Philips DVP5160

The Philips DVP5160/12 is a very cheap DVD player that I bought for a relative:

To my utter surprise, this Eur.65 toy happens to be able to play just about everything I could throw at it in short notice (MPEG files, old DivX files, some iTunes video podcasts and even a quick MP4 test I put together by running some stuff through VisualHub).

The device was able to read 640×480 MP4 files encoded with the “All devices” profile in the iTunes tab in VisualHub, but not H.264 files. My guess is that we’re a year or so away from that happening…

Better still, it can do so from a standard USB pen drive (it has a standard USB port), thereby making a mockery of the notion of home networking. Who needs a home server when you can just plug in an external HD?

The UI is on the poor side of spartan (so no fancy thumbnails, even for JPEG files) but I can see this sort of thing becoming popular.

• Firmware upgrades
• Videohelp page for the 5160
• Videohelp page for the 5960 – an HDMI capable model that is a little more expensive (but still under Eur.100)
• Philips DVP5960 DivX page