Customer Reviews

Philips DVP5990 HDMI 1080p Upscaling DVD Player

5 star:		(57)
4 star:		(31)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

This DVD player is a great bargain at $55. It works perfectly fine. Here's what you really want to know:

1) Make this DVD player region-free. Press Setup on the remote and go to Preferences. Press 1, 3, 8, 9, 3, 1 on the remote. Use the up and down buttons to select Region 0 (region-free).

2) Go to the General Setup page. Press 1, 3, 7, 9. This will display the firmware information. If the last two digits of Version aren't "31," then go to the Philips website and update to the most recent firmware (31).

3) For US users, the first two digits of Version will be "37." Go to http://vb6rocod.euracks.com/dvp5990_37.php and download "DVP5990_37_vb6_v32_All_Logo.rar" and follow the upgrading instructions (http://vb6rocod.euracks.com/upgrade.html). It really is as simple as it sounds, and it can be done in less than 60 seconds. I recommend the USB method. Upgrading to this firmware will give the USB capabilities of the DVD player increased functionality and usability (there are a couple dozen changes and fixes; I won't list them here).

Random notes: The DVD player will only recognize jump drives and USB hard drives that are formatted in FAT32, so you will need to do that. Now, the manual says there is a limit of 300 folders and 648 files. This is not exactly true. There IS a limit of 648 files PER folder. So what reads as a limit of 648 files is actually a limit of 648 * 300 = 194,400 files. So this is NOT a limiting factor.

I tested a variety of files and the DVD player can read everything I threw at it, with the exception of Quicktime files and Real files. It is equally as capable in the realm of audio files. It also has a slideshow feature for pictures. In case you are curious, it can't read PDF files.

When one video or audio file finishes, it automatically goes on to the next one. It could be great for background music when hosting a party.

The DVD player can access .srt subtitle files that have multiple tracks and you can flip through them while watching a foreign Divx movie. I was extremely pleased by this. The modified firmware I linked will also allow you to change the color, size, and location of the subtitles while you're watching the movie. Extremely nifty.

Watching Divx movies on my TV looks perfectly sharp, and now I don't have to store or swap discs. This DVD player is a sign of the future. Get out and buy one (and a USB hard drive... if you catch a deal they're as cheap as ten cents/GB). $100 can create a total multimedia collection that changes with you.

Also, the remote does feel a little cheap. But who cares? It is cheap.

I bought this at Best Buy today. I was there picking up a 500GB WD USB HD for $90 on sale and thought i'd see what they had in the way of DivX players. I had read good things about this one and the 5992 (both have the improved USB 2.0). The 5990 was $59 at Best Buy. so for around $150 i have a great 500GB Divx/.wmv/.mp3/etc. 1080i media center for my digital TV. A great alternative to an Apple TV, which i had been contemplating for sometime.

Down to the nitty gritty. If you're using a Mac to set up your DivX Hard Drive for use with this player, make sure you format your USB Drive to FAT-32 (MS-DOS), and also (very important) make sure the partition map is "Master Boot" not "Apple Partition Map". After i did that everything was smooth sailing. I've also used it with a couple flash thumb drives and it works great. Its amazing how smooth the ffwd/seek is when playing from USB.

The Manual says the unit supports USB drives with maximum 300 folders and 648 files. So i figure, most DivX movies are around 700MB... times 648 = 442GB. anything larger than a 500GB drive for this DivX/DVD Player would be overkill.

The picture: Very vivid, very sharp. I'm extremely impressed. I'm outputting the Component RGB Signal to my Insignia 37" Digital TV, and it looks fantastic. I have some low quality episode rips of "Rescue Me" that are very blotchy on my Macbook @ 1280x800, but playing from the Philips player they look almost DVD quality on my Television. I'm also glad i have room to upgrade in the future with the HDMI and Digital audio outputs.

The menu system isn't too slow, its responsive enough. I hope this unit lasts a long time because i am really enjoying its features. Most of all i am just happy to never have to hook my computer up to the TV anymore to watch a ripped movie or TV show, i can just throw it on a usb flash drive now.

Pro: USB 2.0, Decent picture quality, easy all region hack, Low price.
Con: Some firmware issue, no optical out as for most of Phillips.

I have purchased 6 DVP5892/37 from Philips, kept 2 for myself & gave 4 away to friends & family. I love that unit for its performence/price. When my brother wants one more all region hacked 1080P player, I picked up a DVP5990 for $50.99 on sale at BBY online.

Setup was easy but this player got some firmware issues. It can't recognize TV resolution via HDMI & doesn't auto convert to lower resolution. factory setting at 1080P out of the box So you need a 1080P TV to change HDMI setting for 1080i TVs. Composite Video connection & HDMI interferes each other when both are connected to TV.

Video & audio performence is about the same as older DVP5982 but DVP5982 has no above issues.

We were looking for a region free DVD player and stumbled upon this one. For the first three months everything was great. Then the HDMI picture went to pot. After some googling, we discovered that this is a common problem with this player. One of the color channels on the HDMI connection commonly goes bad.

