My new Philips DVP642 only 69$ at Compusa

[absolutic]

Well finally....

This new Philips player is only 69$ at your local (USA) Compusa. Finally no need to pay $150 for RJ 1500 on ebay. I went to Compusa and picked one up. Neither Compusa or Philips itself (emailed both) know which chip it uses of course. I suspect it is ESS because Philips 737 used ESS and it ff and rw up to 8X with no problem. It has progressive scan, digital/optical output etc. The player is very nice looking only 1.7 inches high!

Well I already own Liteon LVD2001 so I have something to compare it to. I bought it strictly for playing Divx/Xvid in my bedroom. I installed it and immediately played everything I could. Every DIVX/XVID file played. But I was specifically interested to see if it would play a file that my Liteon LVD2001 refused to play. Well it did not. I had one movie that neither player could play.

Also, I had a movie which Liteon LVD2001 played the video, but could not play audio. Well Philips 642 also played video with no audio.
Much more stable than Liteon, never freezes. Well I only had it for 1 day. I think this player is the cheapest divx/xvid dvd player in the U.S. Why pay 99$ for a piece of crap Polaroid which you have to order when you can go to your local Compusa and physically get this player. And you can return it if you don't like it! I did not really need another dvd player (I have 5) but for a price of a dinner for two in an upscale restaurant, why not?

[gatormac]

I also bought this at CompUSA for $69. Here are my limited observations (with more to come I'm sure):

1)Good looking player. DIVX Home Theatre certified.
2)Simple remote.
3)Reads DVD,DVD-R,DVD+R,DVD+RW,CD-R,CD-RW (Haven't tested DVD-RW)
4)Played all of my XVID files. (I don't use AQ,QPEL,GMC,or packed Bitstream). Played files > 2GB.
5)Did not read the AR flag in my XVID files (I use pixel AR) so the playback was squished. Does not have any scaling/stretching feature to fix the squished playback of anamorphically encoded XVID files.
6)Flimsy drive tray.
7)Simplistic Menu system.
8)File menu system cuts off name at 8-10 characters.
9)FF & RW work on XVID files.
10)Slight choppiness/audio lag observed at beginning of XVID playback that quickly resolved itself.

This is just a couple of hours of toying with it so these observations may change. I have no idea what chipset it uses, but at $69 thought it was worth a try, especially since the DVD player I previously used couldn't play any format other than DVD-R and you just can't find an MPEG4 player here in the states.

EDIT: I have since noticed that files >2GB are NOT playing correctly.

[gatormac]

UPDATE

The DVP642 plays DVDs very well...no complaints there. The XVID files playback, but as time passes during file play there is some skipping/choppiness at the bottom 3rd of the screen. Is anyone else having this problem? The video looks great, but the choppy playback that increases as the length of the movie progresses is too annoying. The only thing I can figure it to be is a problem with AC3 in the avi or multiple B-frames. I will try to use MP3 and then switch to 1 b-frame and see what happens.

Still...for $69 it is a great player.

[gatormac]

I encoded the same movie that was choppy by omitting consecutive b-frames and muxed it with AC3....choppiness still present. Then I muxed with MP3...choppiness still present. However, I did notice that the choppiness didn't increase as the movie progressed, but rather that the choppiness only occurred in bright scenes with alot of action/motion. My thought is that it must be a bitrate limitation of the chipset that plays the MPEG4 stream. Dark action scenes did not have this problem, normal scenes did not have this problem...only bright and fast.

I am trying to solve it and will let you all know the results (if you care).

[VioletHue]

I am very interested as this is a possible solution to having my movies available in every room instead of just the living room where my expensive equipment is. For $69 I could put a player everywhere there is a TV.

[gatormac]

I was correct in my assumption about high bitrate causing the choppy play in bright high motion scenes, but incorrect in my assumption that it was due to a deficiency in the player. I searched these boards and found that XVID is not compliant with MPEG4 Advanced Simple Profile specifications, particularly regarding bitrate buffering and control. The XVID team plans to implement this after the release of 1.0 final.

Therefore, the DVD player is fine and handles everything I throw at it that it should handle. I just hope the XVID team becomes compliant soon as I really don't care for encoding with Divx. If you encode with Divx you shouldn't have any problems with this player as Divx conforms to the MPEG4 ASP specs bitrate limitations.

