Philips DVP5140 Multiformat DVD Player with DivX, MP3, Windows Media Support

I hate this DVD player. I bought it, because I wanted something that wouldn't break down or kidnap my discs. Now I know I'd rather have a different machine, even one that stops working after a couple of days.

The stupid thing is just too annoying. It doesn't have fast forward or rewind, and it forgets where you left off if you turn off the machine. It's also super slow to start up and to load discs.

I can't wait for it to screw up just once so I can justify buying another player. However, it keeps working day after day. This thing will never die.

I'm thinking of buying another tv to hook it up to, so I can get myself a better one, but my girlfriend says that's even more wasteful than having two DVD players.

Now I'm thinking maybe I'll have a kid so he/she/he-she can have it. It can be like a punishment for whenever he/she/it does anything wrong, like having sex before marriage or dancing. That's not wasteful, right?

Kids are like investments. You feed and water them for a couple of years, and then you either make them start working the land, or you sell them for big profits.

What?! This DVD player has clearly made me insane. Don't buy it.

This is a great player for those that want an inexpensive way to go region free! A quick internet search will show the easy way to set the region to 0 so you never need be concerned about the pesky region coding.
I live in Europe and also have U.S. dvds, but buy and rent locally. This player was the perfect solution! And for less than $50 USD! Get one for yourself quickly!!

I bought this player because it plays DVDs sent by family and friends in Europe and Asia. In particular one previous reviewer, H.A. Emet, posted easy instructions to make it play DVDs from all regions. All credit goes to Emet and below are his instructions. They work!
To make it region code free follow these instruction:
1. Turn on the unit
2. Open the loading tray
3. Press the "Setup" button on the remote
4. Navigate to the "Preferences" page using the right arrow key
6. Press the down arrow once to enter the Preference page
5. Enter 138931 on the remote
6. You will now see the current region code displayed
7. Use the Up/Down arrow keys to select the region required or "0" for all regions
8. Press the "Play" button on the remote

I spent an hour researching region free DVD players- apparently I should have looked further. This unit would take forever to load the CD, and other times it would tell us it was the wrong region and not play at all. Fortunately, Amazon has a great return program and we printed out a postage paid return and back it went.
After further research, we bought a Pioneer. I learned that there are a numbr of ways to make a DVD player region free. 1) A software hack, or 2) a chip replacement. The software hack works most of the time, but will never be totally consistant , where the chip replacement is a real "fix" that will work indefinately.
Spend a few bucks more and get a better DVD player. Thank you Amazon for making this transaction easy.

Purchased this solely to be able to play DVDs of all regions. Adjusted my setup accordingly (search other comments or other websites for details) and has worked flawlessly. Only had to run the setup once so far (have ha d the unit a month). Everything else this box offers is just "gravy". There probably could be more buttons on the front panel but certainly not a showstopper. For the price, you can't go wrong unless you want to go super-cheap like Coby...but I expect a longer life from my Philips. Good luck!