Any news on the Philips DFR9000?

Petrushka
I don't currently have SKY HD or the XBox360 yet.
I have SKY+ which is optical out, and a normal Xbox which is also optical.
It looks like it has three coaxial type digital inputs. So i was just wondering if it would have been better to put two optical and two coaxial connectors inputs etc.

After Xmas, i should be swapping to SKY HD, which comes with HDMI, and i hope the XBox360 will eventually offer HDMI.

It seems a mute point since it doesn't appear to be available here yet... :rolleyes:
 
pdonovan said:
Is this model available anywhere in the UK yet? I can't find a single UK or even English speaking online source when searching Google, Froogle or Kelkoo.

What would be the downsides of getting it from Holland apart from the obvious power plug/cable needing changing?

Cheers, Paul


Mine had a normal :D and a UK powercord in the box.
 
Paul D said:
Petrushka
I don't currently have SKY HD or the XBox360 yet.
I have SKY+ which is optical out, and a normal Xbox which is also optical.
It looks like it has three coaxial type digital inputs. So i was just wondering if it would have been better to put two optical and two coaxial connectors inputs etc.

After Xmas, i should be swapping to SKY HD, which comes with HDMI, and i hope the XBox360 will eventually offer HDMI.

It seems a mute point since it doesn't appear to be available here yet... :rolleyes:


Ever heard of opt/coax converters? And reverse ...... :devil:
 
marconist,
i actually have a optical to coaxial converter.
It needs its own power adapter, and adds another small box to try and hide.
I'm trying to reduce the amount of wiring and adapters as it is!

I managed to get my Jamo amp working again, so i'm no longer in as much a hurry.
I will await the release over here, by which time i should be all HDMI anyway etc.. :smashin:
 
Paul D said:
marconist,
i actually have a optical to coaxial converter.
It needs its own power adapter, and adds another small box to try and hide.
I'm trying to reduce the amount of wiring and adapters as it is!

I managed to get my Jamo amp working again, so i'm no longer in as much a hurry.
I will await the release over here, by which time i should be all HDMI anyway etc.. :smashin:

Hi Paul,
Was just a nasty remark ..... :oops:
I have about the same problem. The DFR9000 has to many possibilities and quality in a very small box; this implies to little connection possibilities when you want to connect much equipment to to thing. :D
Maybe Philips should offer some (integrated on the remote!) extensionbox for freaks. :rolleyes:
 
I finally got a response from Philips UK after asking them in September about obtaining this in the UK.
Philips Consumer Care said:
Thank you for your recent e-mail.

With regards to your query we can advise that the release of the
DFR9000/01 is currently delayed.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused.
No mention of a planned release date or what the delay is, but from what I've heard Philips aren't too good at providing information at the best of times so I consider myself lucky to get even this far.

So, has anyone got any recommendations as to where to obtain this in Europe? I'd be looking at a provider that ships to the UK and is reliable, rather than supply at the cheapest price.
 
weejimmy said:
I finally got a response from Philips UK after asking them in September about obtaining this in the UK.

No mention of a planned release date or what the delay is, but from what I've heard Philips aren't too good at providing information at the best of times so I consider myself lucky to get even this far.

So, has anyone got any recommendations as to where to obtain this in Europe? I'd be looking at a provider that ships to the UK and is reliable, rather than supply at the cheapest price.


There are two rumors in the market:
- Unreliable displays causing warranty/production problems.
- Typical Philips behaviour: they did not predict the salesvolumes very well.

No idea which one is true. :rolleyes:

It seems they only deliver rather well (within 3 weeks) in Germany and Holland.
If you have someone in your neighbourhood who worked in Holland and has a little bit of understanding of the language you might try the next consumers site:
http://www.kieskeurig.nl/kopen/E9A165BEED8C8FBCC1256FEA002C0695.htm

Mostly the retailers are quite reliable financially (law is strict) but they may be on a list of "too low pricing" so that Philips will not supply them!
If you phone (most speak English) you often discover that they publish a high price, but are willing to give a discount (which might help you with shipping costs).
As with any internet deal try to make sure that you keep in control of your money, that may be through PayPal or a good creditcard company or some kind of controlled bank transfer; although that is often costly.

