PHILIPS DVP5990/F7 DVD Player With HDMI Upconversion

This is a squirrelly machine. It worked O.K. for the first couple of disks I tried, but then it started to spontaneously pause, not really freezing, like some DVD players do, but actually pausing on its own, showing the on-screen pause indicator. Sometimes it just pauses, other times it spontaneously cycles between pausing and playing, over and over.

Other times, when I pushed the stop button on the remote it would stop, and immediately start playing again. If you hold down the stop button for a few seconds, the DVD is ejected, one of many undocumented remote control functions. Often, when it is feeling particularly onery it will spontaneously load an ejected disk, too.

I found out that if the player started playing again soon after pushing the stop button on the remote, that it was also going to do the pause thing, too. If, on the other hand, I could get the player to stop, and stay stopped for 10 seconds or more, then the player was going to play the movie correctly, at least for a while. One time, I pushed the stop button and the next time it started playing it went back to the beginning of the movie.

Sometimes it helps to press and hold the forward and reverse chapter buttons, which also function as fast forward and fast reverse buttons at times, when they decide to work at all. I found out a lot of this stuff by doing some online research.

Research indicates heat may be a factor in this spontaneous pause behavior, as well as dust and other factors, but the more I work with this player, the more I think it is just a squirrelly machine. I think it’s control and operational systems are about as stable as a bag of cats.

It has a lot of nice features when it works. It will read some kinds of files on flash drives, if they are FAT formatted. The picture looks nice when it plays. The sound is O.K., too (I’m using HDMI sound on a surround amp that handles HDMI input).

But it requires patience to run this machine. It is squirrelly.

Here is an update to my review.

After using this machine for a couple of weeks, it changed. It is no longer squirrelly. Now, it plays DVDs all the way through without pausing. It doesn’t do all that crazy stuff it did before.

I didn’t really do anything to fix it. It just started working right all by itself. Once it started working right, it just kept on working right.

Here’s hoping it keeps working right.

Fingers crossed.

Here is another update, after another week of use after my last update. I found out this machine cannot decode DTS soundtracks, and it cannot pass a DTS audio signal through its HDMI output, no matter what audio setup I tried (and I tried them all). It will pass DTS signals from a DVD through its coax digital output (also known as an S/PDIF output) but to make that work, you have to turn off HDMI audio in the setup.

This seems to be an issue with this particular model. It is probably not a defect peculiar to this particular machine.

This means if you have a TV setup like I do and you want to watch video with DTS sound using this player, you have to turn the HDMI or analog sound back on (depending on whether your TV has HDMI or analog sound inputs) or have a TV that has coax digital input (this player doesn’t have an optical output, just coax digital, HDMI and analog RCA outputs), or else you have to bypass the TV’s audio system and use an amplifier that has a coax input in order to get sound.

This makes playing back certain videos with DTS soundtracks more awkward and complicated, but it is doable by using the player’s setup.

By the way, the player is still working fine.

I just recently purchased the Philips DVP5990. The reasons for my getting this player versus others is…
This player is very versatile. I have DVD discs that are purchased from other countries that normally won’t play in a standard DVD player. You can use a simple hack to make this player region free and voila! The player is Ultra DIVX certified,
so any data disc you create from avi, mpeg, files will be played with great results.
The main reason I got this player though, was because it has a 2.0 USB port on the front of the player. Now I can simply load avi or mpeg files onto my flash drive (which is faster than burning the data to a disc) and then walk over to my living room and connect the flash drive into the USB port and I’m ready to go! No wasting time & money (on blank discs) to bring the media to the living room. One extra feature that this player has is kinda cool…You can put a non copy protected music CD into the player and load either single songs or the whole CD onto your flash drive (that you have plugged into the USB port) of the Philips player. This way you can make music compilations onto your flash drive without using your computer. The player allows you to select the bit rate of your music transfers (up to 320kbs).
The player has HDMI connectivity making setup quick and easy. You do have to supply your own HDMI cord.
The player also up converts your movie discs to 1080p for a picture improvement that is really necessary if you watch your films on a large (42 inch and up) TV.
The most important feature was the price (around $46) pre shipping costs. You couldn’t possibly get more from a player for less money than this.
The only negative I have to say about the player is that once in a while you will turn it on and everything coming from the player to the TV is orange colored.
The quick solution to that was to unplug the player, plug it back in and it works perfectly. This has only happened twice in three weeks.
Final review…Great little player that will handle most anything (not Blu-Rays)
that plays all regions, divx files, and data from your flash drive. What more could you ask? I am a tech kinda guy and I am never looking to purchase with the purpose of buying a player that lasts 10 years. Things change so often (for the better) in the world of video players, that if I keep it for a year or two especially for $46 that’s good enough! I hope this review is helpful in your DVD player purchasing decision.
#1vidiot