Best DVD player iwth USB

Also, I find that many people prefer Philips 5996 because it has HDMI CEC. People, I request you to please please please check out what CEC actually means. Do a bit of research on it.

First, one needs to buy a damn expensive HDMI cable to support CEC, coz most cables available in the market aren't gold plated or CEC compliant. A good quality CEC HDMI cable will make u poorer by 4500 bucks.

Secondly, CEC works best with a digital home theatre. How many of you over here have a digital home theatre? I bet not many. Let's make this absolutely clear, HDMI CEC does "NOT" work with analog systems.

Thirdly, the CEC stuff that Philips is offering is basically a one-remote solution to all HDMI connected devices. Considering the price of a good HDMI cable, I dont think many people use more than one HDMI port! Moreover, LG DV388 comes with a damn good remote and since I bought it, I havent touched my Sony Bravia LCD remote at all! All of the work can be done by the LG remote, without CEC.

CEC is definitely the future but please make sure you have futuristic products in your kitty to make CEC work . There's no point keeping a CEC compliant DVD player in your showcase, when you dont know how to utilize it fully.

So, please dont make CEC a point while making your selection for a dvd player. These are various marketing gimmicks and we as consumers have the right to be aware of it.
 
Ok, so here's how to make your LG DV388 region free....

Make sure you dont have any disk in the DVD player's tray. Switch on your dvd player and wait for the "no disk" display. now eject your dvd player's tray and press "000" on your remote. a menu opens up on your screen asking you to enter new region code. the default region code is also displayed, in our case its "5". So we need to press "0" to make it region free (There are 7 regions and 0 is for region free). Press pause to exit. Close the tray and restart the player. (If it doesnt run properly, change it back to region "5".)

Vola! You have a brand new region free DV388!:)

As for the PAL/NTSC problem, LgDV388 expects you to change from PAL/NTSC by ejecting your tray and pressing pause button for 5 seconds (written in the manual). Now once you press it, it changes to PAL, next time you press it it changes to NTSC, the next time you press pause again, unfortunately you get PAL again and not "Auto" or "Multi". This mode "Auto" is really useful as the dvd player itself is supposed to detect if the dvd is PAL or NTSC. This Auto option is however present in the lower range dvd players of LG but not in DV388. I don't exactly know the reason. And it does not depend on your LCD company, whether its Sammy or Sony, coz all LCD tvs have the Auto option. It depends on the output of your dvd players. If your dvd player gives an output of NTSC or PAL, the LCD will adjust itself accordingly. Only that dv388 expects you to change to PAL or NTSC manually for every dvd you play. That is so not cool! So please help!

Excellent Work !! It does work . The DVD region code was displayed !! Even though mine was set to Zero this is an excellent way to make your LG DVD Player region free . Rep points to you boss !!
 
Well i have searched all over the place and those were the best match codes i found, usually people having universal remotes will be able to access the manufacturer's website to get the codes and try them out, other way is the learning method, where you point the remotes at each other and press keys on the remote to be learn from.

Try calling Lg customer care or writing to them, see what their response is maybe they will be able to guide on the same

See if the above works, my search is still on to find the remote codes for dv388.
 
Has anyone faced the same problems with the PAL/NTSC with DV388? The Auto mode is absent in DV388.
 
For playing HD movies you need an HD DVD player. How on earth do you expect a DVD player to play HD movies??? :confused:

Having said that, I often play HD rips in DVD format by Prodji (Prodji rips) and they play well.

I meant HD files, I thought that was clear, sorry. Of course I know 'regular' DVD players don't play HD movies. Also, HD DVD as a standard is formally dead, so no point in even discussing it.

HD Rips in DVD format? Now that's a first... I wonder how that works. If you have a file, could you tell me the resolution of these rips?
 
Also, I find that many people prefer Philips 5996 because it has HDMI CEC. People, I request you to please please please check out what CEC actually means. Do a bit of research on it.

First, one needs to buy a damn expensive HDMI cable to support CEC, coz most cables available in the market aren't gold plated or CEC compliant. A good quality CEC HDMI cable will make u poorer by 4500 bucks.

Secondly, CEC works best with a digital home theatre. How many of you over here have a digital home theatre? I bet not many. Let's make this absolutely clear, HDMI CEC does "NOT" work with analog systems.