Or travel to Holland yourself, many of them do cash transactions and a return ticket from London and surroundings is quite cheap todays.
 
I am thinking of buying one of these, but it is very important that I can get the HDMI and component video inputs to be output via the Svideo out (REC OUT) and/or the CVBS (composite) out. In other words, basically what I am looking for is downcoverting and downscaling ALL inputs to the SVideo port. (this might save me buying the DVDO VP30 that I have on order and ships soon).

The reason for this is that I use my projector about 50% of the time, but like to sometimes use my old bigscreen TV in a bright environment, and it only has SVideo and Composite imputs.

The users manuals says at item 7.5 (p28) "when recording, the incoming signal is reproduced by all audio and - if the souce includes a video signal - video outputs of the receiver."

I just don't believe it.
I so far have 2 conflicting answers, 1 says yes, another says no, and no response from Philips yet.
Can anyone with a unit very kindly test this for me and post the results please?
 
cyborgx said:
I just don't believe it.
I so far have 2 conflicting answers, 1 says yes, another says no, and no response from Philips yet.
Can anyone with a unit very kindly test this for me and post the results please?


I don't bellieve it either.
I'm not using HDMI at the moment, but on German sites you find that the DFR9000 upscales, not down!
Seems also to be quite logical due to the fact that HDMI is to protect content; also on the "old" formats.
Probably there will be no receiver on the market that will do this trick. You probably have to wait until somebody puts a (computer)crack in the net.
 
Thanks. I know it transcodes and upconverts, but from the manual it should also scale down to allow recording via the SVideo REC OUT.

I understand the HDCP issues, but I am using a DVI source that does not have HDCP, and HDCP does not apply to the component in either.

I'd just like someone who has one to try using the HDMI and Component inputs, and see if they can view anything at 480i out of the SVideo port.

I can buy a SVGA downconverter to SVideo for around $50 so I don't think it's rocket science. The signal is already digital, and they have powerful processors there, it might be just a question of whether they implement it or not. The manual says yes, just need someone to kindly do a quick test.
 
So where has everyone been ordering them from then? Looking to order by end of this week so need a quick recommendation!

Holland, Belgium, or Germany?

Thanks/...
 
Just got this email from Philips UK:

Thank you for your recent e-mail.

With regards to your query we can advise that the DFR9000 will no
longer be released in the UK.

We trust that the information provided will be of assistance.


Happy new year Philips !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
jerkyboy said:
Just got this email from Philips UK:

Thank you for your recent e-mail.

With regards to your query we can advise that the DFR9000 will no
longer be released in the UK.

We trust that the information provided will be of assistance.


Happy new year Philips !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Phoned Philips in the Netherlands.
They say its the decision of Philips UK as the DFR9000 is still produced.

The reason probably is that the "highend" product is hard to sell and Philips is making better results bij selling their complete systems (with speakers etc.).
Seems the only solution is ordering on the continent. Warranty is WW anyhow.
 
lol
I've just seen this thread!..... I asked Philips about this Unit lats tueday and got the following reply!

"Thank you for your recent e-mail.

With regards to your query we can advise that unfortunately as yet we
do not have a release date for this unit."

So has anyone in the UK got one of these units yet?? is there any downside to importing it? If not does anyone know the best place to import it from?

Dave
 
I'm having a look at www.hifi-regler.de (659 Euros) but I think they like to bump up the shipping costs to the UK. And they will do with this one if they know it isn't available in the UK. What is it about the UK? Ripped off, only the crap producs and some of the highest prices in Europe.

Anybody tried hifi-regler.de?

EDIT: Can you use 4mm banana plugs in the speaker connections?
 
Thanks, marconist. It's going to be hard work for me to buy this, as usual, because I have to buy it from Europe - this has been a recurrent theme in my quest for a decent system at a fair price: cables from USA, Polk speakers from USA, Networked DVD player from Australia, dual tuner HDTV card PCI from Australia. All my satellite gear came from Germany too. The list goes on.

I like the look of this because it has a digital amp, hdmi switching and runs 4 Ohm speakers natively. Best of all it will even fit into my Toshiba 32WLT58 floorstand: can you conceive fixed shelves and a maximum shelf height of 156mm? Crazy.

