Philips DVD-736K

The picture on the Philips DVD736K is alright and playing DVD's, SVCD's and copied VCD works fine but dvd only works for 18 months. The other CD's still works fine what a product.

The day I bought this player, the karaoke feature died after an hour or less and takes almost a month to have it fix in the recommended service centre.

It's good for home theatre but not that good with the karaoke mode.

Watch out - If you read reviews on the Internet by reviewers in Australia, NZ, US, Europe; Philips India has a way of sticking it to you - the model that is sold in India will have at least one flaw - this has happened to me before too. I assume they find a model that cannot be sold elsewhere in the world and buy it by its weight and sell them here at high prices. This is especially annoying as Philips (not India) drafted the Red / Blue Book or whatever on CD formats. Thus the poor review by Dipankar and good reviews by others. The Players are not the same.

The Philips DVD736K is Good but not so Great with CD Audio listening due to 1-2 seconds silence in between tracks. But it's well worth it when it comes to Home Theater usage.

For those drooling for a Home Theater System but who are on a tight budget, get this one then (later) purchase a best buy Multimedia Speaker system (Altec Lansing e5100 or Creative 5300) for an economical Home Theater System.

It's just to bad that I bought it at PHP13500 last June only to found out it now cost only PHP10900.

I used to play DVD on my Sony PS2 but, always having problems playing DVDs from other regions, I decided to buy a player. After doing 3 weeks survey, I found this Philips DVD736K DVD player really good value for money. I bought at RM 470 (which is around USD 120).

Everything is fine except the 2 channel downmix and the shadow part of the picture.

The 2 channel simulation or virtual surround mode output is small, you need to turn the volume over 50% to achieve a reasonable hearing level. But the 5.1 Ch is fine.

And it looks like Philips doesn't use a good picture decoding chip in this player, the darker parts especially the shadow will turn into patches rather than showing the details.

But what can I ask for more with this price? If I want to buy other player with similiar features, I probably have to pay 2~~3 times of the price.

I have tried several DVD units from various manufacturers in the sub $600 NZ category. I ended up returning all and concluding that I couldnt get a 'good quality cheapy', but then I tried the Philips DVD736K.

In common with some of the other reviewers, when I bought this unit, I could find absolutely nothing on the 'net about it. However, empirical evidence is what I rely on and the shop was happy for me to take it away for a good testing with a full refund guarantee.

I am pleased to say that the primary reason I bought the machine was for (surprise) DVD playback, and in this I can't fault the quality. It has played all Zone 1, 2 and 4 with no problems, and RCE encoded discs as well all on the multi zone setting. You can explicitly set the zone if you wish, so any problematic discs should be catered for. Video quality has good shadow separation, and clear sharp colours. You have the "smart picture" setting to play with which allows you to choose from 3 pre-defined video settings, or your own customised view. In practice, I have found little need to play with this as once I had set it up for my TV, that was it. I have noticed layer changes occur on some discs, but to put this in perspective, I would say around 20% of those played may exhibit this trait. When it does occur, it really is nothing more than the briefest of pauses (best guess about 1/10th of a second) and certainly doesnt ruin the enjoyment. On this basis, I am tempted to put this down to the DVD encoding itself.

Connectors? It has plenty. Onboard DTS and Dolby Digital decoding yields multiple outputs including 5:1 analog, Stereo Analog, coax digital, optical digital, S-video, composite, YCbCr - you name it. It doesnt have a SCART connector, but then that seems to have died a death here in NZ with most devices relying on S-Video or YCbCr RCA type connectors.

The downside of the hardware components has to be the handset, which is frankly pathetic. Yes it does the job, but this is where the money has obviously been saved. Its a membrane affair which is smallish and cramped, and frankly the person who designed it should be forced to run with the Bulls at Pamplona carrying one between the cheeks of their bottom. That said, it does function and gets the job done. I will get pragmatic at this point and say that if I got the video quality at the expense of the handset, then so be it.

The unit also plays MP3's, and it can handle all bitrates I have thrown at it including variable. I found the playback somewhat more dynamic than similarly priced units offering this capability (although this is subject to the vagaries of encoding, and being a lossy compression format). It does a fair job on CDs too, although I'll stick with my NAD for dedicated CD audio playback.