Component (RCA) video works great, playing videos/pictures from the USB works great. The only down side is the high rate of HDMI failure which will occur just after the warranty lapses. I wouldn't recommend buying this brand.

Two hours of testing and the Philips DVP5990 plays only 2 out of 10 DVDs tried, from scratchy Netflix to brand new Criterion, all working fine on other players. While waiting 15-20 seconds for the disc to load, the player makes up its mind: should the menu load as a graphic without options this time, or not load at all? Should the disc that worked fine last time freeze on the FBI warning this time? Should the display read STOP when you press MENU, PLAY, or both? The USB function seems to work (both avis and mpgs play and look great), but a DVD player, especially one that claims to play just about every kind of file or burned disc, should be able to handle 10 commercial region 1 DVDs with ease. I've never used any player so temperamental, and nothing the manual recommended has made it play DVDs any better.

After reading mixed reviews (mostly positive), I purchased this player refurbished. After I opened it up and hooked it up, I was immediately pleased. My 32" Vizio VW32L does not scale well, so wide screen movies were windowboxed with my old player. This player upconverts both DVD video and audio cds.

The USB feature was really simple to use. I had a hard time getting my external hard disk to be readable, but then realized it had to be formatted with FAT32. I've since used that drive and USB jump drives with no isses to play both DivX and XviD videos.

There was one hiccup I experienced last week: the color was completely askew (black was pink, green was blue). I unhooked the HDMI and plugged it back in a few times only to have the same result. I tried component hookups, and they looked clear, but only outputted at 526p.

After resetting the player a few times to no avail, I finally unplugged it for 10 seconds and plugged it back in. That did it. Everything is fine now. I hope this doesn't happen often.

This is the only reason I am giving it 4 stars and not 5: it has the propensity to need a "reset". I am very pleased with this player.


UPDATE:
The off-color error happens infrequently enough not to be a deal breaker, but it's happened five or six times since I've written the review. The only way to get it working properly is to cut the power to it. The power button doesn't fix it.

Still, loving everything else about it.

I went to bestbuy, $59, cool, but out of stock. So stopped by Wal-mart, $57, oh even better. Bought it there. (usually amazon's got very good price, but this time, Wal-mart's got the best price :-) )
Went home, plug and play, it is a good dvd player.
There are so many good reviews in great details about this product (or other Philips DVP59xx, they're quite similar) in the Amazon site, I'm not going to repeat them. Just simply put, it's a good product. Build quality and material used and how smooth it operates are all good too.
BTW, Amazon is a great community format with useful info./review. Thanks for a good job.

I had this product for a little over 8 months before it broke and didn't want to turn on any more. It's a great product but be weary that there is only a 6 month warranty and for spending $65 for using it for only 8 months, not a great deal. If you want a product that lasts well past the manufacturer's warranty, buy something else.

I'm not a huge audio/videophile so this won't necessarily be the most technical review out there but let me tell you the great things about this DVD player. The feature that sold me on it was the USB port. I can now take any movie off of my computers hard drive, put it on a little thumb drive, and play it on the player. No more burning DVDs (which takes forever) for a movie that I'll watch once or twice and be done with. Not only does it play DivX and the others listed but it also plays .avi files which wasn't listed anywhere.
A couple of other things I had to find out:
1. It is not necessary to own a HD TV to use this even though it has the "upscaling" feature. We have a standard 19" TV that's 10 years old and it works perfectly. I didn't notice any big difference on picture, though, which might only be for those new higher end TVs.
2. It did freeze up on me twice the first day I had it and the only way to unfreeze it was to unplug it. I'm not sure why although it must have had something to do with trying to use the USB function. It's been a few weeks since then and I haven't had that problem again.
Other than that this DVD player does everything you would expect a normal player to do. The Philips is the only model I found that had the USB port which I was really interested in and I think we paid around $65 for it at Best Buy. I definitely recommend this product.

this player is alot better than the 5982,and the 5960.I tested my WD passport 250gb on the 5990 with 0 issues ,and no need for an AC adapter to power any external hardrive based on the 2.5" drive.just be sure to format your HD to FAT32.

[...]

I got mine from wal-mart by the way.sorry amazon walmart is cheaper

update9-21-08. for owners interested in New firmware for 5990/37

*new skins
*new OSD font (text and graphic)
*new filebrowser (with scrollbars, outlined font, new icons)
*40 cahr for filelist, 44 char for DirList
*3 Mp3 TAG in filebrowser
*fix "Kbps" bug.
*JPeg preview small size at bottom of file list

*move volume from bottom to a higher position.

*Patch "Title" as "GoTo"
*Auto-load subtitles

*Patch subtitle area and subtitle window
*Patch subtitle color scheme (use normal fonts)
*fix "1 sec. srt. bug"
*4 fonts for subtitle (Standard, Small, Medium and Large)
http: //forum. videohelp. com/ topic355675.html 9so amazon.com doesn't remove the link like they did before)

TO AMAZON.COM. PLEASE DON'T EDIT /REMOVE MY LINKS .WHY ON EARTH DID YOU REMOVE MY LINKS? I'M TRYING TO HELP THE OWNERS .I DIDN'T post any link to sell/buy