Is it going to be worth the effort?
 
rhubarbe said:
Thanks, marconist. It's going to be hard work for me to buy this, as usual, because I have to buy it from Europe - this has been a recurrent theme in my quest for a decent system at a fair price: cables from USA, Polk speakers from USA, Networked DVD player from Australia, dual tuner HDTV card PCI from Australia. All my satellite gear came from Germany too. The list goes on.

I like the look of this because it has a digital amp, hdmi switching and runs 4 Ohm speakers natively. Best of all it will even fit into my Toshiba 32WLT58 floorstand: can you conceive fixed shelves and a maximum shelf height of 156mm? Crazy.

Is it going to be worth the effort?


I thought that the UK is part of Europe. At least my UK friends say so! :D ;) ;)

I'm using the thing now for some 5 months and I am still very happy with it.
My only real problem is the display. Philips has listened too much to the box designers! It may be looking OK, but if you want to check out your settings you have to walk up to it unless you have satellite-camera eyes. :eek:
The most impressive thing for me is the sound of the thing, also in stereo. I carried it over to a couple of friends (HiFi freaks) with considerably more expensive equipment (you know the fancy makes :cool: ) and everytime they were very asthonished. The thing is very easy on speakers, not critical at all and the UcD pwramps and lownoise electronics do their job wonderfully.
Video is very good as well with lots of nice adjustments. Of course the DFR9000 is not ideal; sometimes you miss inputs (limited by the small backpanel) or a handier way to interconnect your video. But mostly it offers good possibilities for a quality work-around.

Its a nice little wonderbox. :thumbsup:

If you buy in Germany, make sure that you can exchange easily in case you receive a Mondaymorning-product. I hear Philips is very easy on it, but shippers resent the extra cost! (of course).
If you read a bit German, then this site can give you some extra info:

http://www.hifi-forum.de/viewthread-101-213-1.html

Good luck!
 
Excellent, thanks. Just waiting to hear from the Germans. That German forum is a bit too much: all those long words like "Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz" :eek: which I know has more to do with pork than hi-fi but you get my drift, no?

Just another question while we are talking about this remarkabkle receiver: does the wonderful Faroudja chip upscale RGBs and YUV sources to HDMI ???

EDIT: Ah yes, another question. The DFR 9000 only has three digital audio inputs: two coaxial and one optical. If I am connecting say a DVD player that has HDMI out, and I connect the DVD player to the DFR 9000 by the HDMI input, do I also have to connect the digital audio out of the DVD player to the digital audio input on the DFR 9000?
 
rhubarbe said:
Excellent, thanks. Just waiting to hear from the Germans. That German forum is a bit too much: all those long words like "Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz" :eek: which I know has more to do with pork than hi-fi but you get my drift, no?

Just another question while we are talking about this remarkabkle receiver: does the wonderful Faroudja chip upscale RGBs and YUV sources to HDMI ???

EDIT: Ah yes, another question. The DFR 9000 only has three digital audio inputs: two coaxial and one optical. If I am connecting say a DVD player that has HDMI out, and I connect the DVD player to the DFR 9000 by the HDMI input, do I also have to connect the digital audio out of the DVD player to the digital audio input on the DFR 9000?


No experience myself yet (I use a normal projection TV (Sony)), but if I believe the Germans, it does a good job. Remember: the picture cannot get better than it is. Faroudja is no substitude for HDTV. :D

No, but due to the fact that HDMI 1.1 is not very flexible (some people say that 1.1 is not finished and we have to wait for 1.2) it maybe more interesting to connect the player digital (or analog in case of SACD), because you have then more switching and copying facilities.

I mostly hear complaints of people that use HDMI (never mind the make of the equipment), due to the limiting factors around it. Some on purpose use a HDMI to DVI cable to be free in connecting their audio and game computers.
In the Philips that is not neccesary because you can freely switch your audioinputs

Some hope for a Philips update from 1.1 to 1.2. I don't know whether that can be done ...... it is programmable anyhow, but you need a special software package for it.
As far as I know there is noone on the market yet with a full fledged 1.2, due to the fact that the final(?) agreement has only been reached in November 2005 or something ........

Life gets more complicated with every new box! :devil: ;)
 

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