This is an Excellent choice--
Written: Jan 24 '04
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Sound: |
 |
|
| Ease of Use: |
 |
|
| Picture Quality: |
|
|
| Durability: |
|
|
|
Pros: Looks sharp, filled with features, produces great results GUIDEplus is great for cable users.
Cons: Retail price is still too high for a Philips.
The Bottom Line: There are a lot of dogs out there in DVDR land, but his one qualifies as "Best in Show" for me.
|
|
|
| bugman223's Full Review: Philips DVDR80 DVD Recorder |
I should preface my review by saying that I got my machine on e-bay for an absolute bargain, and that probably has had a positive effect on my evaluation. However, I will try to be as objective as possible.
The DVDR80 looks just like the DVDR75, but has the GUIDEplus system built in. If you have never used GUIDEplus, it is as TV Guide kind of service that tells you what is on, when, and what it is about. With this, you can set the machine to record shows in advance with almost no effort. Regular timed recording is also possible. The drawback to GUIDEplus is that you must have Cable, not satellite, for it to get the guide information. Some find GUIDEplus to be more of a bother than a feature, but I really like it.
The DVDR80 also has more advanced variable bit rate recording capabilities than its predecessors, allowing for lots of recording speeds (from about 1 hour on a blank disc to around 8 hours). This is nice, however those longer record times come at a price in terms of picture quality. Lower bit rates cause pixelation and other digital artifacts whenever a scene involves motion or rapidly changing colors/brightness. Philips includes a filter for cleaning up some of these issues at low bit rates, but any record speed that allows more than 4 hours on a disc will probably not provide the kind of picture quality that you will want. I should also mention here that the higher bit rate recordings are really beautiful. If you want to record old VHS or camcorder tapes to DVD, use the highest quality setting. It takes more discs but the results are worth it. Home video recorded at lower bit rates results in more pixelation than shows recorded off of tv at the same bit rate.
Some have complained that the remote it not user-friendly. It does have a lot of buttons, and they are not laid out in the most useful way, but I haven't really had problems. A DVD recorder is more complicated than a VCR and those extra buttons are needed. There is a bit of a learning curve when it comes to any DVD recorder, and each maker has its own quirks that you have to get accustomed to. Once you have figured out the Philips approach to DVD recording (I find their system menu to be fairly intuitive, though it does require a lot of button presses to navigate your way through it) you will feel pretty comfortable without needing to look at the user's guide every few minutes.
The user's guide has also been criticized, but I don't know why. It is written so even an elderly user with a fear of electronics can follow along... sometimes lacking depth on certain features but definately not hard to understand. But because they didn't want to put too much on a page, the guide is like a small phone book.
Some issues to keep in mind: DVD recorders must digitize the signals from television broadcasts, VCRs, etc in order to do anything with them. When watching TV through the DVD recorder, there is actually a delay of about 2 seconds between the incoming signal and the outgoing signal. You can tell this by switching quickly from regular TV channel to DVD recorder input. This results in some odd behavior that some people think is a defect. When you give the recorder a command through the remote, it takes a second for a response. This can make you think that it didn't get your command and you start pressing buttons harder and faster. It is not a defect, and all machines that I have tried have this issue. I found that I got used to it fairly quickly. Also, when watching TV through the recorder, the digitalization process causes the picture on your screen to show some artifacts and picture quality is slightly lower than when viewing just on cable or satellite. What is interesting about this is that your recorded image typically looks better during playback than what appears on your screen while recording, so this also is not something to be worried about.
I feel compelled to mention that Philips pioneered the DVD R / DVD RW format and I like it better than the DVD-RAM and DVD-R formats of Panasonic and other competitors. The RW discs are especially nice since there is no "finalizing" or other stuff to mess with. Just record, then pop it out and you can play it on pretty much any DVD player. My discs have worked on every player brand that I have tried so far. You can easily erase parts or a disc (or the whole disc) in about 2 seconds, and record again and again. Sams Club has DVD RW discs (made by Verbatim) that are really inexpensive and work great.
In summary, this machine looks great, has every input and output you could reasonably want, and works great as long as you didn't get a defective unit.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 250
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
bugman223
|
|
Reviews written: 3
Trusted by: 0 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.