• 01-18-2004, 07:53 PM
    PmR
    Anyone try Philips 727 DVD player?
    I'm interested in getting a good progressive scan dvd player for use on my new Hitachi 51G500 as my old DVD player is not progressive. Over at audioasylum.com they are claiming that Philips provides great picture quality and great sound quality for regular CDs. It is also apparently a region-free dvd player that will do a PAL to NTSC conversion allowing playback of European dvds (region 2 PAL) on North American TVs (there is a hacker code required to facilitate this).

    I'm quite curious as it would allow me to get some European DVDs that aren't available in North America and it would also allow me to avoid buying another CD player as my last one just died on me.

    It's price is also amazingly low. It can be found for under $80 US.

    Unfortunately there is only one fairly uninformative review on this site. Have anyone of you tried this unit and if so what are your opinions?
  • 01-26-2004, 09:45 PM
    PmR
    Well the player does function well as a CD player compared to my other DVD players but the difference is not huge. The progressive scan picture quality is also very good compared to my Hitachi DVP-415 (non-progressive scan). I don't own any region-free discs so I have been unable to check whether the hacking code works but others have said so.

    There are two problems. The big one is that the when changeing chapters on a DVD there will often be a slight pause of less than a quarter-second or so. Very irritating. I've heard this is a common problem with Philips players and that either a player does it out of the box or it doesn't.

    The second problem is that it is quite noisy when playing or searching. When I play at loud levels, I can't hear it but if I play at low levels it can be pretty irritating.

    I think I will try exchanging this player for another later when more come in stock (I got an open box - wonder why?) as I would really like the luxury of having a region-free player.