The DivX Player Shootout

This unit has a very unique form factor attached to it, with the top panel smoothly sloping in to form the fascia, no edges there. This gives a smooth appearance and feel to the player. A retro style LED display sits quietly on the left side, with the conspicuous tray perched on the center. As for connectivity, there is no HDMI in this model, thus component and composite video make up for the absence. There is a 5.1 analog audio out, a USB 2.0 slot, and finally an memory card slot too.

Load times for this unit was slow, at about 13 seconds. Then on, we had calibration images along with the player’s simple video adjustment menu. We felt the minute details in black and dark levels were quite impressive. Next thing to see was the color reproduction, whether there was any major color banding or patchiness. The player honestly tried its best, especially in vivid scenes of I Am Legend.  The skin tones and depth in darker scenes came out just like any other player listed.

Also we can definitely say that the motion video quality of the player was quite good, not too much mosquito distortion or any other ugly artifact around the edges of objects. In DivX playback, the player suffered a bit with stuttering and a little jerkiness issues in playback. This was a downer, as till now the player was performing well.

Verdict( The winner)

The Philips DVP 3366 is the winner here, not because it's a spectacular player straight from God - no, it's not. But, it's an honest performer with the best results. There are no extra bells and whistles, which I personally prefer in my player. It looks simple, yet refined, like a seasoned player not interested in impressing with superficial tactics. The price is not that much higher than others, it's very competitive. The video was almost stutter free in comparison to some others; plus other small things make a difference: like hardly any color banding, and good detail in deep ends of dynamic range like extreme blacks. Motion was not perfect, I found de-interlacing artifacts here too, our diagonal moving line jaggied quite a bit. But still all within the tolerable range. If one is a serious videophile, then look elsewhere, in a different sphere of players, as none here suit the bill. But again if you are just looking for a good player to watch your huge collection, rent a DVD etc., then this Philips model is a great choice.