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| Date Reviewed: 01/01/2005 |
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Strengths: Easier than I expected. Love the fact that recording pauses when the signal ends...snow/noise etc. Great picture quality. I am an industry engineer and maybe I got lucky, but this deck is great.
Weaknesses: Making titles are a bit time consuming with the scrolling, but maybe there is an easier way.
Summary: Overall, I tested and looked at about a dozen models. This is as easy and simple to use if you know what you are doing. Not to take anything away from all the other reviews, but different strokes for different folks, and I bet it may be more operator error as opposed to machine malfunction. FYI I bought 3 more for my Mom, my brother, and for my work and not once has it failed. Now we are talking about burning 4-5 dvds a day in all the modes, and we QC them (quality control) and still no glitches. I just think more people that love these decks should stand up and say something. This is a great deck and I am not even a Philips guy...I have always bought and used Sony and then I tried this. I am just being honest with my personal experience. Great job Philips !!!
 100% of People (10/10) found this review helpful. Was this review helpful or unhelpful for you?
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| Date Reviewed: 08/02/2003 |
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 OK if you don't mind spending about 2 days editing ... Strengths: Disks work well in other drives. Ability to caption selected pictures in Title, having a long duration to store old video
Weaknesses: poor manual with poor troubleshooting section. Ignorant product service with no help for common problems.
Summary: 2003-10-11 18:54:59 OK if you don't mind spending about 2 days editing material for inclusion on a disk and then having the fully recorded disk just go blank with the unrecoverable words of death "unknown data on disk". There is no troubleshooting in the manual for this and all customer service does is send you software updates that boot up and tell you your recorder is already updated.
Beware that the manual is 2/3rds in another language and what you actually can read is poorly written and organized.
Edited to update after 120 days.
Biggest problem is near the end of the disk while recording several tracks with in and out use, a small fingerprint on the edge will cause the last track to have an unknown data error and it wipes out all other work.
Next biggest problem is that if you try to copy 6 hours of video at one time in an airconditioned room the processor overheats and quits with an unknown data error and a ruined disk. You then have to quit and let it cool for an hour or so every 2 hours. Problem goes away in cooler/dry weather.
96% of People (52/54) found this review helpful. Was this review helpful or unhelpful for you?
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| Date Reviewed: 02/13/2004 |
- cindyjk
from CA
- Member Since:
Feb 2004
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Reviews
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 Don't buy Philips! This is the 2nd DVD recorder o ... Strengths: NA
Weaknesses: NA
Summary: Don't buy Philips! This is the 2nd DVD recorder of theirs that I've used, and once again the problems are starting up. On the first one (DVDR985), I made about 100 disks with no problems; then the "disc errors" started in. After 3 trips to the shop, the store finally exchanged it for the DVDR75. I've made about another 100 discs with it, and once again, the disc errors start in. This time, I recorded a disc without any problems at all. But a week later, when I put that disc in the player, I get the dreaded "Disk contains unknown data" error, the disc won't play. I checked the last 20 disks I had made: THREE of them are unreadable! And please understand, during the actual recording process, I received no errors; everything looked hunky dory. It's only after you come back to the disk later on that you realize there's a problem.
Philips recorders are unreliable, and tech support is a joke. Their answer for everything is to send a firmware upgrade CD-ROM, that does NOTHING. Then, they want you to send it in for service. In my experience, the techs in the shop couldn't fix what was wrong either.
91% of People (52/57) found this review helpful. Was this review helpful or unhelpful for you?
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| Date Reviewed: 06/29/2004 |
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I must preface this review with the fact that I pu ...
Strengths: None
Weaknesses: Commercial DVDs do not work,
Customer Service is non-existant,
Constant Disc errors
Summary: 2004-06-29 09:29:38 I must preface this review with the fact that I purchase a DVDR985, the apparent predecessor of this unit. However, my complaints are the same as others who have purchased other units. So basically, Phillips did not even effectively correct the problems I have experienced in subsequent incarnations. My advice is simple: Do not buy this player or any other Phillips electronics!Soon after purchasing, the unit could not record DVD and then after my firmware upgrades the unit will not even recognize commercial DVDs. Phillips customer support is a joke. They are difficult to understand and thier answer is to just send out firmware upgrades that are useless. As a matter of comparison, I have a Sony player that works great after 5 years and this Phillips unit is useless as even a player because I cant even play rented movies on it. I am ready to beat it into pieces and send it to the Phillips CEO.
