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Philips DVDR5500 - DVD Recorder With Freeview Best Buy
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Price - £113.60 Correct as of 11/08/08
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4 Reviews for Philips DVDR5500 - DVD Recorder With Freeview
Agree with the others - poor - 28 May 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful.
I bought one of these today in spite of reading the reviews, thought I would at least give it a chance however I have to agree with the others here. It's frozen twice needing a plug power reset, first time I pressed TV Guide and it froze, second time after finishing a timed recording it froze in standby and failed to respond to remote or front panel buttons.
The USB port is good and does support hard drives however the current provided isn't enough for my 2.5" SATA one so I had to use an external supply. It will also not play DVD images on the mass storage which is a shame.
The EPG is truly awful - you only see now/next and a handful of channels. There's no auto-pad option and you can't edit the record data before storing it in the program list (once it's there you can manually edit the item to add padding).
I also found a DVD+RW burnt with a DVD image on my PC would not erase at all, it just bitched about the disc being "finalised" so I had to erase on the PC before I would use it. Even my old LiteON would erase anything!
Remote handset is pretty huge and plasticy too. A real shame but it's going back. Two freezes in a couple of hours is unacceptable. Shame on you Philips. I even flashed it up to the latest firmware before all this so it's not that.
Nice picture - terrible everything else! - 18 Jan 2008
21 out of 22 found this review helpful.
This machine give a great picture through the HDMI, and plays Divx very well. That's about it for the good stuff.....
I've had the dvdr5500 about a month now, and I'm less than impressed. It freezes very easily, doing the simplest things such as turning the machine on or off or going to the Home menu, and the only way out is to cut the power at the plug, which means you lose all your settings (e.g. HDMI output level). That is the biggest problem.
The interface is also VERY slow to respond, taking seconds to respond to even one button push, which frustrates you in to pushing more buttons which - you guessed it - causes it to freeze up!
Apparently the machine keeps the disc spinning when left in the tray, even when turned off, which means the motor burns out quickly. This is just what I've heard, but the `Eco' mode you can turn on presumably stops/reduces this, but means the machine takes a full minute to load up (its not exactly snappy when the Eco mode is off either though).
Recording is sporadic - not a single recording I have made using the TV guide has worked properly, always missing either the beginning or the end of the programme. The aspect ratio is always messed up as well.
A final thing is the standby light, which is so incredibly bright that I have to have it covered when watching TV in a darkened room or else it is very distracting!
In all, this is going back to Richer Sounds. It's the only machine I have found which does everything I want, but unfortunately it is a typical Philips in that it is very poorly made. The remote is so cluttered and ill-though out that you are always pushing the wrong button or thinking you've pushed something when you haven't.
DON'T BUY THIS!!!!
Update: I repeatedly tried to update the firmware on the machine in the hope that it would solve the MANY problems. However, after trying with several disks (including TWO that Philips themselves sent me!) I gave up, as the recorder simply wouldn't accept the update. I sent it to Richer Sounds for a repair, but it was returned 'non-repairable'. So that was that. After a brief stop gap at an equally-shoddy Samsung, I am now awaiting the delivery of a more expensive Sony DVDR & HDD combo unit, the RDR-HXD870. This has had much better reviews and fingers crossed it won't drive me up the wall!
Not what it promises to be... - 14 Jan 2008
23 out of 23 found this review helpful.
Wanted a DVD recorder with built-in Freeview, saw this and thought, "Wow! Has upscaling, USB port for flash drive reading, looks stylish, and cheap too!". This all may be true, but what I didn't know until I got it home and set it up was how irritating it is to use!
The menu system is very unresponsive, taking literally several seconds to respond to a simple 'down' on the remote. As a result, it can take minutes to scroll down a few pages of the Program Guide. The firmware needs some serious de-bugging. I had this unit no more than 2 days, and it 'froze' on me more than six times. Each time I was doing nothing more complicated than accessing a DVD, viewing pitcures from my USB pen, or simply browsing the Program Guide for something to watch! The only solution when it hangs is to pull the plug (even says so in the manual) as there's no power switch.
But the worst thing for me was the image aspect ratio distortion. Digital broadcasts displayed beautifully when watched live, but if recorded to DVD then played back they would be stretched vertically, making them totally unwatchable. Oddly, setting the TV Shape option to Widescreen (I have an older PAL 4:3 screen), would correct the playback distortion problem, but render live broadcasts as vertically stretched instead.
On the plus side, the interface looks very swish, the DVD recording quality is excellent, and upscaling to 1080 is well performed. The facia is very stylish, and the front USB and DV ports are neatly hidden behing a flip-down panel.
You can't pause live TV with this unit though, which I presumed you could - my fault for not reading the specifications! I performed a firmware upgrade, downloaded from Philips web-site, which was very easy to do. Although I only had the unit setup for another hour or so, I didn't experience any more 'freezing' of the interface. Customer service, if you need it, is rubbish - I posted a query regarding the aspect ratio distortion, and am yet to get a response, over two weeks later.
I've also heard that these machines keep the drive spinning, even in standby mode, if you leave a disc in. Philips customer service have themselves admitted you ought to remove any discs from the machine when not in use, otherwise it burns out the motor in about 6 months. Seems so ridiculous I can believe it!
Summary: I returned mine. This machine looks great, promises the world, but leaves you pulling your hair out. Philips DVD recorders have been dogged with problems for quite a number of years, and this one is no better. Pay a little more and buy a Panasonic or Sony.
Good picture quality and easy to use but has recording problems - 20 Dec 2007
24 out of 25 found this review helpful.
I was pleased with everything about this DVD until I discovered that mine had a couple of faults (not sure if these are common faults). When recording, it often doesnt switch off after the selected program has finished recording and so it records the next program until it uses up all the disk space, then the disk keeps spinning and gets hot, and you can only stop it by switching it off at the mains. Also there is no way of knowing how much room you have available on the disk and it will accept a recording request when there is not enough room on the disk. I'm afraid to say I will be taking it back.