If anyone's considering buying a Philips DVD recorder they might want to wait a couple of months until the new models come out, because the company's current recorders seem to be riddled with bugs.

Faults are so widespread that on the pro DVD+R forum they're now running polls to try and chart the extent of the problem, and the results are simply shocking....

http://www.dvdplusrw.org/cgi/forum/i...=ST;f=4;t=4832

The problems are seemingly endless, including machines gradually refusing to read pre-recorded disks, switching off during recording, the timer not working, the machine locking up completely, white-outs during recordings from video, failure to finalise disks, blocky lines appearing in recordings and successfully recorded disks later refusing to be recognised.

A general browse of the forum reveals endless tales of woe....

http://www.dvdplusrw.org/cgi/forum/i...ct=SF;f=4;st=0

I have to say I'm surprised there's not more widespread coverage of the problems with these Philips recorders, in home cinema magazines or mainstream media such as TV shows like Watchdog.

It's also frustrating that these Philips standalone recorders are seemingly selling very well yet have a monopoly on DVD+R, so if you want to adopt this increasingly popular format you've currently no choice but to buy a machine that has a good chance of being riddled with problems and bugs..

Desk

Not altogether true. A couple of months ago I had to choose between buying the Philips or the Panasonic DMR-E30.
The Panasonic records DVD-R's effeortlessly, has no functional bugs or flaws, and is the perfect companion for Sky+.

Therefore, nobody is forcing you to buy the Philips. Go and buy the Panasonic DMR-E30 instead.

Gordy - I assume from what you are saying is that the Panasonic does the DVD+R format as well?

Regards

The first article in this thread is very misleading.

A recent poll on the very same site you quoted, asking the question "are you happy with your Philips DVDR" had 191 responses - 173 said yes and 18 said no.

Contrast the with the poll you linked to on faults with the new software, which has 65 responses of which 39 people report no faults.

Murray

You have to admit though that you're talking about 40% of the sample saying they've had problems with their Philips. If I had known that before I bought I probably would have gone for the Panny because those odds are pretty frightening for a modern piece of consumer electronics.

Don't get me wrong, overall I'm *very* impressed with the results of my Philips 890 - it does everything it promises 'on the tin' and the more I use it, the more possibilities I see about how I can get more out of it... I'm just worried I'm sitting on a timebomb waiting to go off in terms of reliability.

It doesn't - it's DVD-RAM and DVD-R only.

Ive had a Philips 980 for about 8 months and its fantastic.

I've never had even one problem with it, I've record about 120 DVD's and its never failed once. Its great in conjunction with a Tivo, easy to make DVD's of series's.

Pete

Those figures only apply to people who downloaded and installed the apparently faulty ff12g firmware upgrade, and I think it's reasonable to assume that the percentage of people who have done that is probably much higher among the users of that site than among the average punter who picked one up at Dixons.

Murray

Actually, Mpark, if you look again you'll see poll creator Xanadu636 stating that it specifically excludes any problems created by the firmware upgrade.

Still, if you're unconvinced by statistics, how about a sampling of some anecdotal evidence? The first may be of interest to Philips owners concerned about the future of their machines...

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Desk

Thank heavens I bought a Panny then.

No, afraid not.
The Panasonic, as correctly stated above, only does DVD-RAM & DVD-R media.
However, why quibble about format - when the end result is the same. To be honest all the hype about the redundancy of certain media formats is rubbish.
To compare the situation with the VHS - Betamax formats is crazy. The two systems are physically different, and therefore could not realistically (and/or economically) be played on the same machine.

To hazzard a guess, I don't think it would be too difficult for future DVD players to support all DVD media formats. It is only a matter of adding extra decoding algorithims, and therefore isn't a very big deal.
If you're still not convinced, look at the sale of players that support multiple formats, compared to those that don't. You'll find that the multi-format is a big selling point. Go HERE and have a look at multi-format DVD players.

the figure of 18 means that nearly 10% of customers are not happy bunnies. For every 1000 units sold there are nearly 100 unhappy owners. How anyone can regard that as any where near acceptable is totaly mind boggling.

The truth is that there are always going to be problems with any electrical item.... you name it, there are usually a given number of returns...

I feel that after speaking with the head of Philips regarding my specific problem, there are a number of units that perhaps have faulty laser assembly parts, and thus a small percentage of units will be slightly 'iffy'.

No panic, just return the unit before the 28day exchange deadline is up or you will end up waiting for 3 weeks like I now have to.

Gavin

But it's more than that, isn't it? The user forums are alive with people having difficulties with their machines - and not necessarily within 28 days. This indicates that it's much more than a problem with a small number of machines.

At the moment I have a Philips 890 and all seems to be well (although it has turned itself off for no reason once) but from the postings on the DVD+RW forum it seems that many units develop faults over a longer period of time.

I think the excuse that any electrical item is going to have problems is very much thinking from the 1980s - the failure rate on consumer electronics in the 21st century is negligable for the most part, certainly not enough to provoke the avalanche of complaints the Philips recorder has been getting... on a forum populated mostly by DVD+R/RW fanatics!

As I said, the Philips recorder is a great piece of technology, but if I'd known what I'd known now, I'd have gone for the Panny which doesn't seem to have these issues.

True! But nearly 10% is way way off the wall and totaly unacceptable. There is no point what so ever in making excuse after excuse for inadequate quality control. It is not the format I am complaining about here even though I have no time for it.. 90% work ok so the format itself is I think proven. It is the nearly 10% of unhappy customers due to one bug or another that needs to be addressed. That is a fact that you cannot excuse or should try to do so. To do so gives manufactures licence to be complacent.