The icing on the cake for me, however, was that I was delighted to discover that the 736K can play back JPGs, individually or as a slide show, including the ability to manipulate zoom, orientation, and playback interval. As someone who has recently taken to scanning old photos to digital media to preserve them, this was a bonus (I wasnt aware of this function when I bought the unit).

Overall a good player for the money, and with 4 bonus DVD of your choice thrown in (here in NZ anyway), it was a bargain.

However, it does get points deducted for a rotten handset.

I recently bought few VCDs for my Philips DVD736K DVD player and the first one failed to start when I pressed the PLAY button. After juggling with few more buttons (FF, REW, PLAY,STOP) it suddenly started playing. Also I could in no way FF or REW in between or see the disk menu. The VCD seller says it a problem with the player and not the VCDs as he had similar problem in his Philips player and the VCDs work fine in other products/models. I need feedback on this issue. Somebody has to take back his product and replace it.

After Returning an LG DVD/Video combo due to poor performance I purchased the Philips DVD736K DVD player. It is magnificent, plays all my VCD's and SVCD's to perfection.

The Philips DVD736K is a very good DVD player - I tried VCD and SVCD and it works. If you want more info, try the Philips New Zealand site.

This Philips DVD736K is my second DVD player. I needed one with a built in DD decoder as my amp is only Dolby Prologic. The Philips DVD736K is a new player on the market. There is no info about it on any of the Philips web sites that I can find.

Although made in China, the build quality of the main unit is very good. The disk tray appears a bit flimsy, but no more so than most new players.

The front panel layout is simple, with a Perspex panel across the bottom, with simple controls on either side of the centre mounted display.

Hard On/Off and Karaoke controls on the left, which I could have easily done without (I would have preferred a headphone socket instead) and Prev, Next, Stop and Pause/Play buttons on the right. The text labels are too small, and being white on a silver/grey background, almost illegible anyway. There is no standby button on the main unit.

The top of the player has a centrally mounted disc tray with an Open/Close button on the right and a strange Smart Picture button on the left.

All the outputs on the back are grouped together in a logical arrangement on the left, and the power cord hard wired (pity) on the right. There is every conceivable audio and video output you are ever going to need, whatever your setup.

Picture quality is very good. PAL is a match for the better units around, and the real surprise is the NTSC, which is simply outstanding. If you have an old TV, the unit does NTSC to PAL conversion and does it without noticeable jitter.

Audio, using the built in decoders and analogue 5.1 out is fine. I have it going into an old Yamaha RX-V395 prologic receiver, so it's given that an extended life. The only limitation, which is probably peculiar to the analogue 5.1 output, is that to play CDs properly with this setup, I must turn off the built in pro-logic decoder! That's not a big problem as I can switch my amp between 5.1 external and 2 channel with the amps prologic converter. I have arranged this by using piggyback cables and also have the CD cabled separately to the CD input of my amp. Quite easily done as there are separate 2 channel and 5.1 channel outputs from the DVD player, and these operate simultaneously, so no switching is required in the player.

The display on the unit is easy to read, but minimal. While playing, it defaults to showing time elapsed. You need to display the setup menu on the screen to change it if you want to know remaining time. This is a little annoying.

The real disappointment with this unit is the remote. The remote is quite small and extremely easy to hold one handed. It only has 36 buttons, and manages by doubling and even tripling the use of some buttons. The only problem with this is the lack of labelling. For example, the remote does not appear to have an open/close button, but buried away in the manual is reference to holding down the 1 button for 2 seconds. This is not intuitive.

The response of the unit to the remote is not very positive - the worst commands are the navigation keys. My Yamaha remote is much better at controlling the unit. The remote sensor is located under the tray, so if the tray is open & you point down to the unit, you will have fun trying to close it!

The unit can be set up as multi-region. A slip is included in the box (in Australia at least) to convert it to all regions. It's easy...

Open the tray.

Press 1111 on the supplied remote (note: nothing displays on the screen)

Enter the region code (0 for all regions)

Close the tray

Even my Yamaha remote can change regions.

Overall, this is quite a good unit, with only the remote being a bit of a pain. It's quite a bargain, I paid AUS$399 for it, about the same price as an unknown brand with DD and DTS decoders. It is about 2/3 the price of a similarly specified Panasonic/Pioneer.