Does what it says

Haven't played around with it much yet, but it looks good, sets up easily and upscales which is what I wanted. Got it on a 42" LCD and DVD's look pretty good, though I can't see that much difference to be honest, would need to compare a normal DVD player side by side playing the same film (which I might just do if I get bored enough one Sunday)

Couple of minor negatives, DVD tray seems a bit flimsy, it is a bit slow changing chapters etc and noisy (not during normal playback) and the remote does need to be pointed directly at it to work. But for £40 these things are to be expected and dont detract from a good product. Still gets 5 stars.

Reliable little player

This is a great DVD player which has performed well on all but the scratchiest discs. The USB function has also worked flawlessly. Very good machine for the price.

CRACK LITTLE DVD PLAYER

Received the DVD player as a christmas gift from my wife. A big mistake on her behalf. NO it's not a bad product, far from it is great quality item. The mistake is that I now stick my headphone on plug in and switch of to one of my own DVDs, very unsociable (but I love my own time).

* Really clear screen
* Feels well built
* Good sound through my earphones (plenty of volume and clarity)
* Good quality remote contol

If I really look for a fault maybe a bigger screen would be nice but then no it would be more bulky and I can watch it from 6 foot away on the 7" screen. So faultless so far and I suspect for quite a while to come.

Brilliant

I very very very nearly bought the Shinco. It was in my basket and then I got cold feet. I wanted the Shinco because it said it was multiregion and this one didn't, and I'm fed up of ending up with DVDs I can't play or come out in black and white.

What changed my mind at the last minute was that there seemed to be a hack to make it multiregion. That being so, who wouldn't prefer a Philips to a Shinco? Although many people are happy with their Shincos, all of them will say that they can only get customer service from Amazon and they can't get a response from the UK distributor. In which case, if the machine goes wrong after two years, or you need parts, then you'll just have to throw it away.

Plus, frankly, the fact that some people say their Shinco has a lovely aluminium body, while others swear it is plastic, makes me suspect something rather odd is going on with whomever builds and supplies these things.

So I've just received the player, and am happy to report that it converted straight to multiregion, just as described in the forum below. Phew.

That done with, I'm now delighted to have such a high quality machine for such a reasonable price. It is white on the outside, and black on the insside and although the cover is plastic, it has a nice chunky solid feel to the whole thing.

I was surprised that ther really is no noise really when the disc is running or when it starts up, the buttons seem solid and the sound quality was suprisingly good for such tiny speakers. (You can't really expect too much from small speakers). And the unit was strong and well built. It feels like a quality piece of kit. The screen is good looking and I'm really glad of the extra inch and a half. I think 7 inches is just a bit too small.

The swivel screen is an added bonus, and I was surprised to find it could be swivelled right round and goes flat on top of the DVD unit.

The two headphone sockets are a great idea, the SDD slot will be very useful on holiday for photos and videos from the camera. Although I don't yet own an 80gb ipod video, for me having the ability to use one means that this machine will last longer than the DVD format, and means the unit can become much more like a personal media player in the long term, playing videos from an ipod instead of a DVD when nobody makes anything on DVD any more. In five years time, when DVD is almost extinct, an iPod video 80gb second hand will cost next to nothing and give this thing a new lease of life.

Having not ordered the Shinco, I can't really compare it. But the reason I had a slight innate preference for Philips is that one of its other models came out as a Which best buy in a recent review, and they looked at quite a few DVD players.

The only slight niggles are: the volume control is only on the unit, not the remote, and there is a slight lag between pressing buttons on the remote and something actually happening, oh and the remote is slightly cheap looking.

But these are really minor quibbles. For just over 100 quid, you can have a multiregion, 8.5 inch swivel screen DVD, with ipod video connectivity, and SSD slot and two headphone sockets...and it plays nearly anything you'd care to throw at it, plus has ability to change screen format for letterbox films. If you are willing to spend 100 quid on a DVD player, I can't see that there is better value at the moment.

PHILIPS PET707/05 Portable DVD Player

i brought this item yesterday without reading the reviews is there anyway to tidy up the wires leading from one screen to the other?

Excellent machine but...

I've been watching various DVD's on this machine for a month now and it really is excelling itself (I've just ordered a second one for the car). The thing I love is the idea of the car lighter power supply but have to say everytime I have tried to use it the cord has fallen out of the hole almost immediately. The battery is great: 2 hours from new at continuous run with fully screen brightness and max volume. The sound level is great for a reasonable quiet room but would be no use in and area with crowds or ont he train or tube (headphone sockets are available - in fact 2 headphone holes are avail incase you want to share the video with someone else on a second headphone set).

I particularly ike that I can plug my DV camera into the machine and get live pictures - very useful. Go for it and buy this thing. I loves it!

Great dvd player

I just got this player its great the only thing like a few have said the multi region is difficult to work out so like the person who helped me here is how to do it

I have copied and pasted the instructions (from the other review) below to help others who encounter the same problem I did:
All you have to do is press the setup button, scroll across to the preference menu option (DO NOT press the OK button) and then press the following buttons on your remote: 138931 and a little box will appear asking you what region you want. If you scroll down to 0 and press ok it should play all region discs

does not dub dvd to vcr!

not a bad player - BUT I got caught this unit only dubs from dvd to vcr not the other(useful) way round - which is fine if for some unknown reason you want to copy dvd's to tape!

well designed player let down by screen

Great looking player including remote & car adapter. Easily changed to Multi region which was my main reason for choosing this one. Video displayed on external TV is good, but internal screen has difficulty displaying text and subtitle captions clearly, the screen is a disappointment so overall just 3 stars.

