59 out of 59 people found this review helpful.
Great Little DVD Player, Great Little Price
Date of Review: Dec 17, 2004
The Bottom Line: A great choice if you need a DVD player.
My reliable old RCA DVD player had given me many years of service, and to be quite frank the thing is still going strong after about six years of service. But it came time to replace it all the same, since it just couldn't handle all of the new formats being thrown it. Thus, with DVD players being the exceptional bargains that they are these days, I decided it was time for a new one. The player I decided upon was the Philips DVD 726.
Why Philips?
There are many brands available today; some of them offering rock-bottom prices that seem almost too good to be true. A DVD player for $20? You can get one, sure, but for my money, it's better to go with a name brand you can trust. Philips is a leader in the global consumer electronics trade, and for just a few dollars more than the off brands, I bought a unit from a trusted manufacturer.
Why The DVD 726?
Of the units I considered, the DVD 726 offered the most options for the price. For a mere $55, I received a player that satisfied me on many levels, and fulfills the tasks I expect of it.
Aesthetics
The first criterion I considered was appearance, and the Philips certainly passed with flying colors. A slim line, lightweight unit finished in gleaming silver and flat black, my player takes up just a little space and looks great.
Functionality
The DVD 726 plays a wide variety of formats. It will play DVD, DVD+R, DVD+RW, CD, CD-R, CD-RW, Video CD, and Super Video CD. In addition, the DVD 726 will play MP3 and JPEG files recorded to CD or DVD.
Connection
The unit can be connected to your television and audio equipment in multiple ways: via standard RCA cable connections, component audio video connection, coaxial digital audio, and Super-Video cable.
Features
The player offers, in addition to a crisp, clear picture, a number of features, many of which are accessible from the full function remote. These include fast forward, rewind, pause, mute, audio toggle, subtitles, angle selection, repeat, preview, frame by frame advance, pause, menu, and more.
You can zoom in and out of the picture at will. This is helpful when you see something in the frame that you would like to examine more closely. Time Search allows you to go back or forward to any specific elapsed time in the film.
A screensaver is another nice option; after five minutes on pause, a screensaver will kick in automatically to help avoid screen burn. There is also a parental control included, complete with password protection. You can turn this feature off if you choose.
Forget to turn your player off? It won't. Stop your disc and walk away, and the player will turn itself off after about ten minutes.
Impressions
This is a great little player for the money. Picture and sound quality are excellent, and the features all work flawlessly. Fast forward and rewind are smooth and clear, not at all choppy like my old RCA. Technology has clearly advanced.
In addition, discs that would skip and freeze on my olf player now work flawlessly. Even scratched discs that I get from Netflix play without a hitch.
If I have one caveat, it's to beware of the factory presets. When I first got my unit, I got audio but no picture. I spent an hour on the line with tech support, and they were clueless as to what the problem was. Finally, I disconnected the RCA video cable from the unit's standard video output and plugged it into the composite output jack (it was still connected to the TV's standard video jack).
Lo and behold I got a picture, albeit a black and white double image. This was enough to get me into the menu display, where I turned off the Progressive Scan. From that point everything was fine. Now, I have the unit fully connected through composite for best effect, but this could be a problem if you have an older TV.
And now I'm very happy with my player. I expect to get many years of use from it. For the price, this is a great deal.
