Needed to replace my (incredibly) unreliable Cyberhome 1600 recorder this weekend.

Did the 'on the spur of the moment' thing and bought a 3480 from Tesco.

Physically it looks well built even though it was rather deeper than I expected a recorder to be. It's got all the connections I need under the neat flap at the front.

Easy to set up (about 10 minutes) to my Sky+ and modest CRT widescreen. Couldn't seem to get widescreen from the built in tuner though.

Recorded picture and sound quality seem very good on SP(although I haven't got many recordings under my belt yet). The analogue tuner quality isn't great though - not a problem for me.
Auto widescreen switching works very well (better than the Cyberhome); even switching formats during a recording.

The unit firmware was not up-to-date when I got it but that was easy to fix. The switch to multi region also works OK.

I'm going to dump some Sky+ to DVD this week(Never managed to get a long enough record from the Cyberhome to do this before) so I'll see how it handles DVD+R DL disks.

Anyone else got one and care to comment?

Ian

Have had a 3480 for a couple of months now - seems fine to me - my first DVD recorder so can't compare to anything else.

The analogue tuner won't be any good after switchover of course, but I only bought it to transfer from PVR or VCR onto DVD - trying to archive a few VHS tapes before I finally say goodbye to the VCR.

The 3480 was the cheapest I could find at the time with DivX playback.

So far, so good...

Dave S

It's an excellent little machine. The recording quality on Verbatim DVD+R DL is technically very good indeed; also on many other types of single layer media (even 16x rated).

Thanks for the input.

I've had this machine one month now and it's great - finally a DVD recorder that I can rely on.

The record quality seems very good at the lower bit rates to. Philips seem to have gone for the higher sharpness but increased artifact compromise.

Ian

Yes indeed; the 3480 records at full D1 (720 x 576) right down to, and including, the EP 4-hour mode. In this way it rivals the expensive Panasonics and others but is far better value for money. As you say there are more artefacts at EP; but this is so much better than previous Philips recorders where full D1 stopped at SP+ (=SPP on the 3480) and the rest was half-D1. You'll see a significant difference at SLP mode which is an MPEG1 standard, so there's a bit of a drastic drop in viewing quality there

I was really referring to the technical burn quality on different makes of DVD. This recorder burns almost as well as the better PC writers and thus can probably accommodate any newer dye types that come along in the future.

It's a pretty good player too. .

I'm very interested in buying something like this as a DVD player and archive recorder from my PVR and Tivo.

Top of my list so far has been the Sony GX350 but I did some more research today and came across the Philips 3480. I was pleasantly surprised to read the positive reviews on various sites.

Philips DVD recorders tend to be well specced but notoriously unreliable, judging from numerous user comments. However, perhaps the company has finally got it right with this machine?

I like the fact that, unlike the Sony, it has a DV socket for camcorders, and the USB will be handy for playing Divx files copied off the PC. It's also Divx Ultra certified which makes it more flexible than the Sony, which is only standard Divx.

A few quick questions:

As this will be an archiving machine the ability to record the WSS flag when recording from external devices is important. Has anyone had any problems in this area?

How do recordings from external devices play back on other DVD players or computers? Hopefully they display widescreen when they should and not a squashed 4:3.

With the Sonys it's recommended to record in VR mode to keep the wide screen flag, but that means that it will be awkward to play back on most PCs because their DVD players won't recognise VR mode.

Any thoughts on how the Philips copes with the wide screen issue welcome.

Also, some reviews I've read say that the Philips is slow to respond to commands, how true is this?

The 3480 is now only 72.99 from Laskys, an excellent price and nearly 20.00 cheaper than the Sony, another point in its favour!

Thanks in advance for any comments.

Hi Fireball XL5,

Pleased with my 3480 so far...I've recorded from my PVR to the 3480, and it does seem to lose the widescreen flag, so I have to manually switch the telly to 16:9, but the quality is still very good. It does seem to take a while to process some commands e.g. at the end of a recording it takes maybe a minute to 'update' it, then if you want to rename or split a recording - that can take another minute or two, but I can live with that. But, as I said earlier, I've not used any other DVD recorders to compare with.

Dave S

I record from a Virgin cable box to the DVDR3480 using +RW, with varying success for widescreen auto-switching. The older of two Yamada DVD players will not autoswitch on playing the disc, but the newer one will.

My 3480 doesn't show the slow remote response mentioned in one or two Amazon comments.

You can get the 3480 from cheapestelectrical for 59.99 (although I can't vouch for their service).

BTW did you see the review on CD Freaks?

Thanks for the replies.

Yes, I saw the review, in fact that's what made me so interested in the machine - lots of functionality for very little money.

Looking at other threads it appears that using a software programme called IfoEdit on a PC will correct any WSS problem although it means ripping, editing and re-burning every DVD manually in order to do this.

Yes and probably as you will have noticed; this is a general problem with DVD recorders and not just the Philips. The PC solution is made a bit easier by using IfoAR2WS (freeware, from here). You copy the VIDEO_TS folder to PC hard disk, then use the app to patch the IFO files in one go. Then just burn back to DVD using something like ImgBurn in 'Build' mode.

The only other seemingly reliable solution is to get a hard disk recorder, of which some will patch the IFO file correctly when a high-speed dubbing is made from HDD to DVD disc. Still means you have to make a copy though.

Thanks again. I'll have a look at IfoAR2WS because on reflection, using IfoEdit would have been a pain, having to edit all the IFO files individually.

Re. the hard disc method, other threads reveal that the best device for this is the Sony 870 and the dub to DVD can be done in high speed mode, which eases the problem. The high speed dub is essentially a digital cloning operation so no further quality would be lost in having to re-encode.