Philips DVDR985 Progressive-Scan DVD Recorder and Player

Rating:
Summary: Absolute Piece of Garbage
Review: This is the worst piece of electronic equipment I have ever owned. The WORST! I bought it in November of 2002, and since that fateful day, I've been crying over my lost $1100. I should have thrown the money in the river...it would have caused me less trouble. This thing has been in the shop more than it has been in my living room. 4 times this thing has been in, and guess what? It's broken again. The last time they put a whole new RAM in it and it's still messing up!!! I recorded something tonight that it put on the DVD all washed out and grainy, and the tape was perfect. I can't count the number of DVDs this thing has ruined. If you have one of these, I feel sorry for you. If you want to buy one, DON'T. I even wrote to Philips and those jerks never wrote me back. Next time I'm buying a brand I know works, like Panasonic.

Rating:
Summary: philips should be ashamed of themselves
Review: its junk. all i wanted to do was watch a dvd. i bought the 985, hooked it up went through the start up procedures, opened the tray ,put in the dvd and hit the play button and abffdoe6 appears. the tray will not open no matter what i do. philips tells me its an error code but they do not provide error code information to mere consumers. at this point all i am trying to do is get my brand new ,store bought dvd of blazzing saddles out of the thing. philips- never again. everyone should write to them and tell them that unless they stand behind this junk,we will never buy philips again.

Rating:
Summary: LESSON #1. DON'T BUY 2ND GENERATION NEW TECHNOLOGY
Review: The problem with this unit is one of reliability. Phillips has changed its warranty policy from 1 year parts & labor to 1 year parts 90 days labor. Does this tell you they have learned something?

This unit worked fine at first but after about 6 mos. began to exhibit reading problems. It doesn't like +R discs. +RW discs are just fine but my experience is after a while it refuses to read the +R discs it has just recorded.

After 2 software upgrades from Philips which gave me added features but failed to solve my problem, I had to ship it to City of Industry, CA as Philips no longer maintains its own repair facility. Fortunately the unit was under warranty and I only had to pay for shipping to L.A. Returned repaired after 2 mos. and worked fine for 4 months until same problem recurred. Cannot record to +R disc without encountering "disc error", "disc empty" (just recorded on disc), or "disc contains unknown data". Sometimes the content on the disc can be saved and finalized and sometimes not. I am going to have to buy another +R/+RW unit as I have about 200 blank discs. The same problem recurred, meaning the part they replaced also went defective after a short time meaning the design of this particular part is flawed. There is no use repairing again as the part that replaces defective unit is itself defective. DESIGN FLAW. Possibly newer models have overcome this problem, one can only hope. The only other Mfr. offering +R/+RW recording format is Sony and every Sony product I have ever owned or been familiar with has gone bad before or just after the warranty expired.

I liked Phiips for optical disc technology because I had found it to be reliable through CD and DVD player technology, but this unit sucks. Perhaps because it is a 2nd generation machine and bugs in this technology not yet worked out. One can only hope these kinds of problems have been worked out by now in 4th & 5th gen. tech.

Rating:
Summary: Would not reccomend, but if you have one then here is a fix!
Review: This product gave me many problems from the get go. The good news is that you can upgrade the firmware with the newest available software and it will fix all associated problems. It will eliminate the disc errors and also provide support for DVD+R. There is an earlier version that claimed to do this but it did not work but the newest version does. (...) I know it seems like a lot of work but if you are already stuck with this unit then it might as well work like it is supposed to.

Rating:
Summary: Effective but not so reliable
Review: Ours went out thank goodness we bought the store's extended warranty. Disc Error. It took a while to repair it but the store gave us a similar model to use in the meantime. Now that it's back it's running fine so far. We shall see we have another 1.5 years on our extended warranty. It was a floor model so we're pretty happy with it thanks to the warranty. Just wish it was a bit more reliable although since it came back it has been much more reliable, from 80% to like 95% I would expect maybe the firmware upgrades?

Rating:
Summary: Very dissatisfied with our DVDR985.
Review: Very dissatisfied with our DVDR985. We have had consistent problems with this DVD recorder and stopped using it completley about two months ago. We get the message "disk error" when disks are finalized. In addition, we tried many different brands of DVD+R and DVD+RW blank discs according to instructions in the manual, and all we ended up with was scraps of useless plastic - wasted many DVD's at $1 to $3 each. A firmware upgrade was performed per the directions on the Philips website earlier this year. This did not solve the problem. In order the machine record, we found that Sony DVD+R disks will work if it follows a tedious procedure of starting the record, waiting for the machine to freeze, power itself off, so it can be turned on again. After 5 or 6 attempts, the recorder appears to work properly, but then it will not finalize - we get the typical "Disk Error". We have already purchased a replacement DVD Recorder from a competitor to Philips that functions correctly everytime we burn and finalize a DVD.

Rating:
Summary: Philips DVDR985 is a $500 clock--in other words, it SUCKS!
Review: BEWARE!! I bought this hunk of junk in July '03. One month after the one-year warranty expired, it quit. "Disc error" after recording a three and a half hour football game! Now I put a disc in, it says either "No disc" or something about the format being unrecognizable. I put in a factory recorded disc--The Matrix--and I get "No disc." I haven't tried the firmware update yet, but from reading other reviews here, I have little faith it will work. I agree with another fellow that Philips should recall these units. They are complete JUNK!!!

Rating:
Summary: Garbage DO NOT BUY A PHILIPS DVD RECORDER!!!!!!
Review: I have had this piece of trash for 14 months, it has been a problem since day 1. It works less than 50% of the time with both DVD+R and DVD+RW discs! Customer support is useless and cannot speak English. Firmware they send does not help at all. Please avoid Philips at all costs. It is the first and last Philips product that I will ever buy. Countless time and $ wasted on this unit. Constant "Disc Error", "Disc Warning", "No Data" that result in loss of material. It is a piece of S@#T! Do yourself a favor and DO NOT buy a DVD Recorder from Philips. They treat their customers like garbage!