Thirdly, the CEC stuff that Philips is offering is basically a one-remote solution to all HDMI connected devices. Considering the price of a good HDMI cable, I dont think many people use more than one HDMI port! Moreover, LG DV388 comes with a damn good remote and since I bought it, I havent touched my Sony Bravia LCD remote at all! All of the work can be done by the LG remote, without CEC.

CEC is definitely the future but please make sure you have futuristic products in your kitty to make CEC work . There's no point keeping a CEC compliant DVD player in your showcase, when you dont know how to utilize it fully.

So, please dont make CEC a point while making your selection for a dvd player. These are various marketing gimmicks and we as consumers have the right to be aware of it.

Actually, I dont' agree at all with this: I have a Panny 42" Plasma, which has CEC support. What I'm looking for in the Philips is, no doubt, CEC support. However, it goes much beyond just the remote. My TV powers on the DVD player automatically when I switch the input to the DVD port (which is HDMI). When I move it to some other port (say, AV), it also switches the device off. That itself is a big convenience to me, not to mention the TV remote which lets me operate any CEC compliant unit (unlike the LG remotes which only operate the codes that are pre-fed into the device).

Note that this is not a feature I pay an arm and a leg for: ALL the units we are talking about in this thread have HDMI port, and all of them come with a free HDMI cable (not sure about Philips tho). The cable that came with my Samsung did introduce a little bit of video noise (extremely little), but it's CEC worked flawlessly. CEC uses such little bandwidth, and there's enough error correction in the HDMI standard, that a low-bitrate operation like device control would work even with the poorest of cables. However, your cable needs to be HDMI-CEC compliant (fully wired). You certainly don't need 'gold plated' cables, though they are definitely better for the video.

Going over the posts, I think quite a few of us here have home theatres and digital TVs, or aspire to have one soon (I don't have a HT right now, but will plan for it now that the big TV's here). For almost no extra cost, if I can be future ready to some extent, and have some convenience, I would definitely go for it. As far as I'm concerned, that's added some weight in my tilt towards the Philips (I've always used LG players earlier, and my experience with Samsung is, well, clear in these forums).

So: if you can use it, HDMI CEC is definitely something nice to have... if you don't have it though, you're not loosing the home theater experience.
 
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I meant HD files, I thought that was clear, sorry. Of course I know 'regular' DVD players don't play HD movies. Also, HD DVD as a standard is formally dead, so no point in even discussing it.

HD Rips in DVD format? Now that's a first... I wonder how that works. If you have a file, could you tell me the resolution of these rips?

The resolution is less than 720x576. So, it would play on any normal dvd player. Plus the bit rate is around 2000 and the file size is around 2gb. You can search any torrent site for hd rips. By hd I mean high def, it may be blu ray rips as well!:)
 
Actually, I dont' agree at all with this: I have a Panny 42" Plasma, which has CEC support. What I'm looking for in the Philips is, no doubt, CEC support. However, it goes much beyond just the remote. My TV powers on the DVD player automatically when I switch the input to the DVD port (which is HDMI). When I move it to some other port (say, AV), it also switches the device off. That itself is a big convenience to me, not to mention the TV remote which lets me operate any CEC compliant unit (unlike the LG remotes which only operate the codes that are pre-fed into the device).

Note that this is not a feature I pay an arm and a leg for: ALL the units we are talking about in this thread have HDMI port, and all of them come with a free HDMI cable (not sure about Philips tho). The cable that came with my Samsung did introduce a little bit of video noise (extremely little), but it's CEC worked flawlessly. CEC uses such little bandwidth, and there's enough error correction in the HDMI standard, that a low-bitrate operation like device control would work even with the poorest of cables. However, your cable needs to be HDMI-CEC compliant (fully wired). You certainly don't need 'gold plated' cables, though they are definitely better for the video.

Going over the posts, I think quite a few of us here have home theatres and digital TVs, or aspire to have one soon (I don't have a HT right now, but will plan for it now that the big TV's here). For almost no extra cost, if I can be future ready to some extent, and have some convenience, I would definitely go for it. As far as I'm concerned, that's added some weight in my tilt towards the Philips (I've always used LG players earlier, and my experience with Samsung is, well, clear in these forums).

