I own one of these and gave up on it's limitations and got another divx capable dvd player and am much happier now.
OK, zrdb, what did you get? I give my 642 an 8 out of 10 but would gladly pay a little for a better player.
Question: Does this player have any "go to frame number" features? So you don't have to sit and fast forward through a whole movie to get to one scene, like you can type in 46:30 and it begin at that frame? My other dvd player had this feature. I am finding this difficult with this player. Thanks.
aerogurl, yes, you can jump to a time. Press the display button twice, then the right arrow, then enter your time and push OK.
thank you so very much! there are so many shortcuts with this player/remote. there should be a website with all the features listed with instructions on how to use them. thanks again!!!!!!
BlairF27: http://home.ica.net/~robert/Philips/ sinoke: As for the subtitels being cut off, that's a "problem" with your TV, not the player. That's because TVs have "overscan." Many TVs have a service menu or something to adjust your overscan. All this is is a code you can enter into your remote and access a hidden menu that the repair guys know about. My TV was a bit older and I had to open up the case and find a dial that would allow me to adjust it...I had not "hidden menu," I had to do it manually. Now I can see the subtitles just fine. Do a search for your TV model number and "service code" or "service menu" or something to that effect. I had to buy a service manual to being able to find out which dial to turn, though.
I have seen some xvid's that won't let you skip ahead to a specified time. Most Xvid's I have tried will. I can't figure out why the other would not. Something in the encoding obviously..
I attempted to convert a video file with AC3 filter using DivXCreate and VirtualDub and nothing seems to work. Anything else i can do?
I'm having trouble playing certain DivX files. Most of the divX video I've tried played fine but sometimes the video is horrible. Is there something you have to do before burning divX files on DVD? I know it's not the files cuz I tried the disc on my comp and it plays fine.
Thanks for explaining! I've been wondering for the longest time. Naruto, encoded at 640x480 is always too big for a standard 4:3 and you can't see the subtitles in full. Evangelion (Remastered) files that I have is 720x540, yet it still manages to fit a 4:3 screen pretty accurately and you can see the subtitles. My question is why? Also, since we're dealing with overscan, is this something that could be dealt with firmware? Is it possible to perhaps come out with a firmware hack that enables "zoom out" feature on the dvp642 and not just the usual zoom in? If this isn't possible, assuming I just use a regular RCA video, is it possible to create something with parts from radio shack that would somehow shrink the image? AkumaX wrote: For those of you who want to watch anime and read the subtitles (hardsubs): The problem is called Overscan. All DVD players have this problem (DivX or not), whether NTSC or PAL. Watch any DVD movie on your computer (using PowerDVD or whatever), and notice the edges. Now when you watch it on a set-top DVD player, what happens is the DVD player is outputting the entire 720x480 resolution, but in reality TV's are only showing, say 684x432 visible, because it is really outputting 720x480, but the borders of the TV are blocking it. Something will always be cut off, and in the case of anime, at 640x480, that's a problem because you can't read hardsubs. The only real general solution is to re-encode your anime with black borders all around. Using VirtualDub, you can shrink the actual video to say, 560x416, then adding black borders to equal 640x480. If you got a fast computer and blank DVD+-RWs, this might be a viable solution. If you're lucky, you might have a special TV that can deal with the overscan problem. Some TV's have a special debug mode that can crop pictures to shrink the actual output in order to fit images without overscan.
Some searching around the web on "overscan" and "service mode" and i found this site: http://myweb.accessus.net/~090/how2adj.html#smodewarn You can resize the size of your picture on your TV set via changing the horizontal and vertical size in your TV's service mode. I just shrunk the vertical size of my Toshiba TV and now I could see the subtitles fully on Naruto. WARNING!!!!!!! If you do this, make sure you write down the default settings before you change anything. And don't try to mess with more things than you need. If you just want the picture shrunk enough to read the subtitles at the bottom, then vertical sizing adjustment is all you need to do.
What if u just use 16.9 Widescreen..would that not solve your promlem? As w/s has cut-off's top & bottom [black bars].Your picture would actually be improved..provided u have a large enough tv 30" or bigger..nothing worse then watching midgets on a small 19" Tv
hi all..well i just bought the player few days ago...burned 3 movies (1 divX-2 Xvid) on to a TDK DVD-R and the player would not detect disc at all..i have burned iso's for other movies on this media and they work fine..able to play regular vcd's burned onto cd-r.....i have the 642/37 model...couldnt find any firmware upgrades for this model..any suggestions??
Not sure what you mean by burning iso? Try a DVD+RW and burn a "data" disc. At least you can erase it if it doesn't work. I once had a similar problem and it turned out to be a bad disc.
