This DVD player is a great bargain at $55. It works perfectly fine. Here's what you really want to know:

1) Make this DVD player region-free. Press Setup on the remote and go to Preferences. Press 1, 3, 8, 9, 3, 1 on the remote. Use the up and down buttons to select Region 0 (region-free).

2) Go to the General Setup page. Press 1, 3, 7, 9. This will display the firmware information. If the last two digits of Version aren't "31," then go to the Philips website and update to the most recent firmware (31).

3) For US users, the first two digits of Version will be "37." Go to http://vb6rocod.euracks.com/dvp5990_37.php and download "DVP5990_37_vb6_v32_All_Logo.rar" and follow the upgrading instructions (http://vb6rocod.euracks.com/upgrade.html). It really is as simple as it sounds, and it can be done in less than 60 seconds. I recommend the USB method. Upgrading to this firmware will give the USB capabilities of the DVD player increased functionality and... Read more

I bought this at Best Buy today. I was there picking up a 500GB WD USB HD for $90 on sale and thought i'd see what they had in the way of DivX players. I had read good things about this one and the 5992 (both have the improved USB 2.0). The 5990 was $59 at Best Buy. so for around $150 i have a great 500GB Divx/.wmv/.mp3/etc. 1080i media center for my digital TV. A great alternative to an Apple TV, which i had been contemplating for sometime.

Down to the nitty gritty. If you're using a Mac to set up your DivX Hard Drive for use with this player, make sure you format your USB Drive to FAT-32 (MS-DOS), and also (very important) make sure the partition map is "Master Boot" not "Apple Partition Map". After i did that everything was smooth sailing. I've also used it with a couple flash thumb drives and it works great. Its amazing how smooth the ffwd/seek is when playing from USB.

The Manual says the unit supports USB drives with maximum 300 folders and 648 files... Read more

Pro: USB 2.0, Decent picture quality, easy all region hack, Low price.
Con: Some firmware issue, no optical out as for most of Phillips.

I have purchased 6 DVP5892/37 from Philips, kept 2 for myself & gave 4 away to friends & family. I love that unit for its performence/price. When my brother wants one more all region hacked 1080P player, I picked up a DVP5990 for $50.99 on sale at BBY online.

Setup was easy but this player got some firmware issues. It can't recognize TV resolution via HDMI & doesn't auto convert to lower resolution. factory setting at 1080P out of the box So you need a 1080P TV to change HDMI setting for 1080i TVs. Composite Video connection & HDMI interferes each other when both are connected to TV.

Video & audio performence is about the same as older DVP5982 but DVP5982 has no above issues.