The DVP642's progressive-scan functionality allows compatible TVs to display the even and odd numbered lines of an image in a single pass. This minimizes screen flicker, which is easier on your eyes.

Whether your living room is currently home to an HDTV or you're merely thinking of "someday," the DVP642 stands ready to deliver the full potential of your DVDs. Progressive scanning, referred to as 480p for the number of horizontal lines that compose the video image, creates a picture using twice the scan lines of a conventional DVD picture, giving you higher resolution and sharper images while eliminating nearly all motion artifacts. Playback options include five-disc resume, which lets you pick up where you left off on your five most recently viewed DVDs (not applicable for MP3 or JPEG CDs), disc-lock parental controls, and picture zoom for magnification of select images.

Philips' 4x video upsampling offers smoother images even when viewing interlaced (nonprogressive) signals through the player's component-video, S-video, or standard composite-video outputs. SmartPicture provides optimum picture settings for color, brightness, saturation, contrast, sharpness, etc., to enhance your overall viewing experience at all times.

The player will play JPEG images one by one automatically, letting you zoom in, rotate, or flip the picture vertically or horizontally. For MP3 playback, the player offers track time display, album and track selection, and repeat (disc/album/track). The DivX media format is MPEG-4 based video compression that lets you save large files like films, movie trailers, and music videos on recordable media.

A set of left/right analog-audio outputs channel audio to Dolby Pro Logic receivers and stereo televisions. Dolby Digital 5.1-channel surround-sound signals can be routed through the player's digital-audio outputs (one each of RCA coaxial and Toslink optical) for direct connection to a full-featured audio/video receiver.

What's in the Box
DVD-Video player, remote control with batteries, a user's manual, and an analog audio/composite-video interconnect.

When I returned it, at my own cost for postage for the entire unitspeakers included, this was their conditionthey sent me another one that was broken with a bogus serial number. Their products break easily and their customer service isn't helpful. I bought a Phillips DVD player and it broke immediately (the small disc that holds the DVD fell off). Then they told me the second one was out of warranty when I asked for a replacement.

Its a nice gadget for the money spent. This is a nice entry level DVD player that permits DVD/ MP3/ DIVX readouts. The designs nice and the player yields good quality images. Everytime you want to change or remove the disc, you have to try and locate the eject button on the face of the dvd player. Philips DVP642 DivX-Certified Progressive-Scan DVD Player. However it would have been very convinient to have a eject button on the remote control.

Maybe I should give the field office a call each time it stops. You've made a lifelong anti-Philips consumer out of me. I'm the parent - I'm the parental control for my kids. So I can use the password to set the parental controls, but even then, at the lowest-but-not-off setting, it asks and refuses to acknowledge the password I set or the default password. And then I try to go around that, and I get the non-functioning password prompt. This was allegedly a simple product, which I purchased to perform a simple task: play DVDs.

Which is, conveniently, not rated G, PG, PG-13, R, or anything else. I get the STOP hand. Disney. I was just attempting to watch a brand new DVD on some nice, relaxing qigong. It tends not to do that. It's running right now, attempting to help me relax, played on the PS2.

It would probably be more productive than contacting the irresponsible, incompetent manufacturer. So. And, hey, maybe if I was lucky, they'd raid Philips and convince them to update the code on the product so it, you know, plays DVDs. You know, unrated material. It doesn't accept the default.

Great job. I don't need a piece of poorly coded software determining what does or doesn't meet some programmer's - or disc creator's - idea of what is safe for my kids to watch. Especially when it is, you know, safe. Please enter password. You know, on account of the parental controls being disabled. And no, it's not the DVD.

Curiously enough, most of the time it hangs up, it's on that FBI warning. The parental controls, however, are disabled. Perhaps I could involve the FBI in this. Maybe a short film, maybe a fun activity for kids.

Kids stuff. At least with most of the DVDs I can skip the opening few seconds of the movie and get them to play, but because this brings the password problem in for the entire DVD, not the features, it's useless. So why am I writing this, long after I gave it a quick one star, moaned and complained to Philips Customer Disservice, picked apart the software bugs in their website that prevented me from reporting it on the first try, ripped them apart in a survey because they wanted to know how my experience using their website went, and figured that was more than enough time spent on such a useless, non-functioning product. Veggie Tales. Although it frequently ignores discs, and has a special affinity at not being able to play Disney products, especially the Studio Ghibli flicks they released and the Pie Rats of the Carob Bean trilogy, that's not the most critical problem.

Please enter password. Philips, I promise you one thing: you may have invented the CD, and I will continue to buy things based on that technology, but never will I purchase another product with your name on it. Well, to be fair, it does play some DVDs some of the time. For a while I noticed this problem on the special features on children's films. Simple is often best.

You know, an exercise video.