Philips DVP 3120

Author's product rating:   

Picture Playback	Good
Sound Level	Satisfactory
Range of Features	Average
Durability	Good
Value for Money	Excellent

Advantages:	Low cost,Will play all the main formats,Fairly good quality .
Disadvantages:	Altough its good its not good enough to be homes main DVD player .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Introduction
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I would like to start this review by stating how I came to own this product. I bought this product a month ago because I needed a new DVD player for the home entertainment system in my bedroom. I did not want to pay as much as I have paid for DVD players in the past but will however wanted the best quality that I could possibly get. I had never owned a Philips DVD player before this purchase but was assured by many people that their DVD players were always in top form. This product is possibly the cheapest DVD players I have ever bought but must say that I found that for its price and what I use it for it was a great buy.

Another reason I decided to buy this DVD player over the many other options that were available to me was because this DVD player is small and slim and is perfect for small rooms. As I only have a small bedroom I feel this product compliments my sleeping surroundings perfectly. As I do not have lots of room for audio and visual equipment in my room I was glad to see that this device is so compact that it could even place very neatly and without falling of on top of my Television. I found this a great space saver as this machine more added a little height to my TV than took up any room.

The third and final reason I chose to buy this machine was because unlike the old DVD player that I previously had in my room this DVD player could play SVCDs and VCDs. For those of you who don’t know what these formats are I shall explain. These are a type of video format that can compress large video files and put them on to a simple CD-R or CD-RW. I find this technology great when it comes to putting episodes of my favorite shows I have downloaded from iTunes onto my TV. I love being able to watch my favorite TV in my room instead of being stuck at my computer. I should mention however that if you make a SVCD or VCD you experience a loss in quality compared to a DVD. This was not an issue for me however as I only planned on watching the shows once and then I just simply threw out the disks as I picked them up cheap from Tesco.

Overview
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This low priced DVD player emits a very respectable image and sound transmission. Images appear clear and there was no issue with any jumps of the screen or anything that lowered my feelings towards this machine. This machine is a great buy for anyone who is just looking for a DVD player that is cheap and can be placed in perhaps a Childs bedroom, your own bedroom or in fact anywhere that doesn’t include your main home entertainment centre. The reason I say this is that even though I find this machine great quality for what I paid I do feel that if I was to use this machine on a TV above average size then it would not emit the same quality. Also this is not the sort of player that you would want to set up with your surround audio as you would not get half the quality you would expect. If you are just looking for a low priced DVD player though then this product is perfect.

As stated above I found this product conveniently small so that it could be easily placed in my bedroom. Another great aspect of this machine though is that it is so easy to set up. When you set up this system you will find that you do not have to do as much as you did if you have set another DVD player up in the past. You can easily just plug this into you power socket and then plug the scart cable provided into the back of your TV unless like many people now you have a system that enables your TV to handle many scarts at the same time. If this is your case then you just obviously plug the scart in there. If you do want to set this machine up for Surround sound though then you will need to buy the extra cables and of course the speakers separately. This would be a waste of time in my opinion as you would not get the amount of quality that you can get from other players.

This machine can also play all your home made DVDs with no problems. However if you wish to play your videos strait from some direct to DVD video cameras you will need a special adapter. I must stress however that thing product can play any home made DVD format including DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R and DVD+RW. This is another reason why I found this DVD player to be top quality. This player is even DIVX compatible so you can play any movie that you have downloaded.

A media card slot is also present on the device which means you can view all your digital cameras images on your TV with ease. I found this a great feature as the Media card slot was compatible with the both memory cards I own for my camera and I found the card reader was much easier to access than on some of my other DVD players.

At first I thought that this DVD player was not Multi-region and so could only play PAL formatted DVDS. However with a bit of internet research I found that you could set this DVD player up to play all regions of DVDs with very little effort. Below is a step by step guide to set up the DVD player for multi region.

1. Turn on the Philips DVP3120.
2. Open the disk tray.
3. Press the "Setup" button on your remote.
4. Go to the "Preferences" page by pressing the right arrow key twice.
5. Enter these numbers - 138931.
6. You will now see the current region code for your DVD player.
7. Use the Up/Down arrow keys and select the region you require or simply press "0" for all regions.
8. Press the "Play" button to play your DVD.

I found this feature very useful as I have a large collection of DVDs from Japan and it was nice to be able to play them in my room instead of my usual watch in the living room. There is no loss of quality whatever region of DVD that you play.

Disadvantages
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Even though I found this player the solution to all the problems I was having with DVD playing in my room, There was however two problems that I came across with this product. The first was that unlike most DVD players this player has no 'Last DVD' memory. This means that if you switch the player off in the middle of a movie for whatever reason you cannot simply just turn the player back on and expect to be in the same place on the DVD. I found this lack of technology very annoying as I very rarely sit down and watch a DVD the whole way through. This meant that with this Player I had to either set the video to pause for however long I was gone or just forcing myself to watch whatever was on the DVD in one sitting.

The second problem I came across was that even though this was a great DVD player for my bedroom I feel that if someone were to look at this products low price and buy it as their main DVD player I feel they would become very disappointed in their purchase. If you are buying this just for a small room though you should find its quality acceptable.

Specification
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DVD Player
DTS Decoder
DVD+R Playback:
DVD+RW Playback
DVD-R Playback
DVD-RW Playback
1 Scart Interface
Progressive Scan
AC3 Real Dolby
Super Video CD / Video CD Playback
Tabletop system.

Price
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I bought this player around the time of its first release for around £45 from my local electronics retailer. However nowadays you can get this product at the amazingly low price of £25 in some online stores. If I were you though I would check out your local supplier of electronics as you may find this product even cheaper there.

Conclusion
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After having this product for quite a while now I have come to the conclusion that this was indeed one of my better purchases. This is a great product for anyone who wants a simple DVD player and is not too fussy about having the best quality images and sound. For me however this player was only suitable for having with my medium sized bedroom TV. The idea of using this as my regular DVD player is a scary thought indeed. That being said for a new time DVD player user or someone looking for a great bargain this is the perfect DVD player.

Score
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6 Out of Ten.