It's also worth noting that these polls don't allow you to later change your vote.

The poll running at 10 percent dissatisfaction was started in early December.

As the refusal to read pre-recorded disks often only manifests itself after several weeks of use it might explain why reports of faults seem to be rapidly increasing, and why the latest poll on the DVD+R forum now shows over 40% experiencing difficulties.

Desk

I again state that Philips DENY any problems like described on the DVD forums.

This really annoys me as I have evidence (the forums) and they didn't pay any attention...

The only way to sort Philips out is to complain, GET A REFERENCE NUMBER and post it here or on the help me thread i started.

Gav

I think there's a problem with some manufacturers now thinking it's ok to release buggy equipment because people are used to receiving buggy software nowdays. There's so much pressure to get things released they just let them go.
But then of course "It's not a bug - It's a 'Feature'!"

Well, I read this thread with great interest as I'm going to be getting one of these machines in a couple of days time.

To be honest, the negative points seem to be overstated in this thread. A quick look over at the DVDplusRW forums shows that the vast majority are happy with their 880's and 890's. Almost all threads complaining are due to disc compatibility, which is mainly due to people not reading the part of the manual mentioning the DVD-ROM bitrate compatibility setting.

It looks like Philips have been pretty good at ironing out the main bugs that were in the DVDR1000 (some of the faults mentioned here are I believe only relevant to that model, not the newer 880's and 890's), and the firmware update support seems great, the best I've seen for a standalone product in fact. Both of these machines are still getting great reviews in the press - the 880 just got reviewed by Stuff magazine, where it blew away a Yamaha recorder over twice its price.

As far as the Panasonic recorders are concerned - no offence to you Panasonic fans - you might want to look at the user reviews on vcdhelp.com. Particularly for the E30, there seem to be an aweful lot of complaints about everything from compatibility to build quality. And DVD-RAM? Give me a break, the format is all but dead already. Have a look at the Philips reviews over there too - again, pretty much everyone is very happy with them.

If your unit is faulty, get it replaced or get a refund it's as simple as that. From what I understand of the UK legal situation, there is no time limit imposed on return of faulty goods. As long as the company still sells the product, the product to be returned is complete and in resellable condition, and you have proof of purchase they have to give you a full refund for defective merchandise of this sort.

[SIZE=1](of course I may be singing a different tune in a few weeks time if mine decides to misbehave too, but I thought I'd better post this side of the argument for a fair discussion!)[/SIZE]

I agree that the Panasonic format is probably not the one to go for and that +RW format is best for the average user.

While I don not want to put you off buying an 800 or 890, I would point out that the problem with not being able to read the discs is down to one of two things.

1. Fauly laser assembly.
2. problems with firmware.

This can be shown as people have stated that they have recorded on a Philips DVD+R and it has done so OK, but will then not play back on the device that recorded it. Also, the playback of pre recorded DVD's is poor after a while.

All evidence points towards the fact that these units worked OK for a short length of time and then got worse.

Once Philips have repaired the units and tested them, then people have noted that everything has been OK.

I would advise people that the Philips machines and Format is generally good, but what annoys me is the support from them.

Gavin

Fair enough, as a Telewest customer I can relate to that

Utter utter nonesense. I have both the E20 and the E30 and can vouch for both. As for the RAM format being almost dead! What planet are you living on. Certainly not this one.

The complaints about the plus format machines have now reached nearly 12%. Disgusting without doubt. Frankly with all the info available those that turn a blind eye deserve all the trouble they may get.

Most people forget ( or are too young to remember) that in the 1980's,when VCR's first came out, that there was a third format in addition to Betamax & VHS. It was called ( I think) Phillips 2000. Now most people who really know about these things, agreed that of the 3 formats, the 2000 was the superior one. However Philips didn't market it strongly enough, and it never really got off the ground.

I feel that PERHAPS Phillips don't want to be caught like that again, and are maybe rushing out their "+" system too quickly, and at cheaper prices, without all the bugs being ironed out first.

I hear that +R/RW functionality is going to be written into the next Microsoft OS - potentially a massive shot in the arm for the format, which could tip the balance against -R/RW

Whoever said that DVD-RAM is a dead format is clearly not aware that the system is used massively for the archiving of data - it's cheap, flexible and very widely used. Just because it does not have mass market support in home electronics, doesn't mean it's a dead format in any sense of the word.

With regards to the previous post about how everything seems to be hunky dory with the Philips once it's broken down and you've got it fixed... all I can is... are you joking?! I want reliability out of the box, not after I've put it back into the box and sent it back to Philips (location: Brussels) for repair!!

You are quite right, in the 70's there was Philips V2000. Again, it died a natural death basically due to reliability problems and no support.

Unfortunately, as I have found out at my own expense from the several thousand pounds I have spent on Philips products in the last 3/4 years, they have the best ideas, shocking reliability and they think customer support is something to do with underwear.

I originally wanted to buy a Philips DVD recorder to complement my other kit but now I am just really relieved that I went for the Panasonic.... what a fantastic piece of kit and just so much better aesthetically than the Philips and the extra functions it provides far outweigh any compatability issues.

And as for DVD-RAM being all but dead in the water, thats why there are some new models being launched by other manufacturers then, such as the Samsung which, incidentally, came out in front of the Philips in a product test by Which! this month (only by a point though but it's still there).