So: if you can use it, HDMI CEC is definitely something nice to have... if you don't have it though, you're not loosing the home theater experience.

Hi! Thanks for taking time out to check the post...

Well, to be frank I'll tell you something from my personal experience. I have a Philips 5.1 analog home theatre. I have tested DVP 5986 with analog systems and CEC doesn't work at all with analog things! One needs not just a home theatre but a digital home theatre, not an analog one for CEC to work. And we all know how much a digital home theatre (with CEC) costs, a decent one wont be cheaper than 20K. (I think I understated the price a bit though. Most good digital home theatres are more than 30K.) And most people, even today, buy analog home theatre systems, rather than digital ones. Like you said, many people over here have home theatres. You're right. But how many people have digital home theatres? Hmm, I don't think many.

The TV switching on the DVD player is no doubt an extremely useful feature but it has its flaws. I need my dvd player always switched on from the mains to make sure the CEC works. And the same goes for my home theatre. So, every time I switch on my TV, I have to make sure all CEC things are switched on. That's not exactly much of an electricity consumption, but over time, its definitely a good amount of electricity wastage.

I am not quite sure CEC would work with cheaper cables though. I asked someone who is familiar with HDMI about these things, and he said CEC is extremely jittery when it comes to cheaper cables. Most cheaper cables dont even support CEC, and since the cheaper cables (and even some extremely expensive ones like JAE) dont come in packaging mentioning details about properties of the cable, so it would definitely be a risk to go for cheaper HDMI cables.

LG DV388, supports LCDs of Sony, Samsung, Hitachi (and obviously LG:) ) etc. I have a Sony LCD, and the LG remote works like a breeze. I have no compatibility issues at all. Infact I can do almost everything CEC is offering without having to use CEC supported devices. I am not vouching for LG though. CEC is definitely better than non-CEC. But trust me, few can afford the extensive expenses. And since I don't have a digital home theatre, I didnt want to fool myself by going for a CEC supported dvd player. When I go for a digital home theatre (as I mentioned earlier, I have an analog home theatre), sometime later, I'll definitely have to go for CEC. But anything before that is like money going down the drain.
 
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Someone plz plz plz help me with the NTSC/PAL thing in LG DV388.
DV 388 has Pal/NTSC but lacks Auto mode. Has anyone found a solution???

Illusion and dirtybluejeans plz help!
 
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My 2 cents of thought...

I got myself a universal remote and configured one key on the remote to turn on the TV, DVD, HT System and to turn them off! A universal remote would turn out cheaper.
 
My 2 cents of thought...

I got myself a universal remote and configured one key on the remote to turn on the TV, DVD, HT System and to turn them off! A universal remote would turn out cheaper.

How much did it cost? What company is it?
 
Someone plz plz plz help me with the NTSC/PAL thing in LG DV388.
DV 388 has Pal/NTSC but lacks Auto mode. Has anyone found a solution???

Illusion and dirtybluejeans plz help!


I am really confused here cause I never faced a problem like this . In fact I dont think even the other LCD TV owners in this forum who have paired their LCD with DV 388 faced that problem. Did you buy your LCD from USA any chance ? I dont know whether that can be a factor but still.....
 
I am really confused here cause I never faced a problem like this . In fact I dont think even the other LCD TV owners in this forum who have paired their LCD with DV 388 faced that problem. Did you buy your LCD from USA any chance ? I dont know whether that can be a factor but still.....

Ok, I'll try to state this as clearly as possible. There are two modes for video watching, right? NTSC and PAL. Now how do you change from one mode to the other in LG DV388? Well, eject your dvd tray and press pause for 5 seconds. The system changes to PAL and NTSC one after the other. Now there's supposed to be an Auto mode where I dont have to input the nature of the source, and the dvd player automatically detects whether a dvd is NTSC or PAL and changes its mode accordingly.

You may not have tried changing the mode so you havent noticed the problem. Please try it. Its on page 17 or something on the manual. And no my dvd player and LCD was bought in India! :) From E-zone.

Illusion please reply.
 
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Hi! Thanks for taking time out to check the post...

