnepan MMG W/MGM C speaker system.
I hated the remote control, which happens
increasingly often these days. It was too small, or too crowded with buttons (take your
pick), and I never did get comfortable with its layout. Fortunately, the DVP642 does most
of the thinking for you, so all I used most of the time was Play, Pause, and Stop. Many
high-end remotes are almost as badly laid out.
Installing the DVP642 was a snap. I was up and running in
no time.
Education is the progressive discovery of our ignorance
Sure enough, the DVP642 played darn near everything I threw
at it: commercial DVDs, DVD+R/RWs, DVD-R/-RWs, VCDs, SVCDs, MPEG-4s, DivX 3.11/4.x/5.xes,
CDs, CD-R/RWs, and MP3-CDs. I even viewed some CDs onto which I’d burned JPEG files.
Yup, the 642 is a real Swiss Army knife of a player.
Before I got the DVP642, I actually hadn’t thought
about how many odd optical discs I had around the house. I didn’t think of most of
them as "high-end" formats, so I kept them scattered about my office, where I
could play them on my computer -- when I thought about them at all. I won’t say that
the DVP642 changed my opinion about the fidelity of, say, DivX videos, but it is
nice to be able to watch the few that I have in something other than a desk chair. How
good was it at playing regular DVDs? That’s where things got complicated.
My first reaction was that it was pretty darn clean, clear,
and bright -- especially in progressive mode. And it is, it is. When I watched Master
and Commander: The Far Side of the World, my current favorite reference DVD, the
DVP642 did a fine job of plucking out details from the gloom of the HMS Surprise,
and ditto at surrounding me with its blend of natural sounds and conversation,
interspersed with the odd battle sequence.
Wow! I thought. All of this for $70? It was
kind of amazing.
Then I started direct comparisons with the $7930 Krell DVD
Standard. There was a difference, darn it! The Krell’s picture was sharper,
and I could gaze even deeper into the darkness. I’m not talking about the artificial
detail of edge-enhanced video, but a genuine sense of objects being clearer, sharper, real-er.
Once I began the direct comparisons, I could consistently
spot the differences, even when not placing the two players side by side. I’d watch,
say, The Third Man on the Philips and think, Wonder what Vienna by night would
look like on the Krell?
I’m of two minds about this. Given the choice, I
always want more; all other things being equal, I’d want the Krell. Who
wouldn’t? On top of giving me a better picture, the physical contraption just feels
special.
But $7930 represents a lot of all things not being
equal. Is the Krell worth all that extra money? I suppose it depends on your
wallet, your system, and your values. There’s no denying that it’s better built
-- a lot better built. But even if you had to replace the Philips five or six
times, it would still cost many times less than the Krell.
And while there was indeed a performance difference, would
it be obvious on the kind of TV that a sub-$100 DVD player would be played through? Would
it be obvious even on a much better TV than that? Probably not.
I’m not saying that I could tell the difference
between the two players because my sensibilities are so refined. First off, I was comparing
them. That’s very different from taking a glance at the Philips and declaring it
inferior. Before I did the side-by-side comparisons, I was pretty happy with the
DVP642’s performance. As I was after I’d finished the comparisons and
went back to using it on its own.
The Philips DV642 is a heck of a good player for the money
-- so good that it’s easy to forget just how cheap’n’cheerful it is.
If you have a hi-rez HDTV-based system, you’ll
probably be happier with a Krell or an Arcam -- or any player with a better video
processor -- but even then, the Philips won’t be embarrassingly bad. If you have that
refined a system, you probably aren’t looking for a $70 player anyway.
The grandest of all laws is the law of progressive
development
I’d like to report that the Philips DVP642 is the
proverbial giant-killer. In many ways, it is -- it’s waaay better than
you’d ever expect such an inexpensive player could be. It doesn’t quite measure
up to the best DVD players I’ve auditioned, but I might not ever have realized that
had I not compared it directly with the Krell I had in the house.
That’s impressive enough, I think, even without
adding and it’s only 70 bucks! Buy one, buy two -- heck, buy one or two for
every room in your house.
Well, that might be excessive. But given the DVP642’s
price, you can surely afford one -- and that’s not something you can always
say about its high-priced competition.
...Wes Phillips
wes@onhometheater.com
Philips DVP642 DVD Player
Price: $79.95 USD.
Warranty: 90-day product exchange; one year reduced-cost exchange.
Philips Electronics North America Headquarters
1251 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
Phone: (800) 531-0039
Website: www.philips.com
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