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Journal nizo's Journal: $70 DVD/divix player: region free and maybe macrovision free 17

Journal by nizo

I just thought I would drop a quick note about a totally awesome Philips dvp642 player I got at Circuit City (available at CompUSA too and tons of places online) for about $70. This thing plays DVDs and Divix cds/dvds, and on top of that can be easily programmed (with 4 keypresses on the remote) to play any region DVD! Also, I have heard that older versions of the firmware ignore macrovision, sadly I read about that only after I upgraded the firmware to the newest version :-| Upgrading the firmware was a snap, using linux I simply burned the three zip files from the Philips website onto a cd, put it into the player and bang, two minutes later the newest firmware was in place. If you are looking for a new DVD player, and you enjoy watching divix movies, this may be the way to go.

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$70 DVD/divix player: region free and maybe macrovision free More

$70 DVD/divix player: region free and maybe macrovision free

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  • They also play most xvid, too. I've had one since December with the older (0572?) firmware. They don't do post processing as a computer does but it still has decent quality. I've had a few discs lose audio sync but 2 quick presses of the system menu key gets it back.

    I still have a PC with video and audio running to my TV/amp and also do streaming from VLC to xbox media center so there's always a way to get things on my TV if the 642 chokes. ;)

    • oh yeah, mine was CA$89 at Worst^WBest Buy.
    • MS Guide to "leet speek"! That's hilarious. It has finally happened. The boomers and Gen Xers have finally become their parents. This reminds me of some of the old films I've seen where an "authority" tries to tell parents about the dangers of drugs, teen sex and "rock and roll" back in the 60s. Gems like, "Beware! If you're kid is listening to rock and roll, it's very likely they are involved in dangerous activites like, dope smoking and make out parties". Meanwhile their "kids" were on LSD at an
    • Ahh thanks for the hint on audio sync. I think it got slightly off during a long divix play last night (not enough to really be noticable). Now all I have to do is figure out how to make the player work with our universal remote and my fiance can finally play DVDs by herself. For some reason my instructions on our old setup weren't sufficient (Find the crappy playstation remote buried under crap somewhere, and oh make sure the right dongle is plugged in to the playstation, no not the wireless gamepad dongle
    • This is what a LOT of people I know are looking for. Thanks.
      • I work with a bunch of engineers. Man you should have seen their eyes light up when I mentioned this thing. I wouldn't be suprised if the 20 some odd players at CompUSA are gone by the end of the week because of us :-)
        • You should have offered to get them at $100 /pop before telling them that they're available. Or better yet, told them you've got 5 and are willing to auction them to the highest bidders.

          It's probably going to be the toy of the year.

  • one of my friends is exceedingly happy with his. I might buy one in anticipation of my old regionfree Apex player dying soon, and before regionfree players like these go extinct.
  • I know some DVD players let you change their region, so you can play DVDs from another region, but there's a limit to how many times you can change it (the limit is something low, like 4). The intent is to allow people to buy in one region and use in another, or to allow people to move to another region (although if you do, your existing library will no longer play). It's not to allow you to play any damn disc you want, and to prevent that they impose a limit. I believe this is required by the DVD license (
    • This one is sweet, when you press a magic combination on the remote, you can set it to "region 0" which lets any region dvd work. Before I did this, my region 3 dvd didn't work, but afterwards all my dvds work (well, at least the two region 1 and the region 3 anyway). Normally I probably wouldn't care, except the region 3 dvd isn't available (and probably never will be) in region 1. Bite me you region enforcer bastards muhahaha. Imagine that, a dvd player that lets me play the legit DVDs I paid for.
      • Cool. Were I to buy one, what's the magic combination? Thx!
        • Compusa and circuit city carry them, plus tons of places carry them online (including the above). From this site:

          http://www.videohelp.com/dvdhacks.php?select=Ph i li ps+DVP+642

          1. Turn on the player.
          2. Open the tray (and leave it open)
          3. Press the following sequence on the remote:
          7 8 9 OK 0
          4. The number 0 will appear on the lower left side of your screen.
          5. Your player is now region free

          The website has lots of other info too; I would avoid upgrading (the region-free should still work) and see if macrovisio
        • http://www.videohelp.com/dvdhacks
  • I haven't been reading my friends journals for a while now.

    If I hadn't posted that JE today, and you hadn't replied, and I hadn't taken a quick look at your recent entries.....

    That's it. I've been meaning to get something like this for a couple years now. Even though I'm out of money I'm buying one tomorrow.

    Thanks for the tip.
    • Who would have thought that Batman's boner would have led to such a good thing. I just wish I got a kickback for every one that other people have bought because I recommended one :-) I am really happy with it, though while playing divix now and then the color putzes out (I think it was the way the divix movies were burned however). Hitting "menu-menu" like grub mentioned for fixing out of sync sound fixes the problem too. It always happens when I switch to a new divix movie (on the same disk: currently I am

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