DVD PLAYER REVIEW (reviewed as Region Free and as Region 1)

Model: Philips DVP-5140 DVD Player (Region Free Capability)
Color: Black
Modification Tested: Software Conversion (no internal hardware modification)
Warranty: 1 year parts, 90 days labor
Reviewer: Jack Burden
Date: January 2008

VIDEO PERFORMANCE - 74/100

Picture quality was a little fuzzy but acceptable. After programming the DVD player to play region free we tested several discs. The player does not up convert nor have an HDMI output. It is a very basic DVD player, so I would not recommend it for a 42” or larger television. The 12-bit video DAC leaves a lot to be desired. During playback of a 480i version of Old School I did notice extra motion artifact introduction into several scenes – especially background noise. All in all, it’s just very average video performance from a player that isn’t really promising much in this area anyway.

FEATURES, FUNCTIONALITY, CODE FREE MODIFICATION – 65/100

This DVD player has some attractive features for the price range such as DIVX playback and 192khz/24 bit audio DAC, which delivered pretty crisp, but tinny sound for such a small inexpensive DVD player. However, the DVP-5140 has only a 12-bit video DAC and the resultant picture quality from this was understandably blurry at times around the edges of images.

Feature wise the DVP5140 has no s-video output and no optical audio output. It does have a digital coax output. There is a strange lack of forward and reverse function keys on the remote control. Rather, the side arrow keys accomplish this function, but are slow and painful to use. Functionally, this player will be very difficult for most people to use unless you have a couple of hours to learn the players funky remote/menu settings.

The unit is unusually slow to load and like several other Philips DVD players is painful to use. It froze several times during operation with lesser quality DVDRs. As well, command operations are realized painfully slowly. This is the type of issue that I cannot deal with when using a DVD player. Maybe I lack patience but it just saps the enjoyment out of watching a movie when DVD player operation is slow.

Though this DVD player can be remote control “soft” modified to play DVDs from other regions (by changing the region coding to 0 as below instructions) it has a problem with the discs freezing up after change the region coding. During some of the European region 2 DVDs we were testing, this region free DVD player at times freezes and skips. We reprogrammed the remote and rebooted, which takes forever.

One last design flaw is the limited range of the remote control. One needs to be near straight to pass the signal.

SUMMARY/VALUE – 82/100

This DVD player has very average video performance and well below average remote/menu/operation functionality. Playback as a region free DVD player is unreliable and not recommended.

OVERALL RATING: 73.6/100

Below is the information on how to enable this player to become Region Free with many DVDs: 1. Open loading tray 2. Press the "Setup" button on the remote 3. Navigate to the "Preferences" page using the right arrow key 4. Enter 138931 5. Current Region Code will display 6. Use the Up/Down arrow keys to select the region required or "0" for all regions 7. Press the "Play" button on the remote

* Ratings from 70 to 100. Ratings in the 60s for any category are reserved for product with a serious defect or design flaw.

The following is a list of recommended online Code Free & Region Free DVD Player retailers:

DVDCity - Region 1 & Code Free DVD Players
ZoneFreeDVD - Specializes in Code Free DVD & Region Free DVD Players
RegionFreeDVDPlayers.com - Supplier of CodeFree & Region Free DVD Players
Crutchfield.com - Region 1 Players
Buy.com - Region 1 Players

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