Further observations:

MP3 files play and the player recognizes folders as well as single files. However, there is a slight whirring sound from the drive as MP3s are played. I haven't noticed this sound during video playback.

JPGs are displayed, but as soon as you select one it automatically goes into a slide show routine....I'm not sure if this is a setting that can be changed, but I'm not that concerned as i never look at JPGs on my TV. Also, the pics looked the tiniest bit squished horizontally.

[KGarcia]

It looks like a great deal.

I have alot of DivX 5.x.x on DVD+R and this seems like a winner but I just have a few questions that maybe someone who currently has this player could answer for me before i buy it.

My only concerns are:

1. Will it play the DivX files I have on DVD+R? I noticed in the pdf for this player it says DivX on CD-R but doesn't say DivX on DVD+R.

2. Will it play files larger then 2gb. I'm asking this because Nero says it uses a different format for files over 2gb.

3. Will it keep the proper aspect ratio on a widescreen TV(1:85:1/16:9) or a standard TV(1:33:1)? All my DivX is in 640x272 or 640x352 so on a widescreen TV at 640x272 there should
be little black bars on the top and bottom but it shouldn't fill the whole screen. For 640xx352 they would hopefully fill the entire widescreen. And as for normal 1:33:1 TV's would it add the big black bars automatically to preserve the correct aspect ratio?

4. Lastly, DivX on CD-R or DVD+R, does it need to be burned to the main directory of the disc, as in, no folders or subfolders, or can you put the avi's in a folder, for example, with a picture such as a jpg and would it still read the avi? All my current stuff is burned with no folders, right to the main directory of the disc.


As you can tell I have no experience with hardware DivX players as of yet. I've been looking around and want one really bad. I almost bought the Polaroid one until I read up on it and I'm glad I didn't now.

Hopefully you guys who have this player could fill me in. If it meets my requirements I'll drive 45mins to CompUSA in the mourning and grab it. I checked and they have them in stock! :)

[gatormac]

@ KGarcia

Here are some answers to your questions:

1)Yes, it will play Divx on DVD+R, DVD-R, DVD+RW (haven't tested -RW)

2)No. I have no idea about Nero as I don't use it, but my files > 2GB will start OK, but will stop playing after a random amount of time. I think if you split your files at a keyframe at the 2GB point you should be able to watch your movies that way. When 1 movie ends it starts the next one on the disc...there is a blank screen and a short pause while it reads, but it is a workable and tolerable solution (better than loading another disc anyway). I haven't tried it, but in theory it should work.

3)I can't speak for a WS TV as I don't have one, but it does display the proper AR on my 1.33:1 TV. That is if the movie was encoded with a 1:1 square pixel aspect ratio as the player won't recognize anamorphic flags (if you use Divx you are OK). Black bars are automatically displayed.

4)You can burn the file to the root directory or to a folder. I just did a little test for this question by putting 1 xvid file and 1 divx file in the root directory and 1 divx file, 1 jpeg, and 1 mp3 in a folder. They all played perfectly. The only issue is that when the last file in the directory finishes playing the player gets hung up and the lcd display shows "0000". But that is a minor problem.

Hope this helps....its not perfect, but there isn't a perfect player out there yet.

[jntaylor63]

gatormac,

Have you tried AutoGK to make your Xvid files? It now uses 1.0 Xvid and has an option for making video palyable for ESS chips. (This player uses this chip.) Also, I think that AutoGK makes the AVI files as 1:1 and not with an AR flag.

I think that this player (like most) only reads Data as pure ISO files and that means nothing over 2 gigs.

I want to retire my X-Card and get a good XviD palyer in the US.

THX,JNT

[gatormac]

Originally posted by jntaylor63
gatormac,

Have you tried AutoGK to make your Xvid files? It now uses 1.0 Xvid and has an option for making video palyable for ESS chips. (This player uses this chip.) Also, I think that AutoGK makes the AVI files as 1:1 and not with an AR flag.

I think that this player (like most) only reads Data as pure ISO files and that means nothing over 2 gigs.

I want to retire my X-Card and get a good XviD palyer in the US.

THX,JNT

I have AutoGK, but haven't tried it for this player. I will go ahead and encode an episode tonight and see how it does, but I don't think the ESS compatability deals with the bitrate issue....but i will try anything at this point.

