Customer Reviews

Philips DVP5990/F7 DVD Player with 1080p HDMI Upconversion and DivX

5 star:		(63)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

I bought one of these, and it's AWESOME! For the price, the versatility is unreal. You can burn a CD, DVD or put your files on a flash drive or even an external hard drive, and it plays them all! Not advertised is that it plays .mp4 [iPod / iTunes music]. It does not play m4p songs purchased of of iTunes, but it will if you burn a regular CD, then rip the songs back in.
The delay to play any file is short. It recognizes discs in about 5-8 seconds, and flash drives even less. A video file with a large bitrate does take longer to load, but it's well worth it.

Everything listed here was tested with 2GB and 4GB flash drives...
Will not play a .mov file, but it will play the file if it is renamed with a .avi or a .mp4 extension and both audio and video streams are supported.
Apparently it will not play an AAC audio file or audio stream within a video file if bitrate info is missing, or if it uses an ADTS muxing mode. One or both of these are true, could not isolate which.
Does not play MJPEG video [like from a Kodak digital camera], but it does play the 88.2 Kbps 11.025 KHz LPCM audio stream within a MJPEG .avi file.
Did not play the H.264 stream within an .avi or mp4 container, but it did play the AAC stream.
Played several AAC files created by iTunes, all encoded at various bitrates and sample rates [41 & 48 KHz, 96-192 KHz]
Does play WMV 9 with WMA 9.2 audio
Does play .MPG MPEG 1 video with MPEG audio
Does not play .MKV file with x264 codec
Plays WMA and MP3.

Plays files off an external hard drive as well, but it must be formatted as FAT16 or FAT32.

you have to go to setup>preferences and press 138931 on your remote > press 'up' arrow to select '0' and hit setup again to exit and you can play any region dvd.

Philips DVP5990/37 DVD player is good for a mid-range, priced player. Compared to sister company, Magnavox's MDV460/17, the 5990 is far superior and demonstrates why you should spend a little more for quality. The 5990 reads multiple formats including Divx, MP3, and WMA which has become fairly standard for DVD players, but there are two features that set it apart from the competition: flash drive port and online firmware updating. The 460 has none of these features.

Also built into the 5990 is limited memory, so when you turn off the player and go back later to finish your movie, you can start where you left off. The 460 does not. The 5990 is also relatively fast from the time you press the "open disc" button, to the start of the movie (about 15 seconds). The 460 is slower than molasses and doesn't always recognized disc formats (30-40 second start up).

The 460 does a good job of presenting options in the setup menu, offering more optimization than the 5990, but the 5990's simple setup allows you to plug and play, right out of the box, and start enjoying your movie. Both have component video, but only the 5990 has HDMI - the new standard - which offers faster, neater setup.

For those of us that hate having to get up off of the couch to eject the disc, the 5990 offers a handy "lazy person's eject button" on the remote. The 460 makes you work.

The flash drive port options are a little akward on the 5990, but offer a range of options for a variety of multimedia. And the online updating requires you to register, then has trouble finding the unit you are trying to update.

All in all the 5990 is far superior, but you are paying 3 to 4 times the price of the 460. Best Buy and Walmart have recently offered the 5990 for about $60, while other vendors are asking for $80 or more. However, for the price, few offer better than the Philips 5990/37. This is a good buy: the moral being, you get what you pay for. (writen 7/23/08)

I bought this product hoping it would be region free but when I put in a region 2 dvd it didnt work. I was quite upset, looked at the back of the unit, and saw that the player was a region 1 only player. I went onto amazon to put in my warning when I saw another comment from another consumer. I didnt think it would work given my player specifically says its region 1, but if you press setup on the remote, press the right arrow until you get to the "preferences" menu, and press 138931 it will ask you what region you want to set the unit to. Go down to 0 and you are all set. Thanks, whoever it was that put that comment in. I have no idea where you found that out, but a great little secret.

I'm a series DVD user. I almost never watch live TV but pump everything through a DVD player.
In a nutshell:
* Has the Mediatek Chipset -- the chipset that delivers the best quality picture.
* USB connection is a snap -- and makes it a breeze to view videos from your computer. No more having to burn DVDRWs. 90% of my viewing with this unit is through the USB port. Unlike earlier Card/USB DVD players of a few years ago (such as an LG I bought) there is NO delay or stuttering using the USB (note that I use Lexar USB thumbdrives which are good quality, I don't know how junky ones will work). But using a decent USB drive and plugging it in, it's perfect quality.
* Can easily be made code-free/region-free with a simply code input from the remote (check other posts here for the code).
* Only "con" is that while the chipset contains lots of options/settings for the user, Philips doesn't include many of them in its menus. When compared to an older machine like the Yamakawa 218 or 238 (which had DOZENS of options for video, audio, etc) there's only a handful on the Philips. Kind of a shame, but in the end, the picture still is great. Only other con is the remote control is not a universal remote (it'll only control Philips' TVs, no other brand).
* You can get latest firmware here: [....]along with directions on how to install it. This newer firmware works so much better, and includes options left out of the original firmware such as a "GO TO" when watching an AVI/MPEG file (as opposed to a normal DVD disc), easier-to-read text, optional dvd player volume from the remote, and also subtitle color and positioning options when viewing subtitles (made by a fellow owner who wanted to improve the machine. Works great, I have it installed in mine).
* Another listing for the exact same player on Amazon is here. You can check this listing out for the reviews (there's about 88 of them currently, as opposed to 17 here): http://www.amazon.com/Philips-DVP5990-1080p-Upscaling-Player/dp/B00158OJ9O/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top It's the same player, but just sold through Amazon partners instead of Amazon.
* When I bought this from Amazon (direct from Amazon) it was basically list price. But it was worth it. I have since picked up a 2nd unit (second-hand, but in great shape). I've gone through a lot of DVD players before. I don't know how long it will last (though I've been using it mostly with the USB) but personally I've never seen better pictures than from machines that use the Mediatek chipsets (my LG which used another chipset maker's chips always has a washed out picture, as have other players I've used that don't use a Mediatek chipset). It's such a great picture, with nice ease of use now with the USB port. I know things are shifting Bluray and such, but I still bought two of these because they're so good. Again, the only con is a lack of complete setting options... using the independent firmware gives you a few more. One can look at the sparse number of user-settings and say it's bad because you can't set every little tiny thing, and someone else can say it's good because it makes for much less clutter. Make no mistake, you CAN set certain settings, but not to the extent that's available on the chipset if Philips would've let you (again, which is why the independent firmware helps by adding more options and settings, even size/color/where-on-screen the subtitles should appear, etc).

