Since I broke my Toshiba DVD/VCR combo when I moved into this house, I’ve been using my standby unit, the old (ancient) Apex unit that I got from Matt years ago. It locks up occasionally, stops, stutters, and the remote control is made for someone with allen keys for fingers.
I went to Best Buy yesterday in full defensive mode. I wasn’t eager to run into a salesperson who was ready to shoehorn me into buying the model he wanted me to buy. I was looking for something that would do DiVX. I don’t have a fancy hi-def television. I don’t need anything spectacular. I just want to play DiVX files I download from the Internet.
I was at the display looking back and forth between the Sony and Toshiba models. I liked the Sony because it seemed to present itself as being more “format flexible” than the rest. I liked the Toshiba because - well - it’s the same make as my television and I was thinking of having one less remote maybe.
As I started to browse other (cheaper) units, I encountered an older gentleman looking at them too. “Yep, that’s the one you want right there” he said as I was looking at a Phillips unit. I looked up. “You want to play Internet formats, don’t you?”, he asked. I nodded, stunned. “‘About a year ago, I tried every one of these… the Phillips was the only one that played everything I threw at it”, he explained. “VCDS, DiVX… the Phillips are amazing machines. They play everything”, he added.
I explained my fear that some of the cheaper machines only played DiVX from CD media, and he assured me the Phillips would play them from recordable DVD’s as well. So I bought a DVP-5140 and brought it home - the “middle of the road” model.
In the time since I’ve hooked it up, I’ve been very impressed. Except for one DiVX file I downloaded that was the wrong format, it has indeed played everything. But the biggest difference I notice between the Phillips and Apex units is the audio quality. Oh. My. God. This thing actually makes the tiny little speakers in my television sound good.
The remote was… cheaper than I’d like, but the functions are all well laid-out and it doesn’t feel like an LG Fasttap cell phone like the Apex did. I just gotta remember to sit that remote control under a high-intensity light overnight tonight so that the buttons will glow in the dark.
It’s been an exceptional machine at a great price. I’ve been very pleased.
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