Chip

Thinking of buying a DVD recorder as the video is on its last legs now. Any ideas as whats good , bad etc. Budget of about £350.

If I connect the new DVD to my Home cinema will I get 5.1 sound from it if prog is recorded from digital TV.

Or would I be better off getting Skyplus+

Cheers

Chip.

330uk

Panasonic DMR-E50. Its only £299 now as well. Awesome bit of kit. What Hi-Fi 5 star award and winner of 'best DVD Recorder 2003' award

Chip

TBH I was thinking of buying a Philips one just to keep in line with the tele etc.

Chip

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Philips

330uk

Philips are expensive and Ive never seen one get more than 3 stars. Home cinema magazines don't like them.
I think its alot to do with features for the price. The dont have that many extra's.
I also know the recording quality and playback on a 'Panny' is very good. Ive had a DMR E30 and DMR E50.

330uk

Chip: Have a look here
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00009K3TU/ref=sr_aps_electronics_1_1/026-5455387-2300461

Panny E50 for £249.99. Absolute bargain. I thought mine was abargain at £399

JPACOUPE

i was thinking about the same sort of thing until a bloke at work said i should get Sky plus instead. Any one got advice or opinions on sky plus?

brendy

I would advise against getting a Phillips - I bought one six months ago and the laser has failed and it is currently being repaired.
If you look this up on a search engine Phillips are having huge reliability problems with their DVD recorders - I would get a Panasonic.

GC8

Brands aside, I would recommend that you get a DVD+ format recorder, way superior to DVD- or DVD-RAM. www.dvdplusrw.org for the doubters.....

Gizmo555

Richersounds have the Philips DVDR75 (Multi Region) in their sale at £219 - Absolute bargain

Only thing is its in store only (and not mail order)

Sky+ is superb - you'll never use you're video again. And now with ability to record 2 channels at once.

Use with DVD writer to archive stuff off the Sky+ box.

i.e. Get both

Cheers

Mark

[Edited by Gizmo555 - 12/29/2003 5:43:11 PM]

Albert47

Be very careful whith the Phillips Dvd recorders. I have one, bought it 1 yr ago. Not so good now, not that pleased with it. I would wait too c who wins the format war. Ie Dvdr+ or dvdr-.

Albert

Allan

iTrader: (1)

I'm thinking of doing the same, and have come to the conclusion they don't yet make a machine that does what I want for a reasonable price.
I need: i link, Digital out, DTS, and SVCD capability. I dont think the Panny E50 has digital out.

Allan

Taff107

JPA, You'll need a DVD recorder to dump programmes from the Sky+ measly 40 gig drive

CRAIGFIN

Hey up Albert me old mucker!!!


Chip,

My Philips DVD880 Recorder has gone t1ts up after about a year. It will record and play on the TV no probs, but will not play any of my Region 1 or 2 DVD collection. I am now going to consign it to the bedroom as a stand alone recorder and get a Hard Drive/DVD combi recorder thingy!!
The theme of this thread has been "anti Philips", and I would have to agree. Steer clear!!

Craig

paulr

Personally i'm waiting until it settles down and i'll get a Denon or Pioneer.
Never again Sony.

Chip

Amazing, Ive had all sorts over the years inc Sony which I will never ever buy again and the two that have been best for TV/ video are Philips and I hate to say Matsui of which I have a video player which is 16 years old and never missed a beat likewise a portale tv used daily which is 14 years old.



Chip.

CRAIGFIN

Chip,

I actually think that Philips are a good brand. I just don't think that they have the DVD Recorder side of things sorted yet. They do very well in the reviews, they just don't last very long!!

Craig.

Gizmo555

I'll think you'll find the 880 and 990 older generation recorder are the ones giving problems.

The DVDR70 75 and 80 are new generation and might be better ?

Would be worth checking this out first before condeming Phillips cause they're excellent value for money.

JonDBM

Their are two separate issues here.
1)Which format recorder do you want?
2)Who makes them and do you like them as a brand?

To say "Dont get Philips" or "dont get Panasonic" is missing the point of which format you will be buying.

I say the +RW standard is by far the better one as it is far more compatible with other players without having to use a write-once +R disc.

The only thing going for the Panasonic is its watch and record at same time - but how often will you really need it? It is totally incompatible with anything but another Pansonic DVD-RAM drive.

-RW is nowhere in my opinion. If you use the 'compatibility' mode which supposedly enables -RW discs to be read by other players, you cannot do half the editing things you can with +RW.

I had a Philips DVDR880 for a year. It went wrong three times - each time it was the laser unit. Now I have a newer DVDR70 and so far so good.

I can take discs around to friends houses etc that I have recorded and the rewitable disc works straight away in their machines - this is the most useful feature I think coupled with splitting titles up after recording has finished, choosing your own pics for the menus etc. As was said previously, www.dvdplusrw.org has all the info and compares +RW and -RW together. Once you see this there isnt really a choice, +RW is the king!

Jon.

sammyh

iTrader: (1)

Getting worried now after reading this, should I take my Phillips DVDR 75 back and get something else?

class_A

I'd try Sky+ and see how you get on. Cheaper in the short term (£199, look for offers on installation) and you can always eBay it later if you don't like it.

Providing you subscribe to two premium channels (sports or movies) then the £10 subscription is waivered. You also get DD5.1 optical out for hooking up to your processor. A lot of the movies are now broadcast in DD.

The quality is probably slightly better as well. Sky+ records the MPEG2 bitstream as it comes off the satellite, rather than having to convert to analogue, pass to DVD Recorder and recompress as MPEG2 to write to the disc.

Sky+ allows you to watch one Sky channel whilst recording another.

You can also easily upgrade the HDD to a larger capacity, although this obviously invalidates the warranty.

I've had a TiVO for 2 years and would miss a lot of the features a PVR provides if I had to switch back to traditional recording.

The only downside with Sky+ over a standalone product is that Sky retain control of the programmes as it is a closed system. The software will allow them to prevent FFWD of adverts, force deletion of PPV events and prevent copying of PPV movies to VCR/DVDR via Macrovision but I'm not sure what restrictions are currently in place.

EDIT to add that the DVD+R format will be upgraded to around 8-9Gb in the spring. You may want to wait for this format to appear in set top recorders then you can either buy the latest and greatest or maybe save a little on one of the 4.7Gb models.

[Edited by class_A - 12/30/2003 8:28:20 AM]

Chip

Formats, tell me mnore please.

Chip.