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| Date Reviewed: 01/16/2006 |
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 Okay DVD Recorder... Strengths: Has a fancy cool gadget look, picture quality is decent, and it has a stereo tuner and records stereo signal
Weaknesses: Menu is confusing, remote control is horrible, having problems recording.
Summary: This DVD recorder is pretty decent compared to other DVD recorders I had. The picture quality is really good w/ progressive scan, and it records in Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo. I had alot of problems getting it to work at first. I've found that they have updated the firmware and once I've install the newest firmware, everything worked flawlessly. The part that I hate the most is the remote control. It's bulky and definitely not user-friendly. It took me awhile to read through the menu to find out how to get the recorder to work. It works fine now, but I would probably not purchase again.
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| Date Reviewed: 02/05/2006 |
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 Philips DVDR-615 DVD Recorder - A Decent Machine for the Price Strengths: Recording, picture quality
Weaknesses: Remote, occasionally confusing menus
Summary: The Philips DVDR615 DVD Recorder/CD Player/DVD Player is a good machine with the normal drawbacks. It is not great by any means, but it will satisfy your basic needs and a little bit more.
SETUP: Setup is easy-if you know what you’re doing. It will be harder for those inexperienced with setting up home entertainment devices. It is a bit complicated to figure out which cable goes with which port, but if you are upgrading from a VCR you can compare ports. After a long tedious moment of frustration, you will eventually yell “Eureka!” and you will complete setup.
After you hook up the recorder to the TV and the wall, you will need to scan for channels and change the clock settings. Note that if you get no channels the first time, you can reset up and try it again. There is a small counter under the scan channels option, showing you the number of channels it has found.
In case you were wondering, DVD recorders need to scan for channels for the following reason: you will only be able to record on channels that the DVD recorder recognizes.
STARTING TO PLAY DVD MOVIES OR TELEVISION SHOWS, OR ANY OTHER NON-SELF-RECORDED DISCS: To play non-self-recorded disks, follow these easy-to-understand steps:
Go to the recorder and hit the up arrow button to open the disc tray. (You can also open the tray by holding down the stop button on your remote. This feature is a bit annoying; there should be a separate eject button, but alas, none of the sort.)
Place the disc in the tray, and press the up arrow or hold down the stop button again to close the tray. A small bar will come up at the top of the TV screen, with a clock, and the word “READING”. When it is done, a message may come up: “Do you want to access the disc’s contents?”. Press the up button on you remote until you get to “YES” and press OK.
An extremely bizarre menu will come up. PLEASE IGNORE THE MENU. It goes on about titles and all this ridiculous stuff even I can’t discern. Please, press “DISC” on your remote. The menu provided by the makers of the disc will appear. Use the arrow keys and the OK or PLAY button on your remote to navigate the menu. When you are done with a particular feature and want to go back to the main menu, annoyingly, you have to press “DISC” again. Press “STOP” only if you want to end your time with the “DISC”. When you want to retrieve the disc from the tray, hold down the “STOP” button on your remote.
TIPS FOR FAST FORWARDING, REWINDING, SLOW-MO, PAUSE AND CHAPTER NAVIGATING: This is one of the worst things about the recorder. Fast-forwarding and rewinding is one of the toughest things to do on this player. To fast-forward, you have to hold down the double right-pointing arrow key, also known as the “NEXT CHAPTER” button. If you want to just fast-forward a few minutes, DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES PRESS THAT BUTTON AND IMMEDIATELY LET GO. HOLD IT DOWN! When you see the bar on the top of the screen, telling you that the feature you are watching is moving at 4X its normal speed. If you decide that 4X is too slow, HOLD DOWN the “NEXT CHAPTER” button again until you see 8X. There is also a 32X, but it is easier to press and remove to the next chapter, than 32X. Press and remove the “NEXT CHAPTER” button to move to the next chapter. Similarly to the “STOP-EJECT” issue, it would be a lot easier if “NEXT CHAPTER” and the nonexistent “FAST-FORWARD” button were separate.
To rewind, repeat the above, except use the “PREVIOUS CHAPTER” button instead.
To pause, push the parallel-lines button, otherwise known as the “PAUSE” button. To resume normal play, press, the large right-pointing arrow button, also called “PLAY”. To move in slow-motion, hold down the “NEXT CHAPTER” button, and to rewind in slow-motion, hold down the “PREVIOUS CHAPTER” button. Once again, the buttons should be separate.
Confused yet?