Thanks for your post.

[KGarcia]

Thanks for your replies. I have been busy but now I am just waiting for them to get back in stock... They sold out in 1 day :(

As for my divx that are over 2gb I'll just reburn them and like you said, cut them at a keyframe using vdubmod and direct stream copy.

Hopefully I don't have any bitrate problems. All my divx rips are 100% quant 2 via autogk.

[Custom_VCD]

I just bought this player here in OKC and love it, I had a Lite-2002 and loved that player, but this one is a lot faster in my opinion. Im not sure about any firmware updates and such?anyone know how to check which one you got and how to make it region free. Very Crisp, im amazed at the ffw/rw of this player. Looks like a beast for the price. Since it says it plays mpeg-4 does that mean it plays Nero Digital?
Thanks

[gatormac]

I don't use Nero Digital, but I'm pretty sure it will play (if it is in an avi container) and stays somewhat close to ISO-MPEG4 ASP specs.

I'm having minor playback issues with 1 clip, but it is a movie with wild fluctuations in bit allocation....anywhere from 9 to 156000 per frame. But otherwise it is a good player....especially for the price.

[zeiss]

Originally posted by gatormac
@ KGarcia

Hope this helps....its not perfect, but there isn't a perfect player out there yet.

not to get picky, but a PC with TV-out is a perfect player. :-)

[gatormac]

Well, I was talking about standalones....however, PC's aren't perfect either. They're noisy, expensive, and many TV out cards have less than perfect output. Not to mention having to have some technical knowledge to set up and operate one. Most people (not your average DOOM9 techie) want something they can plug in and forget about it...like a standalone player.

But I am inclined to agree with you that at this point you can get a better viewing experience with a PC setup...if you know what you are doing ;)

[beezle]

Does anyone know, or can anyone confirm, if this player can play movies encoded with Koepi's new rc3 xvid codec? I have seen that some players do not.

[gatormac]

It handles the RC3 and RC4 just fine, but it doesn't handle qpel or gmc.

[leadman584]

Has anyone else, that owns one of these babies, experienced a problem with the player incorrectly detecting QPel in Divx5.01 encodes? Everything newer that I have plays fantastic, just trying to confirm if it is just this version of Divx that gets rejected for imaginary QPel.

[torsius]

Originally posted by gatormac
It handles the RC3 and RC4 just fine, but it doesn't handle qpel or gmc.

I don't think that's totally correct, I have a few q-pel xvid's made from a few months ago, and they play perfectly on the 642...

I remember them specifically because they failed to play on my lvd-2001, so I was anxious to try them on this new player :)

[gatormac]

Originally posted by torsius
I don't think that's totally correct, I have a few q-pel xvid's made from a few months ago, and they play perfectly on the 642...

I remember them specifically because they failed to play on my lvd-2001, so I was anxious to try them on this new player :)

Great! I don't encode with qpel so I was going by what the manual said.

[snakeman]

Has anyone tried XCD formated disk on this player yet.



snakeman

[gatormac]

Originally posted by snakeman
Has snyone tried XCD formated disk on this player yet.



snakeman

Sorry...no.

[MaTTeR]

First time post on this board in a very loooooong time :( Glad to be back though!

The player will not handle XCD files as it would need to be able to access the mode2form2 DS filter. I tried several last night.

It also shows DivX 5.11 files with QPEL as being unsupported on screen. I'm unable to get any XviD RC4 files to play which were encoded with QPEL as well. The screen simply goes black and the player hangs. I've also noticed that a few encodes which used custom matrices in XviD will not play, just getting a black screen. This is my observations after a few hours of playing around.

In conclusion, make sure you go to the Phillips web site and download the latest firmware for the player...it improved PQ and stablized the picture quiet a bit for me. I love this player right now, it's played virtually every CD and DVD I threw at it flawlessly with the exception of XCD's. I'd highly recommend it to anyone looking for a cheap MPEG-4 player with nice picture quality. I'll post more later in the week as I do more testing.

[avih]

Originally posted by MaTTeR
First time post on this board in a very loooooong time :( Glad to be back though!

The player will not handle XCD files as it would need to be able to access the mode2form2 DS filter. I tried several last night.