So the nutshell is, this has been out a while now yet it's still in demand, which is why Amazon can get away with asking the list price for it (it still sells heavily) -- but there's a reason for that. I generally haven't liked Philips/Magnavox players in the past, but this one is a different baby. Definitely worth it. Buy 'em while you can (but don't buy them all. I might get a 3rd one in time just to stock up).

EDIT: I've used it nonstop for a couple months now, and am totally happy with it.

This is a fantastic player which most certainly does play PAL discs without a problem. There is also a superb modified firmware available at videohelp.com which gives longer filenames and some other interface improvements.

The person who claims they had trouble getting discs out of the thin tray and lost discs into the player is...shall we say...less than truthful. It is impossible to push discs into the guts of the player without tripping the door close sensor. Even so, the tray will retract and the disc will fall into the recessed portion of the tray. The cover is held on with screws. How tough would it be to remove the cover if you needed to do so? Not very. I suppose you could turn the unit upside down and shake it to dislodge the disc from the tray. The player is designed for use under regular gravity and in a somewhat stable physical location.

MP3 and WMA support is very good, supporting up to about 650 MP3s per directory. The USB port is in the front which is convenient but somewhat ugly, to be honest. For homemade data discs, I recommend using the freeware program FolderSort (Windows) as the files are sorted by the raw 8.3 format which does not always give the same order as the long filenames.

Pros:
Plays all formats of DVD's
Uses Flash Drives (Fat32 or Fat16 formatted) to play movies or music on
Easy to setup
Average load times for playback

Cons:
Nothing I can think of

NOTE: IF YOU NEED MULTI REGION CODE DO THE FOLLOWING

THIS WORKED WITH THE F7 MODEL WHICH I BELIEVE HAS THE LATEST FIRMWARE UPDATE FROM PHILIPS. IF YOU HAVE THE /37 MODEL YOU CAN UPGRADE BUT READ CAREFULLY OTHERS COMMENTS BEFORE DOING SO OR ELSE YOU WILL "BRICK" YOUR PLAYER THEN YOU ARE OUT OF LUCK.

Philips DVP 5990

Region Free:

press Setup
select the Preference Tab
Press 1,3,8,9,3,1
Press up/down key to select "0"
and hit Setup to exit.

Note: If you can't get into Preferences Tab, you may need to press the stop button 2x first, then press setup.

HOPE THIS HELPS SOMEONE OUT THERE IN THEIR DECISION.

I purchased this DVD Player at the end of January (it is now March) and it seemed to work well - at first. The picture is great, it's easy to use, and seemed to be a great buy for the price. However, now in March, we began to play a DVD and an orange screen appeared (almost like a bubbly screen saver) and the color on any movie we inserted was not true. We looked on the Phillips website for troubleshooting, and it was actually listed as a common problem, and had a solution listed (setting the picture according to your television's capabilities). We tried that solution - it did not work. After being on the phone for about 20 minutes with Phillips, they are sending us a new DVD Player. Hopefully, things will go a bit better this time.

This player is a gem and I have three of them. By the way 2 are 5992s and one a 5990/F7 and I cannot tell them apart, the only difference was one or two of the menu selections were in different order, other than that they work exactly the same.
I say this is the best DVD player for me because
1. It is multi-region (yes you have to go into setup and hit a few numbers to change it to region 0 but it takes all of 30 seconds) We have tons of British dvds we have purchased and they play great on this dvd player.
2. The usb port plays just about every format, even Windows Media Video (which I have lots of).
3. The upconversion of this player is just stunning. My UK DVDs and US DVDs look just great on this player.

Maybe I have been lucky but I have not had any problems with these units.

I shopped around and looked at a lot of brands with a wide range of costs and cannot believe this was so affordable. I have a lot of old TV shows on my PC in various formats such as DIVX, XVID, and AVI and that was one of my main attributes I was looking for. This one not only plays them but still does my music files too. The icing on the cake was the USB port. I did a lot of checking to verify this would work before I bought this one because some other forums had conflicting comments, likely due to ignorance, but I was able to connect a spare hard drive (HD) to the USB port and I now have access to all my movies and music at the touch of a button. The HD must be formatted for FAT 16 or FAT 32, no NTFS. I now have a media center in my stereo rack. You can't beat it. The only thing I yearn for is a USB port that can power the HD, and a HD that shuts off when you turn off the DVD player. Some players can do that but they cost more. In the meantime I will just use the power switch on the HD and stop being so lazy.

When shopping for this model make sure you have the correct part number. Some sites do not differentiate and label them as just 5990. If you do not know about this you of course will not know you are missing something. The last two characters mean a lot and at this time "F7" has all the features of the latest firmware without the hassle of updating from "37", or something else, although it is not really hard for tech savvy individuals. I have two Philips DVD players and two Philips TV's and I have no issues. Philips has been around for longer than most of you reading this and I found the best deal here. Enough said!