Philips DVD-736K Review

Overall Rating

Built in DD and DTS decoders, excellent picture quality, especially in NTSC.

Remote not very positive in operation & some keys have 3 functions (of which only one labelled).

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.

Members' Comments onPeterB666.'s Review

• mukund. on 28th May 2002

  review is good. Will be useful to prospective buyers. The only extra I thought u could add was xl pictures of the front and back pannel of the player and remote.overall its a good rating.this [player is retailing for about 280 usd in india which is not a very good bargain for a "made in China" product however good it might be !!
  
  mukund

• Kevin001. on 8th Oct 2002

  Great review - sounds like you're very satified. l'm in the same position of having a ProLogic receiver and looking for a player with built in decoder. There doesn't seem to be many about, but this one sounds good. Is the conversion to multizone as easy as you say?

• mukund. on 9th Oct 2002

  kevin, just a thought for you if u are looking for a good dvd player. u might try pioneer dv-355 which was released in Australia last month. Great value for money. Its got all the goodies except for built in decoders. If ur amp has a 6 channel analog input then it makes sense to buy a player with a built in decoder else best option is to look for an amp. with dd/dts decoder. DV-355 also has virtual surround and u would'nt be missing much if u dont have a dd decoder on board.
  
  mukund

• ga. on 5th Mar 2003

  I cannot manage to change the region on my player, even though i'm following what is said in the review. Any ideas why? whenever i press 1111 with the tray open, the tray closes. I have managed to see the words "region 00" on the screen, which has occurred when i have the tray closed, press 1111 and then 0. I'm not sure what to do next - have tried power cycle and using the arrows to change region but nothing results in the region being changed - i have a region 2 dvd i'm trying to watch. Any ideas are appreciated.

• PeterB666. on 6th Mar 2003

  Do not hold the 1 key down. This will open or close the tray.
  
  The tray must be open to start.
  4 short and distinct presses. Unfortunately there is no onscreen feedback. The Tray must remain open.
  Pess '0' It will show Region 0 on screen.
  Then close the tray.
  Note that the player occassionally looses the code, e.g. following a power failure, and reverts back to the default zone.
  
  Cheers
  
  

• ga. on 6th Mar 2003

  cheers - have got it to work following your recipe.

• clip1. on 10th Jul 2003

  Cheers for your review. The info on multi-zoning the player saved the day for another owner of this make and model of dvd player

• Hodge1 on 15th Oct 2003

  Very pleased with unit but one small problem which is not compatible with original reviewer in that it appears not to play all zones.
  I have a Zone 2 DVD and it gives me a message each time "WRONG ZONE". How can I overcome this????