It also shows DivX 5.11 files with QPEL as being unsupported on screen. I'm unable to get any XviD RC4 files to play which were encoded with QPEL as well. The screen simply goes black and the player hangs. I've also noticed that a few encodes which used custom matrices in XviD will not play, just getting a black screen. This is my observations after a few hours of playing around.

In conclusion, make sure you go to the Phillips web site and download the latest firmware for the player...it improved PQ and stablized the picture quiet a bit for me. I love this player right now, it's played virtually every CD and DVD I threw at it flawlessly with the exception of XCD's. I'd highly recommend it to anyone looking for a cheap MPEG-4 player with nice picture quality. I'll post more later in the week as I do more testing.
man, where have u been?? good to have u back :)
email me or something. hope all's cool with u :)

back to topic. a friend was in a business trip to the US (Minesota, California, N.J), he looked for it in wallmart and compusa. they all had it in the catalog, but out of stock :( is it possible to order one of those online?

[gatormac]

The manual says that it doesn't handle qpel so that doesn't surprise me and since it is an ESS chip it only seems to handle h.263 and mpeg matrices. Thats why AutoGK gives an ESS install option.

I haven't downloaded the firmware, but haven't felt a need to either. Very happy with this player.

[leadman584]

A lot of places that carry this player are sold out, it works great. Had mine for a couple of weeks and plays HT compliant Divx files beautifully. My local Wal-Mart did not have any in stock, so I ordered from their online site. Cost an extra 7 bucks to have it delivered to my door. They said it would take 4 to 10 days to arrive, got it in less than 36 hours, but I do live close to a distribution center.

[MaTTeR]

Hey avih! Good to see your still hanging around :) I'll email you soon, just been away on business adventures for the past year.

I bought my 642 at a local retailer here similar to Wal-Mart but slightly more expensive. I paid $69 USD at Target (www.target.com). Also check out Best Buy (http://www.bestbuy.com/) and J&R (http://www.jr.com/JRProductPage.process?RestartFlow=t&Merchant_Id=1&Section_Id=1&Product_Id=3979336&JRSource=yahoo.datafeed.PHI+DVP642)

I've used XviD's Qpel on every video for the past 14 months because I love the grainy noise look it provides, gives the illusion of increased detail. Of course it says it's not supported but it also was sold to me as a Region 1 player and come to find out the region can be changed:D

It seems I've now ran into my first issue with the 642 player. The issue is covered nicely in this thread (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=74251) but basically high bitrate scenes causes a few jerky scenes. I refuse to ever revert back to a blurry fuzzy codec such as DivX 5 but it appears to be the only solution for now until the XviD team tackle the VBV problem.

One last thought, I've not been able to play any XviD files with DTS or Ogg audio on the player. I didnt expect Ogg to work for obvious reasons but I would have epxected the DTS file to work, video played fine but no audio. Anyone else tested DTS files?

[Ryokurin]

I just want a player that can handle external subtitles, sadly I havent met one yet. I heard liteon's does with the latest firmware but I haven't been able to confirm it yet.

[speed_X]

Originally posted by avih
man, where have u been?? good to have u back :)
email me or something. hope all's cool with u :)

back to topic. a friend was in a business trip to the US (Minesota, California, N.J), he looked for it in wallmart and compusa. they all had it in the catalog, but out of stock :( is it possible to order one of those online?


Hi All..this is my second post here!

Look in eBay/USA and you'll find plenty of them. Get a seller that will mail it overseas and you should be set.

[DJ Alik]

Since I work in the Wal-Mart Electronics department I bought one of these the first day we got them in and good thing cause the next day they were all out. So far I discovered a few things that I am having problems with :

1) some divx 3.11 encodes have wrong color

2) it overscans a little bit (there si some cropping for some reason).

3) it doesn't display 1.85 divx encodes correctly on a widescreen tv (I tried hooking up a player today at work to a 32" Sanyo widescreen HDTV and threw in Vertical Limit which was at 640x344 and it did not display it correctly only filled about 50% of the screen and it the image was squizzed. Tried an anomorphic 1.85 dvd and the screen was filled up completely with a correct aspect ratio).

4) so subtitle support.

5) 5.00 encodes do not play since it incorrectly identifies them as having QPEL. (At first i thought it was 5.01 encodes but I tested some of my movies in 5.01 and 5.00 and the ones in 5.00 do not play)

This is it for now. I will post a if I get any issues resolved. I e-mailed Philips today.

