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 - Almost a perfect DVD player...==I previously owned a Philips DVD player before (DVP642) so I decided to buy this one as an upgrade because its Ultra DivX certified (DivX version 6) as opposed to DivX version 5 on my DVP642 plus the upscaling HDMI playback. ==One of the best things about this DVD player is that it will play just about anything you throw into it. The first thing I noticed right away was that my XviD files looked amazingly better (clearer, sharper, better resolution) during playback than on my DVP642 player and so far it's playing all the avi files I burned on DVD/CD. Second thing I absolutely loved was the 32X forward/backward speeds. The DVP642 only had 16X or lower speeds. Regular DVD playback is also excellent. The audio is perfect. This model color is black which fits well with my other electronic components which are also black. ==The menus are robust with features. My 2 favorite features are "Lip Sync" and the ability to do a firmware updating. If you have a DVD disc that plays audio out of sync with the video, there's an adjustment for that in the menu to offset the delay in milliseconds. The other feature I love is firmware updating. You can get these updates from the Philips webite. ==The display on the front is nice but simple. There is a USB port on the front that allows you to plug in a thumb drive or a whole external hard drive for playback of your favorite audio/video material. If you format an external hard drive in FAT32, it will play back whatever you have on it (pics, movies, MP3's, etc.) through that USB port. Pretty nifty, eh? ==Playback is quite extensive. It does 2X,4X,8X,16X,32X forward or backward. It does slow motion, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16 forward or backward. It also does Angle and you can pause or freeze the picture. It plays DVD, SVCD, VCD, DivX 3.11 to 6X, WMA and MP3 audio files. ==Ahh. Now my dislikes about the DVP5982. Nothing is perfect, of course. It's hard to take out the DVD/CD from the tray. You cannot grab it from the sides and lift it out like you could with the DVP642 model. Why they did this is beyond me. It's a pain. Just gotta remember, "Easy going in, clumsy getting out." This may be a small nuisance but I really hate the wallpaper. It looks like a 1970's bright-blue nightmare. The DVP642 had really nice wallpaper. BAH!!! The screensaver, conversly, wasn't bad though. The remote control is feather light in your hands and not ergonomically designed at all unlike the DVP642 remote was. Again, why the downscale change? It's rather plain looking and the buttons are rather simplistically layed out. No component video cables are included in the box just the cheap RCA cables for Video and R+L audio hookups. My biggest pet pieve is the file names are too darn short. What's up with this? On the menu, there is plenty of space at the bottom for 22 to 24 characters but why only 11 or 12? That's nuts. They need to do something about this with their next DVD player release. ==Aside from the nitpicking, I love this DVD player for what it does. The DVD642 was no longer playing some of my files probably do to the newer DivX version 6. So I had to buy this to keep playing my newer files. I highly recommend this DVD player to anyone. You can't beat the price. Rating: - Great bang for the buck!This is the second one I've bought over the last 6 months. Although I do a lot of purchasing here, I bought both a Walmart (couldn't beat the price). More and more units are coming out now that support the usb input, but higher dollar ones seem to fall short where this one excels. Pioneer's model is overly picky about what files it will play via usb, Sony detects copyright violation on a few movies(on homemade files?!). Philip's seems to play more files and formats than the rest. The only gripes about the unit are not real gripes...only limitations via price, and technological capabilities at this time. Yes, the usb menu is cheesy and "old" looking, but remember this is a dvd player and not a cuomputer...the idea is playing movies, not flashy menus. The remote is very cheap and simplistic...but this is a budget model, and the remote reflects this accordingly. All in all, this is an EXCELENT player at twice the price. Great upconversion, dependable, and I have yet to find a DVD it wouldn't play, even with scratches other players of mine hung at. Blueray players are still artificially high, and in the early stages.....I would feel silly paying $300 for one and ONLY be able to play DVD's and Blueray discs. I notice little if ANY difference between a blueray movie and a standard DVD upconverted to 1080p ( a friend has a Blueray player). But the real beauty of this unit is the usb port. Flash drives are cheap these days, and you can fit 5-6 divx movies on one 4 Gig flash drive......better yet you can buy a hard drive enclose here or ebay for as little as $15, and throw any old 7200rpm hardive in it, and have hundreds of divx movies on one drive. Just remember that the drive must be formatted Fat32 (the format most flash drives use today) and that your partition will be limited to around 130 Gigs. IDE drives will work, but you might experience an occasional "hang" do to its speed. SATA drives work smooth and flawlessly with the usb port. As a side note, I've read where Blueray sales are still sluggish even with the exit of HD discs/players. People don't like spending 5-10 times the ammount for a player that a cheap upconversion dvd player will replicate. If Sony doesn't step up and drop the prices of their units soon, they may be the first to lose a format war with no competition. Rating:  - Good price - average productI wish there was a way to turn off the upconvert you can only cycle thru different resolutions. The menu is a bit clunky and somewhat difficult to navigate. I have a 16:9 wide screen tv and for whatever reason I cannot get this DVD player to stop shrinking the picture / large black bars top & bottom. After researching the internet I've found some movies (if specifically widescreen format) can do this. However I figured there must be an option (either within the dvd or the player) to change it. I've changed about every setting I could find within the DVD player and can't resolve this. My previous el-cheapo player did not have this problem (which is why it bothers me so much). Is it worth paying under $100? Hell yeah. Just remember you get what you pay for. The usb avi play feature is limited to FAT type partitions and can be picky when it comes to which codec your file is encoded in. I basically purchased this player for 1) hdmi connectivity, 2) 1080p up covert, 3) usb port / ability to play files vs. re-encode / burn to play Rating:  - Good, but not DVD Region agnosticI'm not a videophile, so take this with a grain of salt. I bought this unit in order to play a Region 1 DVD I couldn't get any way else. According to specs I read elsewhere (not on Amazon) this unit was supposed to fit the bill. Unfortunately, it doesn't. Region 0 only. In other respects, it's a decent unit. I wish the pause would hold longer before the unit starts to power down. Rating: - Great DVD player - not great USB interfaceI bought this player with the intent to mostly watch upscaled regular DVD's as well as DivX/XviD movies on both a burned CD-R/DVD-R but also to watch from my USB thumb drive. Watching from DVD's is awesome, and I'd give this unit 5 stars if I never used the USB function. But I do, and when I watch movies via USB, the video is choppy, and if there is any fast motion it starts stammering both video and audio. In addition, if you'd like to review/rewind a bit or fast-forward forget-about-it! It basically just stays put like it's paused and then if you are patient and wait a good 3-4 minutes, you might rewind enough to go back 1-2 minutes in the video. But since the player gives you zero feedback (it looks to be paused) on where the rewind progress is, you have to guess where it's at in the process. So if you didn't go back far enough, you have to wait another 3-4 minutes when you start this laborious process over again. It's totally not worth it to instant replay. I don't really care the the USB truncates the file names in the menu (which it certainly does), but the fact that you can't watch anything with any kind of action makes this function a dog; It's OK if you watch something with less action than a Jane Austin PBS movie - perhaps a lecture at a podium might be OK. I think this problem might be due to this player being 1.1 USB, and perhaps a 2.0 will solve this problem. Anyways, this unit is going back today.
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