DVDtastic! (Philips DVP520)

Member Name: drewboy

Product:	Philips DVP520
Date:	20/04/05 (952 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Design, Ease of use, Multi-format

Disadvantages: No scart lead, small buttons on remote, display too bright

Up until recently, I managed to go without buying a DVD player as each flatmate I have had has always come with one of these gizmos. However, now that I don’t have one (I don’t smell, honest!), I started to look around for a DVD player to accommodate my 300+ collection.

So, after deciding my criteria and ruling out a DVD recorder, I set about looking. Basically, I was looking to pay up to about £60 and would prefer it to be a quality brand that was small, sleek and good looking and it would need to have the ability to play MP3 and jpeg CD’s.

Enter the Philips DVP520. Comfortably filling all of the above criteria, I was pleased to find it in my local ASDA for the rather good price of £49.99. So, I hurriedly bought the player and headed home to play with my new toy.

Good Things
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As I said, it fitted my looks requirement rather well. Measuring 360x43x285 and finished in silver with an integrated silver and black facia, it really is a smart looking machine. I wouldn’t quite agree with the quote on the box that it “fits everywhere, goes anywhere” however I doubt people will have much trouble fitting it into a standard entertainment unit.

Setting it up is simple as pie. All you really need to do is take it out of the box, plug a scart lead into it and the TV (or VCR if you prefer) then plug it into the power socket and voila, you are up and running.

As I said, I needed it to play MP3 and jpeg CD’s and it full fills this role admirably. The whole list of formats it can play are DVD, DVD+R, DVD+RW, VCD, SVCD, CD, MP3-CD, CD-R, CD-RW and JPEG-CD. Having looked around at other players, this is actually one of the most comprehensive lists you will find on any player in this price bracket and to be honest, I can’t really think of any other type of format the average DVD player buyer would want. A handy feature that it utilises when playing other formats is that it uses Video Upsampling which I am lead to believe is some kind of technical wizardry that cuts out what is known as ‘mosquito noise” and I have found that it playing things like MP3’s to play with no problems and pretty good quality.

Playing DVD’s themselves, the picture quality is excellent and the sound quality is generally top notch. However, I do have quite a good TV set and I would think that the quality aspect here may have a bearing on it.

Not so good things
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The first thing that bugged me about it was that it doesn’t come with a scart cable. Now these things can cost as little at £2 (the one I bought in ASDA did anyway) so I really don’t think that it’s going to eat into their profits TOO much to include that. Personally I think that manufacturers should be forced to include this as why should someone have to buy something that essential to the running of the machine separately?

Due to the sleek design, you have no choice but to use the remote control for everything other than the power and eject function. This for me is rather annoying as sometimes I may be looking for a specific episode on a boxset of something and will be flicking though many different DVD’s. I would rather be able to use the buttons on the player when doing this. Also, the remote doesn’t actually have an eject button. Again, this is a minor annoyance but when I am looking to change a DVD I would prefer to be able to open the drawer so that it is ready and waiting for me getting from the couch to the player.

The remote otherwise is simple and effective although I do find that the buttons are maybe a bit small. They are also all the same size and shape so you really do have to look down at the remote each time you press so that you hit the right button.

The display on the player is a bit bright for me. While it is simple and effective, I can’t help but notice it out of the corner of my eye when a film is playing. In my house it sits behind a frosted glass door but if I shut it I can still see it, though not as bad. I would have liked an option to adjust the brightness of it to be honest.



Other than that, I am very happy with it. It does all the standard DVD player tricks, i.e. skip, fast-forward/rewind, zoom etc and so far, has been a nice addition to my living room. It is to my mind, very good value for money and is simple and straightforward to use. In rating, I have decided to give it 4 stars out of 5 because of the little niggles that I have, however it deserves 4 as it is very good value.



Happy viewing!


drew

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