[speed_X]

Hi!

I have some of the same issues however, from the 4 different mpeg4 players I've tested, the Philips DVP642 seems to have the least and at 1/3 to 1/2 the cost of some of the other players.

All in all, I don't think all of it will be resolved with the present generation of mpeg4 capable chips. We still have a ways to go for a 99% reliable mpeg4 player.

[DJ Alik]

This is the reply I got from Philips regarding the 1.85 aspect ratio divx files not filling up the whole widescreen TV:

"Thank you for your e-mail regarding your DVP642 unit.

In regards to the problems that you are experiencing, what we suggest is that you change the resolution to 720x480 and the frame rate to 29,79.

If there is anything else we can assist you with, please do not hesitate to contact us via e-mail or chat. Go to PhilipsUsa.com and click on the "Contact US" Link and choose the medium you wish to use.

Sincerely,

Philips USA Customer Support"

That doesn't make any sese. Why would you want to change the framerate to 29.79 when that is only used on TV content and all movies are 23.976 instead.

[DJ Alik]

it looks like philips released a new firmware dated 0531 check it out
http://www.p4c.philips.com/files/d/dvp642_17/

haven't had the chence to install it yet

[speed_X]

Originally posted by DJ Alik
it looks like philips released a new firmware dated 0531 check it out
http://www.p4c.philips.com/files/d/dvp642_17/

haven't had the chence to install it yet

Thanks DJ Alik!

I installed the one dated April 9, 2004 and can't wait to install this one. Have you noticed there are 2 rom files within the archive?

What's the other one for?

:D

[DJ Alik]

there is a pdf file on their website that says what it does

[speed_X]

Originally posted by DJ Alik
there is a pdf file on their website that says what it does

Thanks DJ Alik!

I read it and can't wait to install it. Posted your link at divx forums, with credits! Thanks again from all of us DVP642 owners.

:D

[bond]

as it has been reported that this player also handles the MP4 container format now (including mpeg-4 video (xvid, divx5, nero digital, 3ivx aso...) and MP3 audio) i created some samples for testing out the players MP4 capabilities (like anamorphic resize, different muxer tools, aso...)

anyone interested in testing it can grap the file here (http://mp4menu.sourceforge.net/download/MP4_TestCD_v1.zip)!
its a .bin image as it also contains a mode2form2 ("XCD") sample, which should be able to be burned in as good as all burning programs

it would be great if you guys owning this player could test the samples and report back if there are any issues with them, like loosing sync (eg with the "mp4 muxer" samples), jerky playback (eg with the "packed bitstream" sample), correct resizing to 16:9 (with the anamorphic "ar" samples), no audio (like with the aac sample) aso... :)

[SeeMoreDigital]

Nice idea bond.

Shame there's no AAC audio... or does anybody know any different?


Cheers

[Phobos]

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=77641&perpage=10&pagenumber=4

this player does support xcd :)

also that thread has updated info on that players supported features

[speed_X]

Hi All!

Found this at the divx forums:
**********************************
This may be old news for some of you guys, but was a gigantic fix for me. I was having mysterious issues where some discs I would burn would not be read by the player, but were fine in any computer. Made no difference if it was + or - , CD or DVD, R or RW. None of the settings I encoded or burned with provided any consistent pattern.. I figured out that this machine will not recognize dics where you have files of different formats in the same directory. I was racking my brain examining all the discs that it would not read and noticed that they all have .avi and .mpg files in the root directory. I tested it by burning a DVD with 4 .avi's and 2 .mpg's in the root. No go, spit it back out at me. I then burned a second disc using the first one as the source, disc to disc with 2 dvd drives, only I created a folder in Nero and put the 2 mpg's in it leaving the .avi's in the root. Presto, works fine. I imagine other guys have had or surely will have this same problem. Like I say if this was already posted somewhere forgive my enthusiasm, but this was driving me nuts.

*************************************************

Maybe some of our testing is compromised?

[SeeMoreDigital]

Hi speed_X,

I'm confused. Was the comment you posted in relation to XCD file burning or just burning files in general.

If you remember when we did our early .MP4 and .AVI tests we always suggested not to mix both types of files on the same disc!