Well, to be frank I'll tell you something from my personal experience. I have a Philips 5.1 analog home theatre. I have tested DVP 5986 with analog systems and CEC doesn't work at all with analog things! One needs not just a home theatre but a digital home theatre, not an analog one for CEC to work. And we all know how much a digital home theatre (with CEC) costs, a decent one wont be cheaper than 20K. (I think I understated the price a bit though. Most good digital home theatres are more than 30K.) And most people, even today, buy analog home theatre systems, rather than digital ones. Like you said, many people over here have home theatres. You're right. But how many people have digital home theatres? Hmm, I don't think many.

The TV switching on the DVD player is no doubt an extremely useful feature but it has its flaws. I need my dvd player always switched on from the mains to make sure the CEC works. And the same goes for my home theatre. So, every time I switch on my TV, I have to make sure all CEC things are switched on. That's not exactly much of an electricity consumption, but over time, its definitely a good amount of electricity wastage.

I am not quite sure CEC would work with cheaper cables though. I asked someone who is familiar with HDMI about these things, and he said CEC is extremely jittery when it comes to cheaper cables. Most cheaper cables dont even support CEC, and since the cheaper cables (and even some extremely expensive ones like JAE) dont come in packaging mentioning details about properties of the cable, so it would definitely be a risk to go for cheaper HDMI cables.

LG DV388, supports LCDs of Sony, Samsung, Hitachi (and obviously LG:) ) etc. I have a Sony LCD, and the LG remote works like a breeze. I have no compatibility issues at all. Infact I can do almost everything CEC is offering without having to use CEC supported devices. I am not vouching for LG though. CEC is definitely better than non-CEC. But trust me, few can afford the extensive expenses. And since I don't have a digital home theatre, I didnt want to fool myself by going for a CEC supported dvd player. When I go for a digital home theatre (as I mentioned earlier, I have an analog home theatre), sometime later, I'll definitely have to go for CEC. But anything before that is like money going down the drain.

Hmm... not sure what you mean by a digital HT... Most useable inputs of any HT are actually analog inputs. And even analog HT systems have digital optical or coaxial inputs. As for devices, even my 5 year old LG had a digital coax out. So, digital inputs and outputs abound, even in the analog world. What you need for CEC is HDMI, so even if your analog receiver has one HDMI port (which is also digital) - and many do - CEC would work. I don't even have an HT, and I'm in favor of CEC, simply because my DVD player and TV would support it. I don't want my kid or wife fiddling with switches and plugs, so I have ONE switch which controls the power for the whole lot. Devices in standby consume very little power, and they are only on standby while my TV is on (otherwise the whole thing would be switched off from the 'mains'). Of course, no system in the world can power up a device which is 'fully' switched off.

A universal remote is certainly handy here: specially the ones where you can record macros - so one button press can actually send out a series of commands to multiple devices - but remember, they have to be powered on too (but may be on standby).

CEC is a standard that works over HDMI - and it needs a fully-capable HDMI cable. That doesn't refer to the quality or build, but the wiring. Some very cheap manufacturers get away by only including the internal wiring needed for digital AV, but nothing more. However, as I mentioned, the cable I got with my Samsung worked fine, as did some other - cheaper - cables I tried.

Finally, if I may say so, it's a matter of convenience for me, and to a certain extent I feel safer that my family doesn't have to dabble with power cables/switches etc. And all this comes at NO additional cost to me (almost all LCD/Plasma TVs have HDMI and some form of CEC, as do most DVD players with HDMI. You will anyway be using an HDMI cable to connect the two, it's just a question of using it fully.
 
The resolution is less than 720x576. So, it would play on any normal dvd player. Plus the bit rate is around 2000 and the file size is around 2gb. You can search any torrent site for hd rips. By hd I mean high def, it may be blu ray rips as well!:)

Well, once it's ripped, it doesn't matter if it was from Blueray or HDDVD: it becomes a divx or xvid or whatever. BD/HDDVD primarily differs in the physical media format and hardware, and on-disc encoding, both finally decoding to a bitstream that goes into the video processor.

Sigh! I wish DVD player manufacturers would come clean and allow DIvX >576px to be played. It's certainly possible, at least for the ones that upscale to 1080 (in fact, the player would have to work less for scaling a taller video)... they just hide behind the garb of providing compatibility to PAL or NTSC, which is silly since they output to 1080p.

Ah, well, I guess if they removed this limitation, there would be few takers for the actual BD players and media.
 
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