Philips DVP5982 DVD Player

I am not ready yet to make the jump to Blu - Ray or HD-DVD. I've taken home and tried each of these players, and decided to wait some more to see who wins the war. I don't even have a 1080P HDTV yet, so I really wouldn't get the full benefit of either new technology anyway.

In the meanwhile, I do have a 720p scan projector. Now that I have HBO, Starz and a host of other HD channels on my cable line up, I can't help but notice that this 1080i programming (resampled to 720p)looks quite impressive, much more impressive than regular movies on the big screen in 480p. New X Box 360 games also look impressive at 720p. I had read lots about upconverting DVD players, and since my projector has an HDMI input, I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Could a DVD player truly upconvert to a better looking picture? I wanted to find out.

The Philips DVP 5982 DVD Player

Not only did this player get good reviews by others (including right here on Epinions!), but it is also quite in expensive! If I had a lot of money to drop on a DVD player now, I'd get a Blu-Ray player rather than an Upnconverting DVD player! I got the online price of only $59 bucks.

How is it as a DVD player?

Well, the 480p (regular) picture was as good as my much more expensive Pioneer Elite 45A, and it didn't have the Chroma bug! (the chroma bug makes reds on the screen look strange).
Blacks were dark, contrast was good and colors were bright. The movies I tested for the record were The Eagles Live at Melbourne, Ice Age, House of Flying Daggers and Dark City. The DVD player supports Dolby Digital and DTS, but you need a free digital coaxial input, it doesn't have an optical out. If you have an HDMI ready receiver, you could also do audio out via HDMI. My Yamaha has no HDMI inputs, so I used a spare digital coaxial input for audio, and plugged the DVD player directly to my projector via HDMI 1.3 cable. Sound quality was also excellent on this player, the Eagles Farewell concert sounded great and the "bean scene" from House of Flying Daggers sounded just as it was supposed to.

What about UPCONVERSION?

This was the main reason I got this player, I already have plenty of DVD players. Keep in mind, I only upscaled from 480p to 720p, because my projector is 720p. Many HDTVs are also only 720p, only a few (although the number is greater everyday) are true 1080p. You can upscale via the menu, or via a button labeled upconvert right on the DVD player itself.

I noticed the difference! The whole picture just takes on a brighter crisper look, especially in the dark noir like film Dark City Details stood out in the town of perpetual night, and details looked very crisp. The opening scenes took on an almost three dimensional look. My regular DVD picture looked softer and a bit flatter in comparison.

In the animated feature Ice Age I'll be honest, I didn't notice very much difference. The upscaled image was a bit crisper, but not as apparent.

However, just so you know the drawbacks as well as the benefits, in a couple instances watching the Eagles, the picture momentarily looked like a "sharpened" picture in Photoshop. If you use any type of Photo software, you can use a tool called "sharpen" to make the image seem crisper and sharper. Trouble is that if you use it too much, the image takes on a false sort of grainy look. I noticed that a couple times using the Philips upconvert feature. Another feature I watched was Planet Earth by BBC. In some scenes the picture looked even more vivid than on the DVD, but never quite the same as it did on the HD Discovery network. However, on occasion, I again noticed the artificial sharp look. Of course, the simplest way to cure that, is just hit the button again, and adjust the picture back to 480p.

I also tried House of Flying Daggers. I have seen this on Blu Ray, and watching the regular DVD here demonstrates the superiority of Blu-Ray. Yes, the upconversion makes the picture look clearer and brighter, but the detail in some of the busy scenes, like the audience in the "bean scene" are just amazing on Blu-Ray, and upconversion doesn't begin to match Blu-Ray even when Blu Ray is downsampled to 720p. (When I tested a Sony Blu Ray player months ago, I tested it on a 720p HDTV)

What Can This Play?

Well, it can play DVDs including home made burned ones on DVD+R and DVD-R, and CDs. I also understand it can be made region free with some menu adjustments so you can play DVDs from Europe, Asia and Australia. I have none of these, so I didn't try it. It won't play SACDs, DVD Audios, HD-DVDs or Blu Ray DVDs. It is also cool to watch a CD or DVD full of photographs, this player supports JPEG format photos. It is cool seeing photos on the big screen, much cooler than showing them off on the tiny LCD screen on the camera.

Complaints

Speed So why won't I give this unit 5 stars? For one, it is SLOW. I didn't time it, but you have to sit and wait for the darn draw to open, and for the DVD to load. I thought that was only a problem with Blu-Ray players, but this is a slow DVD player. At least when you reload a DVD it remembers where you left off, and resumes there if you want it to.

The Remote Who designed this? Alright, it was only 60 bucks, and they did throw in 2 AAA cells for it. It is just small and feels cheap. As it has been noted in other reviews, there is no single fram FF or Rewind, just a master button to skip back or skip ahead. You just tap the button for the next scene and you hold it down for regular fast forward. You cannot go ahead a frame at a time. It's the same for reverse. I don't do frame by frame very often anyway, so I guess its not a big deal. However, since I do watch movies in the dark, the lack of backlighting or glow in the dark buttons was missed. The remote is so small it will easily be lost too, and the player itself only has basic controls, so you can't navigate menus without the remote.

On Board controls Many DVD players can be played even if you have temporarily lost your remote, but this one only has the most basic of functions on it, On/off, open, upconvert, play/pause and stop.

Sturdiness The unit looks sleek and thin, but it feels like it is not made very solid. Honestly I wouldn't expect much for less than sixty dollars, but I did want to point it out. Don't hit that DVD tray, it looks like it would break off fairly easily.

Kudos!

USB Port Aside from my few complaints I have to hand it to Philips for throwing in this handy idea. For those who don't have a computer hooked up to their big TV or projector, Philips has made it easy to show photos (or play downloaded movies) right from the USB port! This feature will only work with certain flash drives though, I tried my portable hard drive with it and nothing happened. Ditto with my Sandisc Cruzer 1 Gig flash drive. I don't know why, it just said device not supported.

Manual A quick guide and a detailed manual are included with clear easy to understand instructions. They are in English, French and Spanish. Honestly, I didn't really need it, setup and the video menus are very straight forward.

Summary

I can't say this player is excellent, but it certainly is much better than average, and for the price, I don't think you can beat it. Seriously, if you have the money to get a seriously better DVD player, just grab a Blu Ray player or PS3 and be done with it. In the meantime, this will do a nice job making your regular DVDs look even better and let you play most anything even stuff from your USB drive! I'd give four and half stars if we had half stars. However Philips gets a solid four stars from me.