Cheers

[Phobos]

Originally posted by SeeMoreDigital
Hi speed_X,

I'm confused. Was the comment you posted in relation to XCD file burning or just burning files in general.

If you remember when we did our early .MP4 and .AVI tests we always suggested not to mix both types of files on the same disc!


Cheers

same thing applies with srts???

[speed_X]

Hi smd,Phobos->

I do remember burning a number of Avi and Mp4 to the same root however, I didn't notice any of the behaviour as posted in the divx forums. Most of the files I burned would either play or not but it didn't reject the CD itself.

I posted the comment I found at divx forums because I thought it was pertinent, not because I've experienced anything like it. But it is food for thought.:D

[Phobos]

no subtitle(srt) support in this device right?

[speed_X]

Hi Phobos and all!

I think the unit does have subtitle support but many folks can't get it to work right. However, in the short life of the DVP642 philips has isued a couple of major updates and let's hope it continues.

BTW Phobos, habla usted Espanol?

[Phobos]

vivo en mexico, debo hablar español :D :D

its cool maybe srt support will be perfected, but is there a way aac audio is implemented ever?? even he-aac?? some portables can read aac like my phillips exp503, i dunno why phillips wont use official mp4 codec :rolleyes:

[speed_X]

Originally posted by Phobos
vivo en mexico, debo hablar español :D :D

its cool maybe srt support will be perfected, but is there a way aac audio is implemented ever?? even he-aac?? some portables can read aac like my phillips exp503, i dunno why phillips wont use official mp4 codec :rolleyes:

Hola Phobos, como estas?

I don't think it supports AAC but all around it's a good player and I think we are in the infancy of Mpeg4 playback and in a little time there will be units that will be more advanced.

All of the present generation of players have issues, some more than others. I purchased a Yamada DVX6600, the Philips, a NeuNeo and a RJTech 1500 and they all have bugs!

I ended up building a HTPC and it plays everything I put in it. I had been waiting since 1999 for a standalone Mpeg4 player and I must tell you the present ones still need much more work.

[SeeMoreDigital]

Originally posted by speed_X
...I ended up building a HTPC and it plays everything I put in it. I had been waiting since 1999 for a standalone Mpeg4 player and I must tell you the present ones still need much more work. I guess I'm waiting for the ultimate Mpeg4 stand-alone player too!

However, I also wanted a player that could output RGB/component video which is why I'm using an Sigma Xcard... That said, I gather that an 'tricked-up' XboX can offer playback of just about anything...

So, some of us are left in the middle of an ethical quandary...

Do I stick with the Xcard and upset all the die hard XviD fans - whom Sigma pissed-off by borrowing their codec code. Or do I buy a Microsoft product, which in turn would help contribute to Bill and Companies' never ending money mountain and code borrowing empire...

It's a real shame there isn't a separate "what's in the box" option for people like me to go for!

[Phobos]

Originally posted by speed_X
Hola Phobos, como estas?

I don't think it supports AAC but all around it's a good player and I think we are in the infancy of Mpeg4 playback and in a little time there will be units that will be more advanced.

All of the present generation of players have issues, some more than others. I purchased a Yamada DVX6600, the Philips, a NeuNeo and a RJTech 1500 and they all have bugs!

I ended up building a HTPC and it plays everything I put in it. I had been waiting since 1999 for a standalone Mpeg4 player and I must tell you the present ones still need much more work.

yeah, we are still a little far from good hardware support, i myself want to buy a nice laptop to have kinda portable swiss army knife now that those players may take 3 or more years to mature

[speed_X]

Hi Phobos, smd and all!

I know what you mean 'cause I went through all the motions only to return to the old but reliable computer. I did my best to make it look like a part my AV rack but it isn't "consumer level."

Like many of us I finally came to the sober conclusion that I had to make do with the HTPC since I can't ever be assured an Mpeg4 title I put into any of the standalones will play all the way through (I hate having to get up in the middle of the movie to go and fiddle with it!)

As it is, I consider the Mpeg4 standalones I have as somewhat curious items to put on the shelf to show off but not real "consumer products."

I do agree with you guys that we are possibly 2-4 years away from a real consumer-ready standalone Mpeg4 player. Until then, the computer will remain the undisputed king of the roost!:D