Unlike the experience of the reviewer from Erie, PA, my player does resume playing the DVD from the scene where you've pressed the stop button (of course if you press stop TWICE it will take you to the beginning of the DVD).

The unit is ultra thin (1.7" high) and stylish. Colors are vivid at its default setting but you have the option to tweak them if you deem necessary via a system menu, a feature that Philips calls SmartPicture. Video output is available for component video, SVideo or CVBS. For audio you have digital or analog output. You also have an option to set the video for your type of monitor 4:3 P/S, 4:3 Widescreen or 16:9. You may zoom in during playback on both DVD or DivX/XviD files. Resolution

The one weakness I can find is with the remote. It is a bit skimpy, for example, no dedicated open/close tray button, instead one must press the stop key for about 5 seconds which will either open or close the tray. Buttons are small and placed close together. If anyone knows of a universal remote that works with this unit please include it in your review.

Overall this player has far exceeded my expectations. Well done Philips!

Great DVD Player with minor flaws (Rating: 5.00)
Review : I recently purchased the Philips DVP642 DVD player and I am quite pleased with it. I have a lot of files in .avi format, and it takes me several hours to encode them in DVD, SVCD, or VCD format to play on a DVD player. Now, with this player, I can just put my .avi files onto CD-Rs, pop them in the DVD player let the machine do the rest.

The quality that AVI, DIVX, and MPEG-4 are displayed in is amazing. The files play much better than they do on my home computer. This is thanks to a "smart" technology that the player uses to enhance compressed video. Many scenes will appear in almost DVD quality.

Many users have complained about the sloppy interface. I tend to disagree. Although other DVD players offer far better interfaces, this one holds up quite well. It will not distract from the overall experience you will have with this product. The remote control feels more like a television remote, though.

This unit is not perfect. It doesn't play Nero Digital MPEG-4s. There isn't any sound on non-VOB structured MPEG-2 files, nor is there any sound when miniDVDs are played (but who uses those anyways). However, a simple file conversion program will solve most of these problems allowing you to keep up to 2 hours of very good quality video on one CD. No DVD players are perfect and the bottom line is for $70 this unit is a steal. If you have a lot of video files laying around on your cpu and a cd burner, this player is a must buy.

Schveeeeeeeeet! (Rating: 5.00)
Review : So far it's played EVERYTHING I've thrown at it, no matter the format or disc. I burned the entire series of Firefly onto a DVD-RW with XviD codec...no problem. Tried some mixed-format discs (parts in DivX/XviD, parts in Mpeg1, and parts in mpeg-2 all on a DVD+R), it read and played them without fail. It does appear to get "confused" when changing through formats between power cycles. A quick punch-up of the Setup screen and exit (no setting changes) and the video played fine.

amazing unit best investment ever (Rating: 5.00)
Review : I was looking for some type of player that could play direct divx, and this unit does that and a lot more, the only trouble that I noticed was that in some vcd's the audio kept crawling out of sinc, I downloaded a firmware update for it, and it not only correct it, it also modified my region codes so now it's multiregion and plays even more formats. So far I been using it daily for six months and I'm still amazed from all the potential that it has, just yesterday I learned that it can play a avi movie file with subtitles for it in a diffrent file side by side, I'm very happy with it and my father and brother got one for themselves and are equaly amazed.