Philips DVP5982 Review:

This Philips DV5982 DVD Player will upconvert an ordinary DVD to appear as if it were native to 1080p. Philips DVP5982 plays a wide variety of DVD discs as well as DiVX discs. It can also double as a CD player and will even play CD-R discs that have encoded MP3 files. So when you add this component to your home-theater system, it delivers outstanding, versatile audio and video performance. Then there’s more! Somewhat unique to DVD players is the inclusion of a USB port at the front of the unit. If you use a USB-equipped media card reader or a USB Flash pocket drive, you can export images from your digital camera or card-based camcorder directly to your player for throughput to your TV. Widescreen ready, this player is an ideal companion for your new widescreen HDTV in your home.

Philips DVP5982 User Said:

Pros: Plays PAL DVDs (region hack needed), plays Divx/AVI and MPG, plays files from DVD media and USB port (using an USB flash or external HD drive), supports DVI TVs with 5.1 digital audio, can update firmware and fix known bugs by downloading files from website (then burning to a CD-R and loading), 1/3rd of the cost of an Oppo with similar features.

Cons: Doesn’t play WMV, somewhat “buggy” and unpredictable, takes more than 10 seconds to “power on”, video file names are truncated to 8 characters (e.g., “mysummervacation07.avi” is displayed as “mysummer~”), no HDMI cable(s) included, no eject button (need to hold the stop button for 3 secs instead), no digital optical audio (has digital coax with no quality difference, but it would be more versatile if it had both), PAL DVDs only play at 480p setting

This is an excellent buy as a secondary player, but I wouldn’t recommend it as a primary player because of having to adjust picture settings for each movie.

I needed a player that could play PAL DVDs, and the Philips DVP5982 does the job. I just popped in an original, mail-ordered PAL DVD, and it played (BTW, it was region “0″ which plays in all regions). However, it only plays PAL at the 480p resolution. If you try playing at 720p or 1080p, you’ll get a blank screen (but audio will come through). Just keep pushing the HD Upscale button on the front of the Philips DVP5982 until you see a picture. I noticed a very slight picture stutter due to the different NTSC/PAL frame rates every 30 minutes or so, but otherwise, the picture was clear. I was thinking of buying the Oppo 971H (discontinued) or Pioneer 400V, but then I came across this player in my online search for a PAL-to-NTSC player. There is no mention in any “expert” review, store specs (Best Buy, Circuit City, etc.), or even on the box itself that the Philips DVP5982 is PAL-capable, but it is listed in the detailed specs on the Philips website and mentioned in some user reviews. I took a gamble and picked one up at Best Buy this weekend.

The Philips DVP5982 is hooked up to my DVI HDTV using a HDMI-to-DVI cable to the TV and a digital coax output to my HT receiver (I just used a spare high-quality RCA composite cable, not a digital coax cable). The reviews here initially dissuaded me from picking up the Philips DVP5982 because I read that you could not get 5.1 audio from a source other than the HDMI cable. In other words, no audio from digital coax if the HDMI output was being used (for me, through a HDMI-to-DVI adapter) instead of the component output. As you know, you can’t upconvert through the component output on this player, and you cannot get 5.1 audio through RCA composite red/white cables (only through digital optical or digital coax). So how was I going to get a DVI picture (no audio through DVI) and 5.1 audio as well? Maybe the firmware in the latest Philips DVP5982 fixed this issue, because I am getting 5.1 audio through the digital coax while viewing the picture using the TV’s DVI port. The amber lights on my receiver tells me so. So if you bought an earlier model, try updating the firmware. (The firmware version out of the box ended in .40. I updated to the most recent version ending in .43 only recently.)

As for upconverting, I initially wrote that it was only fair. My fault because I was only watching at 480p (a bug in the Philips DVP5982 causes it to switch to a lower resolution randomly for the same DVD). When the upconvert is working properly at 1080i, I see a noticeable improvement in picture details in comparison to my standard-definition Sony. I see a big improvement on LoTR and X-Men. I didn’t notice any pixelation when I watched LoTR/RotK, but I did notice slight pixelation in F4: Silver Surfer during the Human Torch chase scene. Still, it was minimal. I can’t compare the picture quality to an Oppo (because I don’t have one), but the Philips DVP5982 met my expectations of what an upconverting DVD player should be in terms of picture quality.

I played a few generic AVI (not necessarily Divx) and MPG files on an UDF-formatted (not standard ISO 9660) DVD-R. Not all of the assorted files played, but that most likely is because of the many different video codecs that people use when encoding. I read that the Philips DVP5982 has problems playing very high bitrate files (it won’t play HD AVIs). I played a few video files from a USB flash drive that I just plugged into the front USB port. No skipping as reported by other users. I read that the Philips DVP5982 supports USB 2.0, but the actual USB speed is version 1.1. (Could this be why some users report playback stuttering? Does the picture stutter on all files or only on higher bitrate and larger files because the Philips DVP5982 can’t access it fast enough?)

The bugs? It occasionally drops from 1080i/720p to 480p for no reason. It switches from widescreen to standard 4:3 for no reason. I find turning the TV and player off will fix it sometimes, but this is why I said the Philips DVP5982 should not be used as your sole or primary player. It takes alot of fiddling with the on-screen menus to get the correct aspect ratio, letterbox, and pillar box, and it seems I have to make adjustments for every DVD.

The manual says the Philips DVP5982 doesn’t support HD drives because there’s only 500mAh of power to the USB port, but external drives like Western Digital’s MyBook has its own power supply. Users (from online comments)reported the player works with an external HDD without a power supply though.

BTW, there’s about 40 web pages of users discussing this particular player at the AVSFORUM website (Google it). Very informative. I visited the forum to confirm that I could play 5.1 audio over digital coax while using the HDMI/DVI port.

By Slydog2u

Philips DVP5982 Features

• 1080p Upscaling, increases the picture resolution
• DivX, plays Mpeg4 video downloads from PC
• Progressive Scan
• Plays DVD, DVD-R/+R, CD, CD-R-RW, MP3/WMA, Jpeg picture CD
• Full size 420 mm chassis

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