what to do about Philips DVDR75?

E

Elmo76

Guest
I bought the Philips dvdr75 recorder a while ago, and as yet haven't taken it out of the box. The trouble is I've heard a few people say it suffers from a lot of faults, and also it doesn't have component inputs or progressive scan.

Thus, I don't know whether to take it back and exchange it for a good dvd player with progressive scan, and wait till DVD recorders have HDD and progressive scan. Or get the money back and wait till such a recorder comes out, or keep the DVDR75 and have done with it!!

What should I do folks? I'd appreciate advice. i just want maximum performance.:confused:
 
Well I have its cheaper brother the 70, not had any problems with it. PQ via RGB scart is identical to the free-view signal recorded ,V good even at M2+

Even produces a fine pic into my 504 (at 625i) with pre-recorded.

OK not as good as the 868 at 720p HDMI, but hey, look at what it is designed for and how much it costs!

B.:)
 
Nowadays unreliability goes with models or production runs, not manufacturers. A manufacturer who makes unreliable products goes out of business. Despite the popularity of badmouthing Philips recorders in general, I couldn't find any evidence that the DVDR75 and its siblings are unreliable; it's earlier models that had a problem. Most of the other stuff I read was simply hearsay, mainly from Panasonic owners!

I can't fault the recording quality when recording broadcast programmes. Picture quality is near enough indistinguishable from the original Sky+ when played back using my 868; it's slightly worse played back with the DVDR75 itself. Of course you lose the dolby 5.1 on some Sky movies.

Short of modifying a Sky+v1 box for diital output, I can't see you are going to get much better than the DVDR75 for recording off-air.
 
I couldn't find any evidence that the DVDR75 and its siblings are unreliable
Which is mildly amusing given that three out of the five current Philips threads relate to some problem or another ;)

Seriously the Philips DVDR70 series have proven more reliable than the 880/890 series. But remember that most of the problems with the original series occurred after several months of ownership. Like ANY DVDR user always make sure you have plenty of backups.
 
Which is mildly amusing given that three out of the five current Philips threads relate to some problem or another

Ironic also that there are 4 panasonic threads relating to some problem or another - stuck disc, audio feedback, can't record and watch sky, won't store ntl channel.

And I was thinking about buying a Panny too but now seeing those reliability problems... ;)
 
I had to swap my first 75 because it kept hanging when starting up. The second one seems to work fine. I basically use it as a record-only device, though. There is nothing wrong with the quality of its playback but the time it takes to read a disk when starting is inordinate, and it seems sluggish responding to controls.

I would say keep it if you need a recorder now, as you won't get anything as versatile for the same (discounted) price. But if you are buying it as a playback device then you could do better elsewhere.
 
Ironic also that there are 4 panasonic threads relating to some problem or another - stuck disc, audio feedback, can't record and watch sky, won't store ntl channel.
LOL! That's a fair point I suppose - although you have to remember there are alot more minus users on the forum than + ones! Also you have to remember that sales of the DVDR70 series haven't been anywhere near the levels of the 880 series - the well reported problems of Philips models, the arrival of credible DVD-RW machines and the general acceptance that HDD/DVDR combos are the way forward has hit the upper end/middle market whilst cheap models such as the Mico and Grundig have eaten into Philips' core market (hence why we are finally going to see some home cinema related innovations in the upcoming models). Conversely many would be buyers of Philips models have opted for the Panasonic range - one that has more-or-less maintained it's quality. Even on forums such as Digital Spy (which tend to favour lower end users) the Panasonic's have a very good reputation. Problems such as stuck disks are a symptom of the media not the recorder Significantly how many Panasonic users have lost a recording? And that is what these machines are all about ;)

And I was thinking about buying a Panny too
Maybe you'll consider the new Sony range as it becomes available throughout the year. Some of their machines look very impressive - the RX10 especially which, IMHO, will give the top-end Panasonic model a serious challenge.
 
I bought the Philips dvdr75 a few months ago from Richer Sounds, so far I've had no problems with it atall and to be honest I'm real happy with the playback (although I was used to using my PS2 as a player so maybe not a fair comparison, I don't know). As for recordings, perfect for me, as crisp as the freeview transmission.

I just bought the Humax PVR800t to go along with mine, they match up beautifuly and I now have the Humax 40gig H/D for recording and my Philips dvdr75 for archiving, for the money I paid for the two (with the added freeview) I consider it a bargain (total cost = £384):smashin:

So my advice, keep it:smoke:
 
tetlee, can i ask where you bought the Humax from, looking for a simlar setup and the one you have would suit me fine, like you say that is a bargain/...
 
Stolt,
Yeah, I bought mine from QED, I did hear a couple of negative comments about the store from others here but as the price was so good I decided it was worth the chance. I think the problems people have had have been due to the store being out of stock of the items they ordered (from what I gather) so for that reason I made sure they were in stock before I ordered.
By the way, I just checked and they still have them in stock at the price I payed £144.20 inc. delivery. I ordered mine last sunday and received it yesterday (tuesday) so pretty happy with that. Like I said before it matches the philips dvdr75 perfectly (both have the silver & mirror fronts:D )
Have yet to try recording from the humax to the philips (think there were some issues with that but I think it has been sorted out with an update) as I only set it up last night. Might get to try that out later so I'll let you know on that. Apart from that though I'm well impressed so far:smashin:
 
tetlee, would me very interested in how it all goes, do you mind if I ask a few more questions so I understand a bit better,,, i use sky so could I record directly directly to the hard drive and play back through that, and use the philips to transfer my dv tapes.... if thats correct should work a treat, also you mentioned problems with earlier models transferring from the hard drive to the philips.. how do i know i get the latest model?

once gain sorry for all the question but fairly new to this..
thanks
 
Stolt,
I recorded Tigerland last night to the Humax so thought I'd see if there were any problems transfering the recording to the Philips dvdr75, great news, no problems and perfect copy:smashin: I had heard that a few months ago people were having problems copying from the Humax to certain dvd recorders, a problem that was supposedly being sorted out with a software update. Well, I haven't done any software updates yet so either my Humax came with the updated software or this issue did not effect the Philips dvdr75 (like I said, it was reported with certain dvd recorders so I guess not all were affected)
As far as recording from Sky goes, I'm fairly certain that this can not be done with this particular Humax product. As far as I'm aware you can only record from the Freeview channels that the Humax receives, infact I'm pretty sure of this. I don't have Sky so for me this setup is perfect :clap: :clap: :clap:
Anyway, i hope that's of some help and if you go for the Humax then I'm sure you'll be pleased, I think it's a great product!
 
thanks for taking the time to reply, unfortunatley if I can't record sky it wont help I guess I'm going to have to buy the e60 or the e65 (not a bad thing though :laugh: ) thanks for the update anyway and I'm glad it suits your set up.

rob
 

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