Customer Reviews

Philips DVD580M Lifestyle DVD Player

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

owned one for a year.
- metal case, well built
- plays dvd, svcd, vcd, mp3 no problem.
- excellent picture, versatile outputs
- runs either on 12VDC (for car, you need to make/buy a plug) or
110 AC.
- small enough and easy to use in the car. fits in the seats
back pocket, my 5 yr old can turn it on and use it.
this is great price, I paid $150 when it was exclusive at target.

I previously owned the Coby DVD-224 Compact DVD Player, and for some reason the Progressive Scan outputs on the Coby was not working with my HDTV Flat Panel LCD. So I needed something similar in size with Progressive Scan capabilities. Sadly, most high end Progressive Scan DVD players are large, flat and wide, and also extremely expensive.

I saw this one online for only $47.99 and spent some time deciding between this and the Memorex MVD2030 Vertical Progressive-Scan DVD Player ($79.99). I decided on this one since it was cheaper and I wanted something simple and easy.
After a week of use this Philips DVD580M Lifestyle DVD Player really impressed me. The sound and image outputs are very crisp, clean and smooth thanks to the progressive scan output. The controls and outputs are numerous and useful.
There is a full interactive menu for the player itself that enables the owner to adjust and tweak just about everything from channel output (sound), to color/video output schemes.
I thought the menu were a little too much above simplicity for my tastes (most users will only select the best sound and visual output once and never go back to these controls again).
The Remote Control was also tactile and easy to use compared to sony remotes. My only complaint was that the remote is almost as big as the player itself. And the remote has an extra 3 inches at the bottom with controls for what seems to be some other "phillips" devices and a Multichannel audio surround sound reciever. Unless you have an appropriate Phillips brand receiver/theater system the controls don't work. Also the extra outputs don't seem to work for anything other than phillips branded receievers. I tried to hook up to my Sony theater box and there was no resulting sound, I also tried my Altec Lansing Computer surround sound/sub woofer system and got the samething.

So unless you have a phillips brand or high end multi channel receiver the result is that you'll have a larger remote with extra buttons that do nothing and extra sound outputs on the back of the player that also do nothing. At any rate the normal L and R outputs provided really great sound thru my Samsung Flat panel LCD speakers, then again my TV already has really good speakers.
The player also the ability to play music DVD-Rs, CDs and CD-Rs as well as MP3s. You can also view JPEG picture files that are saved on a CD-R/CD-RW on your TV thru the player. It also creates a slideshow for presenting vacation photos, etc...

Finally my favorite feature is the way DVDs and CDs load & eject thru the slotted opening on the glass front. It is very cool-looking and easy to do, you'll wonder why DVD makers still make clumsly DVD trays instead of these smoothly functioning slots.

The player also came with a solid steel stand and like the player itself everything is built with really great craftmanship and quality (ABSOLUTELY no cheap plastics are used here). This is evident in the weight of the player. It's not heavy, but when you pick it up the firm wieght makes you know it's expensive and built with the best of materials.

I would recommend this product, but probably can't because I believe I may have bought the last one for sale anywhere at the moment. But if you see this player for sale get it and you will be very happy.

I would actually rate this DVD player at 4.5 stars. I have 4 DVD players and I like this one the best. It has all the latest-greatest video connections. It is small, has great form without any loss of function. My other players are all tray loaders but I like the slot loader on this one. If it resides in a cabinet with doors, you don't have to leave space for the tray to open. The downside to this player is that even though it is 12 Volt, it does not come with a twelve volt cigarette lighter adaptor, nor do they make one. Another neg for the unit is that while being far from loud, the motor is slightly noisier than my other DVD players. I guess this is because of the slot loader.

Being a digital camera/PC user I can also appreciate the players portability and ability to read JPEG files copied on CD-Rom from my personal computer. I can use it to run a slide show of all my photographs on my large screen TV. This is great entertainment for guests!

I have used this player for about 3 months now with no problems. All said and done I would buy this player again.

I would echo the comments on this being very nice, and very little. Target does carry a smaller DVD player, that is less expensive, but does not claim to support some of the additional capabilities I need.

For those who are concerned with form over function, this is a slot loading player, no tray to break off when moving things around. As it sounds like there are some people using, or thinking of using this in a car or van, you may want to see if the stand mount hole can be used to secure the drive in place. It is a form stand over function, but it's mount point should keep the drive from bouncing around too much.

I picked this up as a DVD I can take with me to events where I may want to show vcds, dvds, or play mp3's. I would have liked to see a random play in the mp3 player, but I could also encode a disk with the tracks stored randomly if I need.

It's not perfect, but it fits what I was originally looking for.

I found this unit easy to use and space saving. The vertical position of the unit made it easy to find a place for. I have enjoyed this unit.

I BOUGHT THIS DVD PLAYER ABOUT A 6 MONTHS AGO AND I HAVE HAD NOTHING BUT TROUBLE WITH IT. AT FIRST IT WOULD ONLY EXECPT DVD'S AFTER THE 10TH TIME YOU PUT IT IN. THEN IT WOULD JUST TURN OFF IN THE MIDDLE OF THE MOVIE. NOW IT WON'T EVEN TURN ON. VERY DISAPPOINTED. I ALSO BOUGHT IT AT TARGET BUT GAVE IT AS A GIFT TO MY BOYFRIEND AND HE THREW THE BOX AWAY. SO I'M STUCK WITH IT. NOT ONLY THAT BUT PHILIPS DOESN'T EVEN HAVE THE MODEL LISTED ON THERE WEBSITE SO YOU CAN'T EVEN
GET ON-LINE HELP WITH IT.

This is the second DVD580M player I own. This little machine plays formats that my $500 Sony didn't and it fits almost anywhere. Easy to use and plays a great picture. For the price, you can't beat it!!

Less than two months after receiving my new PHILLIPS DVD player, it is now sitting in my TRASH CAN! The PHILLIPS DVD player refused to eject the dvd, saying there was no disc inside. I called the 1-800 HELP number (YA RIGHT!) which came with my PHILLIPS DVD player for assistance and received NONE other than to offer to tell me where I could go to have my less than 2 month old PHILLIPS DVD player repaired at MY OWN COST! In my opinion, this shows that PHILLIPS does NOT stand behind their products, and this PHILLIPS DVD player was a piece of JUNK! I guess you get what you pay for.

We have had this unit since December of 2002 - we use it at home and in the van on trips (we have 13 inch TV/VCR combo that we also take with) We set it on the floor in between the front seats and have no problem with skipping etc. This is a great little unit!!

This DVD player continues to surprise me more than one year after ownership. The vertical mount is great, it is one of the few players that has the 5.1 multichannel out to use with Dolby Digital Ready receivers. The setup page offers powerful settings such as hi res or no flicker picture modes, angle mark, S video AND component out, you can turn individual audio channels on and off, you can mixdown multiple channels into two, adjust center and rear delay, test tone, it even has a dyanamic range compression which is great for watching movies that have loud explosions and such late at night. The component out gives you near progressive scan quality in my opinion, but the best feature for me is DTS, I am using the DVD580M optical out connected to a Logitech Z-680 speaker system which is DTS, THX, and Dolby Digital ready. Put in a copy of the newly released Apollo 13, disc 2 (the IMAX version), turn on DTS decoding in Languages and you will see and hear what this DVD player can do. WOW. The only issue I have had with this player is there is a delay when switching layers, sometimes and I stress sometimes, the delay exceeds 5 seconds. Other that that, it is awesome, I know this is a discontinued product but I had to write a review in case someone is looking for a used DVD player.