RECORDING: You can record on DVD+R and DVD+RW discs. Recording is one of the EASIEST things to do on this recorder. Well, it should be, it is a DVD Recorder.
To record, simply:
Place a DVD+R or DVD+RW (the only difference is that on a DVD+RW you can record over other recordings and on a DVD+R disc you can only delete recordings without recording over them) disc in the tray.
Press record on the player to immediately begin recording on the channel you are on. To stop recording, press stop.
To do manual recording, press the “TIMER” button on your remote. Then press the green button. Set the times using the arrow keys. It’s SO easy. Then set the channel. If you, for example, record something on Monday from 8:00-8:30 and you want to do it again next week, press “REPEAT TWICE” on the screen. Finally, to have room for 2 hours of recording, press M2. For 2.5 hours, scroll down to M2X, for 3 do M3 and so on. Quality is better with less hours of recording.
93% of People (13/14) found this review helpful. Was this review helpful or unhelpful for you?
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| Date Reviewed: 02/07/2005 |
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philips
Strengths: Picture Quality,easy to use,
Weaknesses: cheap looking menue on dvd
Summary: 2005-08-19 12:57:52 i like it for this kind of money u pay it does what it say.
its easy to use it needs DVD+ or +RWs but thats known.
if u expect lot more u must pay more.
06/05
Downgrade to 2 Stars after several contacts with Philips' unfriendly Indian "Customer Service" i gave up i found out that everytime a new chapter plays it shows up in the left corner of the screen for a few seconds i searched the manual to disable that nothing contacted philips they first denied this bothering issue than got unfriendly with words like "we can,t help you" .
78% of People (18/23) found this review helpful. Was this review helpful or unhelpful for you?
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| Date Reviewed: 01/03/2006 |
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Good recorder for the amount paid.
Strengths: Excellant picture quality. More or less near to the original video. Ease of recording.
Weaknesses: Not so friendly remote at least at the beginning.
Summary: I was a little concerned when I bought this from Circuit City but changed my opinion right away after the first recording. I have converted my Hi8 tapes to DVD and amazed at the picture quality. No doubt about that.
But if you want customized menu's and fancy features, then this recorder is not for you. May be you can create the initial dvd from this recorder and then reauthor it using your computer to your satisfaction. But I am happy with what the recorder is providing.
But the bad part is the YesDVD provided as a trial did not work. When I opted for the YesDvd at the end of recording it created(at least as per their claim) the DVD with menu's and sound track but when I played it never worked.
I am going to keep this even with these short comings.
75% of People (3/4) found this review helpful. Was this review helpful or unhelpful for you?
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| Date Reviewed: 11/18/2005 |
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 Don't Buy Strengths: None
Weaknesses: Everything
Summary: If you buy, you will regret it. My machine broke down 36 days after purchase from Circuit City. Circuit City wouldn't take it back because it was 6 days over their return policy. Sent it to Philips and....more than a month later, they can't find it and won't tell me if they will ever find it and that's it. No more info from them.
75% of People (3/4) found this review helpful. Was this review helpful or unhelpful for you?
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| Date Reviewed: 11/11/2005 |
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Not worth the money spent
Strengths: easy setup
Weaknesses: software design, workmanship
Summary: Right after connecting the player to my TV, I put in a DVD and pushed play. image quality was good, but i notice that after each DVD chapter, the chapter info would pop up on the screen. I could not find any information on how to turn this "feature" off in the user manual. I called tech support and was told that in to turn off the chapter info during playback, I needed to download a firmware upgrade onto my computer; burn the image onto a disk, then insert the disk into the DVD player. This worked, but why would this not have been worked out before releasing the model to market? After about 3 months from purchase the unit dies completely. I called Philips and was told to take the DVD player to an authorized dealer- whose name Philips provided. I have just been informed by the repair shop that Philips will not authorize the repair and that the unit must be sent to the Philips Depot.
I purchased a Philip HD TV in past and had problems with it. I thought to give the maker a second chance and bought the DVD player. I've been dissatisfied with both and in the future will stick with other brands. I suggest you do the same.
67% of People (2/3) found this review helpful. Was this review helpful or unhelpful for you?
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| Date Reviewed: 12/10/2004 |
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The time recording is some what difficult to setup ...
Strengths: Basic setup
Weaknesses: COnfussing to switch from DVD recorder to cable TV. This unit does not like several of the DVD+R disk on the market today. It only likes the BIg Brand name disk like Memorex, Verbatim.
