Collect Questions

Thinking of purchasing a DVD Recorder but really not sure on what to look for and what to avoid.
BE-Direct have the DVDR880 on offer at the moment but heard of reliability issues with the Philips recorders.
All advice greatly received. :)



well i had a philips 1000 and it was crap however have had the 880 for 4 months now no problems at all (touch wood)..



Originally posted by saltysam
well i had a philips 1000 and it was crap however have had the 880 for 4 months now no problems at all (touch wood)..
Exacrly what I'd like to hear too! I may get that very model over the next week or so. ..



I have had the philips 890 for 3 months & its a great piece of equipment.:thumbs:



Got the Phillips 890 here too, Great piece of kit IMO..:thumbs:



Richer Sounds are offering the 880 at £359.95 (and the multi-region version at £20 more) at the moment.



Originally posted by Blank Frank
Richer Sounds are offering the 880 at £359.95 (and the multi-region version at £20 more) at the moment.
You can save the £20 if you already have a programmable remote as all you need do is send a code sequence to the 880 to make it multi-region. Maybe Richers are supplying an extra remote with the unit for the extra dosh?



Originally posted by cervaro
You can save the £20 if you already have a programmable remote as all you need do is send a code sequence to the 880 to make it multi-region. Maybe Richers are supplying an extra remote with the unit for the extra dosh?
errrm, you wouldn't happen to know this sequence or could put me onto a site that could tell me how, could you?:confused:



any news on recorders with hard disks ie pvr?
I don't want a tivo+rec dvd, just basic vcr and live tv pause, non of this season pass, epg, and recommendation stuff.



Originally posted by cjb110
I don't want a tivo+rec dvd, just basic vcr and live tv pause, non of this season pass, epg, and recommendation stuff.
Don't knock it unless you've tried it!
I would hate to be without my Tivo now. However I too am now looking for a DVD recorder in order to archive off the recordings I want to keep. Was thinking of the Philips, but now tending towards a Panasonic.
Confusing isn't it? :D



Originally posted by Nick[Blarg]
Thinking of purchasing a DVD Recorder but really not sure on what to look for and what to avoid.
BE-Direct have the DVDR880 on offer at the moment but heard of reliability issues with the Philips recorders.
All advice greatly received. :)
Exactly why I came in here, as I'm thinking of going for the 880 from BEDirect as well.
EDIT: This thread here covers some of the 880's problems if you're interested.



I just bought a Panasonic E30 from techtronics last week and it is a great bit of kit. The recording modes are brilliant quality.
I was put off the phillips because of all the faults.
If you wait another month or so a whole new crop of DVD recorders are about to appear at around the £400 mark



Originally posted by Blank Frank
errrm, you wouldn't happen to know this sequence or could put me onto a site that could tell me how, could you?:confused:
You could try here.
Listed as Philips 750 hack (works on Philips 880 and more) (http://www.dvd.reviewer.co.uk/info/multiregion/full/philips750.asp)



Originally posted by cervaro
You could try here.
Listed as Philips 750 hack (works on Philips 880 and more) (http://www.dvd.reviewer.co.uk/info/multiregion/full/philips750.asp)
Nice one, thanks. I'll give that a try.:thumbs:



have great fun with my recorder,basically archiving really old vhs to disc,stuff which is unlikely to appear on dvd..find various images relating to what you have recorded and make your own covers for it..great fun!



Originally posted by saltysam
have great fun with my recorder,basically archiving really old vhs to disc,stuff which is unlikely to appear on dvd..find various images relating to what you have recorded and make your own covers for it..great fun!
Exactly what I intend doing. Stuff unlikely to get a DVD release (including the "Dangerous Brothers" tape mentioned on another thread)and around 6 VHS tapes from the 80's and 90's of my kids when they were tiny and not built like the brick outhouses they are now!
Any problems with the whole process?



my old philips 1000 had severe problems with vhs.basically you would get signal loss and severe audio problems.the 880 however has been flawless and as long as you have a decent vhs you will have no problems-the only decision will be the recordeing speed!



Probably a silly question, but what sort of connections did you use to connect the two?



well you can connect through various means scart-scart,scart -phono/i have a jvc s-vhs so i use s-video-s-video link for copying



The Philips recorders have RGB input via the SCART sockets, which means a brilliant picture when archiving/recording from Sky+/Sky Digital. It can also accept both PAL and NTSC inputs.
It is worth bearing in mind that the reason the Philips recorders are coming down in price is because new models are on their way. Because of the reliability problems with the current generation, I would recommend holding fire until the new models are out and about.
I have a Philips 890, and so far all is well. However, the reliability issues do scare me, especially as many people on the DVD+RW forums report problems cropping up several months into ownership (not recognising normal DVDs, not being able to write to DVD+R).



How much are the new machines going to cost per-chance?
I'm sort of working on a £400-£450 budget here :p



another point to consider is that the E30 has flexible recording which means you can tell it how long the programme lasts and it will record it with the highest possible bit rate. This is good for say recording a few programmes on one disc. I have the E30 and I love it. It also has the timeslip feature which I don't use as i have sky+ but with it you can pause TV and then pick up when you come back. It can be made MR with a handset from www.dvdchips.co.uk for £40



Thanks chaps. I'd thought about doing it the scart-to-scart way.