90% of People (38/42) found this review helpful. Was this review helpful or unhelpful for you?
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| Date Reviewed: 11/29/2004 |
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 Unlike the previous reviews - I've had little prob ... Strengths: Easy to use.
Weaknesses: None that I've come accross yet.
Summary: Unlike the previous reviews - I've had little problem with my Recorder. I have had a few spoilt discs but as I only use rewritables only the recordings were spoilt not the discs.I did find the 2 blank TDK rewritables that came with mine stopped working after only a few uses. I found Verbatim Rewritable discs work best for me.
I edit my recordings on my PC then decided whether to back them up or not permenantly on DVD-R's using my PC.
It's my first DVD Recorder (and I dont think it will be the last)it's a pity this Model has it's critics, but like I say I've had very little trouble with mine, and at least you don't have to cope with video tape getting tangled up in the workings !! - worth considering, although not the cheapest on the market now.
86% of People (6/7) found this review helpful. Was this review helpful or unhelpful for you?
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| Date Reviewed: 08/20/2003 |
- fkissam
from UT
- Member Since:
Aug 2003
View Member's:
Reviews
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The product is bad. The techsupport is even worse ...
Strengths: Lots of features ... but they don't work.
Weaknesses: Philips has produced a product that is awful. The product records and then makes the discs completely unreadable. the company is aware of the problem and seems to be unwilling to do anyting about
Summary: The product is bad. The techsupport is even worse ! The company keeps sending firmware upgrades that do not work either! Please email me if you find a way to get the recorder to work!
83% of People (25/30) found this review helpful. Was this review helpful or unhelpful for you?
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| Date Reviewed: 08/31/2005 |
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ramparthospital
Strengths: great
Weaknesses: disc error
Summary: this dvd recorder is a great dvd recorder till this year it started acting up bought 3 years ago it say during recording disc error if it wasn`t for this problem its a great dvd recorder. even got it upgraded but still didn`t fix problem.
50% of People (1/2) found this review helpful. Was this review helpful or unhelpful for you?
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| Date Reviewed: 07/12/2006 |
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I'd love it, if it would only last longer
Strengths: good picture quality, easy to use, nice remote, multiple record times, multiple inputs, quality tuner
Weaknesses: laser does not last long, leading to disc errors, only uses DVD+r format
Summary: I bought this product a few years ago and have made over 100 DVD's with it. The remote is comfortable and easy to use. The on screen menu is easy to setup. I found the product to be very user friendly. People complained about the manual but it didnt bother me at all. (The average person doesnt understand technical manuals anyway). Also, I must say I was impressed by the picture quality, it was a pretty good replication of the source, though there is a slight reduction in color brightness, but nothing too significant. I read the other reviews here, and its true, unfortunately, about the problem with DISC ERRORS. I started getting them recently after a few years of use on a refurb unit. I have swapped disc brands and made sure there were no fingerprints on the discs and continue to get errors when finalizing. I would love to keep the unit as the features and picture quality is impressive, but mine does not record anymore, without errors anyway, so its now officially just a player until I can find a replacement.
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| Date Reviewed: 05/31/2005 |
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This unit by far has the poorest, most-illogical a ...
Strengths: None.
Weaknesses: Manual fair/poor: you basically have to know how to use a DVR before you start; very poor access to the fast forward/reverse speeds; screen icons to access the various functions are confusing.
Summary: This unit by far has the poorest, most-illogical access to the various fast forward and reverse speeds I've ever seen in any type of recording unit. I realize I'm spoiled by TiVo's excellent user interface but lousy is lousy. After 1+ year of so-so performance where R75-recorded DVDS and commercial DVDs would sometimes play OK, or play poorly with skips or artifacts, or not play at all, and scheduled shows would not record, and downloads from TiVo would not complete, the unit now more or less permanently display 'disk error' or 'disk empty' messages when R75-recorded DVDs are played. Commercial DVDs generally still play OK but without the recording feature the unit is of no use to me.
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