Summary: The time recording is some what difficult to setup and it does not like off brand disk. It indicates that the disk is being recorded but after burning the disk will not finalize and you keep getting disk error messages. I suggest reading the owners manual before purchasing any DVD recorder. I have checked out several including, Sanyo, Panasonic, Lite-On, Pioneer and this Phillips. The Lite-on 5005 is still the best value and it does not care about big brand name disk.
57% of People (8/14) found this review helpful. Was this review helpful or unhelpful for you?
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| Date Reviewed: 02/04/2006 |
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DVDR
Strengths: cheap price
Weaknesses: difficult to set up
Summary: The price is really good after rebate for a DVD recorder. Howevever, it is extremely diffilcult to use remote to set up recording. If you just need it to replace VCR, it might be okay, but for further application, you would be dissapointed.
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| Date Reviewed: 01/19/2006 |
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A great DVD recorder for the price.
Strengths: price, good number of input/output ports, supports multiple formats, good brand and good recording.
Weaknesses: remote is very limited, editing is clumsy, very noisy fan, playback is a bit subtle.
Summary: I chose to buy this recorder because of its price and the variety of formats it supports. Secondly, the brand name was good. I have been wanting to convert my 8mm camcorder tapes to DVDs and this makes it easy, especially with the formats it supports. It has a good number of input ports which is a plus. However, there are several negatives: the fan makes a lot of noise, the remote is very clumsy to use, playback is not as simple as in a regular DVD player, editing is kind of tricky. I would recommend this player for its price.
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| Date Reviewed: 01/15/2006 |
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Nead to upgrade firmware first!
Strengths: S-video and component video input, Best value in the price arange
Weaknesses: Only support DVD+, need to upgrade firmware in order to fix bugs; not very easy to use remote control
Summary: Before you start recording, please make sure to go to Philips website to get lastest firmware upgrade. Otherwise, it will not give you a lot of trouble. I do not like its on-screen user interface, kind of hard to understand.
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| Date Reviewed: 12/30/2005 |
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This unit stinks!!! Do not buy!!!
Strengths: None
Weaknesses: Everything
Summary: I got this unit primarily to record my mini dv home movies onto dvd...it worked fine for a couple of weeks but then started freezing and everything that had been recorded up to that point was wiped out...customer support told me to try the firmware update that they had on the philips website, but that did not work either...all I got from this recorder was 2 completed dvds, 10 wasted dvds, 3 wasted cds(from the upgrade) and 1 headache.
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| Date Reviewed: 12/22/2005 |
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Decent Recorder/Player for the price
Strengths: Good looking unit, S-Video and Component Inputs. Great features for the price.
Weaknesses: Only records on +R/RW format.
User manual could use improvement
Summary: The unit is a good looking unit, but much bigger than many other Philips (specifically the popular 642 unit) DVD Players. On the plus side is the fact it has component inputs as well as S-Video. Also the street price on this unit has recently dropped so deals should be had.
On the negative side is the fact that it only records on +R/RW format and does not support the -R format. Also, Philips has notorioulsy had poor performing recording units so it may be hit or miss for you. So far so good for me on this unit.
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| Date Reviewed: 12/22/2005 |
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Worst DVD Recorder ever had
Strengths: none
Weaknesses: everything
Summary: The user manual was poorly written and it took me almost two hours to figure out how to switch between DVD/TV inputs (pushing the "monitor" button????) and how to cycle through the various a/v inputs (channel +/-). After figuring out these out solutions, I was able record a few shows finally. I have a Dish Network DVR and I was fairly satisified with the quality of the picture through the component video input of some of my favorite shows.
I big plus is its multiple timing settings for recording, 1, 2, 2.5, 4, 6 and 8 hour settings. The 2.5 hour setting really helps with those movies that barely go over 2 hours but you don't want to sacrifice the quality by switching to 4 hour mode.
The title menu creation options are limited with the ability to add a background picture to the menu from a paused screen and editing the text of the title.
The remote control is also cumbersome in that the fast forwarding and forward skipping is accomplished by the same button, by either tapping it or holding it down which can be frustrating if you don't time it right and end up missing and entire chapter and then you have to go back.
I also have problems with it playing DVD+ home movies I created on my computer drive. It states that there is a disc error. It will only read DVD- discs made externally.
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| Date Reviewed: 12/22/2005 |
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nice machine
Strengths: stylish, pic quality
Weaknesses: format, only takes dvd+
Summary: I have not had a recording failure and there's been no DICS failure as other descirbe. for $95AR, you really can't complain this dvd recorder. it's a perfect compliment to your tivo
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