If you own a Philips DVD tabletop player and you are having trouble with the video cd's you own freezing at various places during playback, apparently tihs is a common problem with this unit, then you need to contact them so they can upgrade the firmware. I spoke with them last night and they will upgrade the firmware if enough people contact them. He said there is an upgrade in the works now for the player I have(Philips DVD835) but he's not sure what the upgrade is for. They will put you on a contact lists if you call them. The number is 1-800-705-2000

-- Al McCraw (amccraw@ix.netcom.com), February 02, 2000

Answers

Is the firmware user-upgradable (flash?) or do you have to send the unit in to Philips and wait? I find that my DVD825 is much better with CD-RW media than CD-R and since they're not much more expensive than CD-R, I'll just record my VCDs on them. But it would be nice to use any kind of media.

-- Walt Sanders (wms@horiba.com), February 02, 2000.

Pioneer DV-525 and DV-c302d works on all cd-r/cd-rw media flawlessly at any written speed (I've tested them at 8x).

-- lnguyen (wingstarzz@hotmail.com), February 02, 2000.

That's what I had heard (Pioneer plays anything you throw at it) but the one in the store didn't play the CD-R I brought at all; the Philips did. But I didn't watch enough of it to see it trip over itself so often. :(

-- Walt Sanders (wms@horiba.com), February 03, 2000.

Yes this is true. I have found that the CD-RW do better on my Philips but they still lock up in places which is annoying. I also tried my CD-RW in every brand at Best Buy and they all played flawlessly in every brand they had connected to a monitor. Sony, Toshiba, Panasonic and Pioneer. I wish I would have bougt the Pioneer originally as I would not have the problem am having with the Philips. I am trying to get them to upgrade their firmware

-- Al McCraw (amccraw@ix.netcom.com), February 03, 2000.

I sold my Phillips 825 due to freezing and no FF of REW. Just boought the Pioneer 525 - Plays anything I throw at it, with FF and REW! I spent a year trying different VCD creating packages with my Phillips (the bastards!).

-- (waltmid@hotmail.com), February 07, 2000.

I spoke with Philips today, and was told that the only firmware revision produced for the 825 was to resolve playback issues with The Matrix (DVD), and You've Got Mail (DVD). The rep had web access, so I pointed him to this board, this thread and others. So if there are other people lurking with DVD825 payback problems post a response so it can be heard in case they actually come back and read this thread.

He was sending links to the board & the threads I pointed out upstream & said he would escalate the issue. Hopefully it's something they can fix in firmware, and not just poorly designed decoding hardware.

BTW, I also spoke with one of the service centers and was told that the firmware upgrades were being done "in house" (meaning you have to send it in). This is discouraging because it means going untold weeks without a DVD player.

-- Sean (sean@magnuminvestments.com), February 07, 2000.

I spoke with Philips again today and the guy told me they weren't even aware of the problem until about a week ago. He said the firmware upgrade they are working on is for DVD movies and didn't knoe if engineering was working on an upgrade. I remembered that I had an extended warranty on my player that claimed I could return it if I was unhappy with it for any reason so I exchanged it for the Pioneer 525 and it played everything I put in it with no problem. It has a lot more features. If you have a Philips and you can't return I suggest you bug them about correcting the problem because they didn't sound like they were in much of a hurry to do anything about it.

-- Al McCraw (amccraw@ix.netcom.com), February 09, 2000.