Amazing value!

With the prospect of a 9-hour flight to Florida on my own with two little ones under age 3, I thought that it would be a good idea to invest in a personal DVD-player for my 2 year old to watch her favourite movies. I searched the whole of Amazon reading the reviews and decided to go for this one as it came so highly recommended by many reviewers. When I got it today, I was not disappointed. The DVD player has a sleek white case akin to the Apple ibook. It is very compact and the weight is good for the size.

When I switched it on, it played the DVD immediately and the sound quality was good. I used a music video to test the sound. The picture is not crystal clear and you can see the lines across the screen but for the price, it is good quality. I then used the instructions from a kind Amazon reviewer to change the player to Multi-region. It took only a minute to do and it played the NTSC DVD no problem. The unit has a very slimline remote control too. The whole player is very user friendly.

My 2 year old is in love with it and Teletubbies looks good on the screen. The only disadvantages I have noticed so far are: 1. the unit is rather noisy when the disc is spinning but should be fine for the viewer wearing headphones; 2. the battery is not built-in so looks like a small docking station; 3. it is a little heavy.

OK, not great

Pros:
records and plays a wide range of formats.
eighty quid or thereabouts, so the price is fine.

Cons:
Remote control and menu system are far from intuitive.
Machine seems slow - both to respond to the remote and to do things.
No freeview.
The occasional whirring noise which suggests that it won't last forever.


Conclusion:
If you want a low cost DVD recorder from a well known brand name, to last you until the analogue switch-off, then this might be for you. But ... you might do better to spend more and get something better. If you just want something to replace the VCR - just to record and watch stuff on your own TV - there are better products elsewhere.

I should add that also I have a freeview hard disc recorder (PVR) which sells for about £50 more that this, and is intuitive, very easy, faster, and can record and play back two different things at the same time. So I may have been spoiled !

Does everything it says on the box!

I was looking for a portable dvd player that could play all the current formats (-r, +r, divx, multi region etc)and after a ton of time researching I came up with this model. It has a nice sleek look to it and feels very light in the hand. I have tried most of the formats on it and they all worked perfectly. The bonus of this model is the extra sized screen which does make a lot of difference, I could have bought a 7" model for the same money. The picture quality is excellent with no visible light spots and it plays even copies beautifully.
All the relevant leads are included so you can attach it to a tv if you want and maintain a good picture. The remote control is an appropriate credit card size. I would have given 5 stars except for two minor points. The first is the sound which could have been given a bit more oomph, although with earphones this is not an issue. The second is that the loudness of the disc motor can be a little on the loud side, but as before when wearing earphones you do not notice this.
So all in all I believe this to be a quality peice of kit from a major brand name at a reasonable price. (I purchased mine from the marketplace) I would definitely recommend this model if you are not looking for anything too fancy but something you can rely on to do exactly what it promises.

Not what it promises to be...

Wanted a DVD recorder with built-in Freeview, saw this and thought,"Wow! Has upscaling, USB port for flash drive reading, looks stylish, and cheap too!". This all may be true, but what I didn't know until I got it home and set it up was how irritating it is to use!

The menu system is very unresponsive, taking literally several seconds to respond to a simple 'down' on the remote. As a result, it can take minutes to scroll down a few pages of the Program Guide. The firmware needs some serious de-bugging. I had this unit no more than 2 days, and it 'froze' on me more than six times. Each time I was doing nothing more complicated than accessing a DVD, viewing pitcures from my USB pen, or simply browsing the Program Guide for something to watch! The only solution when it hangs is to pull the plug (even says so in the manual) as there's no power switch.

But the worst thing for me was the image aspect ratio distortion. Digital broadcasts displayed beautifully when watched live, but if recorded to DVD then played back they would be stretched vertically, making them totally unwatchable. Oddly, setting the TV Shape option to Widescreen (I have an older PAL 4:3 screen), would correct the playback distortion problem, but render live broadcasts as vertically stretched instead.

On the plus side, the interface looks very swish, the DVD recording quality is excellent, and upscaling to 1080 is well performed. The facia is very stylish, and the front USB and DV ports are neatly hidden behing a flip-down panel.

You can't pause live TV with this unit though, which I presumed you could - my fault for not reading the specifications! I performed a firmware upgrade, downloaded from Philips web-site, which was very easy to do. Although I only had the unit setup for another hour or so, I didn't experience any more 'freezing' of the interface. Customer service, if you need it, is rubbish - I posted a query regarding the aspect ratio distortion, and am yet to get a response, over two weeks later.

I've also heard that these machines keep the drive spinning, even in standby mode, if you leave a disc in. Philips customer service have themselves admitted you ought to remove any discs from the machine when not in use, otherwise it burns out the motor in about 6 months. Seems so ridiculous I can believe it!

Summary: I returned mine. This machine looks great, promises the world, but leaves you pulling your hair out. Philips DVD recorders have been dogged with problems for quite a number of years, and this one is no better. Pay a little more and buy a Panasonic or Sony.

Great Bargin for nice Gadget

Got this player a month ago and so far I have no complaints. It plays DVD's really well, every Divx I could through at it. One thing I liked is that it shows the full title of the divxs as my the four other Divx players I've used havent, very handy when you have 6 movies on one DVD or over 20 episodes of simpsons. All in all a great DVD and Video player, the only reason I didn't give it a 5 was because the menu system is a little clumsy for both the DVD player and Video and it also isn't multi region. But £120, you cant go wrong.