Rating: 
Summary: Most value for the money.
Review: If you are literate and take an hour to learn this DVD recorder
you will be have a great new source of family entertainment.
Firstly, sit down with a drink and READ THE MANUAL most of the steps are logically set up. The installation takes some thought but if 1 connection at a time is accomplished it's really a breeze the on screen set up and display really blows away Sony
and Panasonic. Copying from camcorders is one wire and a DVD it is truely simple and with a hour or two of experimenting you will have a great home movie. Basically, dollar for dollar for someone who wants to dump old family movies to DVD this is the machine with the added bonus of recording broadcast and pay per views (oops!). Good luck, so sit down and just do it.
Rating: 
Summary: A Good, Solid Recorder
Review: This is my second DVD recorder (the first was a Cyberhome).Many people complain about the Icon system and settings layout on this unit for being hard to understand and confusing. This is true to a point, however, after using it a few times it comes easy (it isnt THAT bad). Do keep in mind however, that DVD recorders are a bit more complex than a VCR. There are many more setting adjustments that you can make. This alone makes ANY DVD recorder a bit harder (at first) to understand "right out of the box". As far as quality recordings, this unit does a great job, even at lower speeds, from cable or from a vcr. The Firewire input is a nice touch if you have a digital camcorder.
Rating:
Summary: What's with all the Complaining?
Review: I purchased the Philips DVDR75 2 weeks ago and really have no complaints. I have already transfered 56 hours of VHS home video onto DVD+RW discs with zero problems. The recorder even pauses when there is no signal from the input source. Yes, some of the on-screen menu icons are a little cryptic but once you run through them a couple of times it's a piece of cake. (...) this is an excellent DVD recorder.
Rating:
Summary: The Philips DVDR75 absolutely meets all my needs
Review: I have owned this unit for 4 months and have transferred 150 VHS tapes to DVD+R and it works FABULOUSLY!! I don't know what other reviewers might be having problems with...I read a review on another web site that recommended using Verbatim DVD+R disks and they have worked perfect for me. I have also found that Fuji DVD+R and Philips DVD+R (of course) work perfectly. I buy my disks when I see them on sale as a "buy one spindle, get one free" sale and it brings the price down to around $1.20 per disk. If all you're doing is transferring VHS to DVD this is the unit for you. Don't be scared off by the naysayers. I practiced on one of the more expensive DVD+RW disks and within an hour I was transferring my collection without any problems to the DVD+R disks.
Rating:
Summary: Finally Replaced VCR with this unit
Review: I've had no issues with this. I had to really consider the media recording format +R +RW, but in the end it was no big deal. All of my spare DVD players will play anything recorded from the Phillips. I've used this system a total of 30-40 hours with no problems transfering Betamax tapes to DVD. The only strange thing I've noticed is what appeared to be a slow-pixalated slowdown of video occasionally, but I think this is the result of my multitule of patch cables running through a VHS and Betamax unit. All in all, found this unit to be excellent. I've used compression M2 for Tape Transfers and it is more than fine. Even the +RW can be read and played in all of my standard DVD players. Good Product and I recommend it.
Dave
Rating:
Summary: a dream come true for recording television programs!
Review: the DVD recorder is the biggest thing since the VCR! There are a few great reasons to get the DVD recorder. 1) M1 recording quality is better than SP on a VCR.
2) the DVD recorder is very quiet when on. I noticed my VCR makes noise when on. This is nice because you don't hear any electric humming when watching television.
3) The DVDs are longer lasting than VHS tapes
4) repeated viewing will not affect the picture.
5) DVDs are much smaller than a VHS tape more detail on the recording settings. M1 is like finding gold. The quality is better than SP on a VCR! If you really want the best quality don't use anything less than M1 unless it is for a one time viewing. M1 recordings look almost as good as the original broadcast, unlike VHS tapes, where you can tell the quality drops a bit if you get close to the screen. M1 recodings when paused loose a bit of clarity, but the pause function isn't used that often, so it's not a concern. The crazy symbols used could be improved upon, for example for 'channel' they could just display that on the screen but instead you get a fork in the road type picture, but it's ok once you get used to it.
note that consumer reports rated the three DVD recorders (Philips, Panasonic, and Sony) as all having the same recording quality of excellent (March 2003 issue) so I guess your choice is what format you want to use. Philips is +RW and +R. additional on problems
- RECORDER BUGS -unfortunately, sometimes this machine 'turns itself off'. I have discovered why. when plugged into a vcr to transfer VHS to DVD if you give the recorder a command, and then quickly give the VCR a command like rewind, the recorder locks up and turns off, so I have learned to do one thing at a time and then this doesn't happen. also, when [pausing out commercials] don't use the pause button to resume recording, just press record again or it may turn off. Thankfully it's not a problem once you learn what not to do. Now that I am more careful the machine hasn't turned itself off on me. - BRIGHTNESS PROBLEM this is probably the only thing that concerns me. but I still don't think it's a problem, because the brightness only shows up when transferring store recorded VHS programs to DVD. on my own tapes, this doesn't happen. Rewind the tape to the beginning and it should go away. The brightness is so obvious that it's easy to spot, and just rerecord the tape. It would bother me more if the brightness issue was sporadic or very slight, which would cause me to buy another brand, but it either records perfectly or all bright (probably only about 2% of the time on store bought or ordered tapes). NO FAST FORWARD BUTTON really is a minus on this unit, so I recommend using another DVD to play the recordings on. (they say this machine is a also a first rate player. hmmm. not without a fast forward button. RECOMMENDATION: buy a S-Video VCr to transfer your tapes. you'll transfer the VHS to DVD with the best clairty. (probably only for those of us that really want the best possible quality) but it is a noticible difference CLAIFYING THE MANUAL: just go to input AUX 2 and plug in your Vcr into the AUX 2 outlet to transfer tapes. once done, just arrow up to the desired tv channel to record off of television.
Rating: 
Summary: Cannot see VCR tapes when scanning / brightness problem
Review: Good: Easy to use and set up. Records DVD's well
Bad: When taping from a VCR, you cannot scan through a VCR tape by going fastforward - screen is black! I bypassed this by using RCA splitters and picture in picture. The brightness is terrible. It is too bright. So if you have bright daylight on a VCR tape (or tv channel) , the brightness on the DVD is too bright, sometimes whitewash where you cannot see anything! (I can see the difference from picture in picture channel I am recording and the output to the DVD) I and the I am using S-video and it helped a little over RCA jacks, but it still is too bright. I may end up buying a brightness modifier for svideo so I can have it the same brightness as the VCR tape. Also when I add chapters to the DVD, when I finalize the DVD, the chapters are not on the finalized DVD. Only the Chapters that the recorder puts in (every 5 minutes). The chapters work ok on the Phillips, but on any other DVD player, the chapters are every five minutes and not the ones programmed.
Rating:
Summary: Used for a week so far no problems
Review: I have a TIVO, and started to burn my shows (without commercials) onto dvd. The M6 is good enough for low quality TIVO, which looks surprisingly good when I playback on my HP notebook. M4 is even better. DVD+RW seems to be catching on...
Rating:
Summary: Amazing Recorder for the Price!!!!
Review: For $399, you just can't beat it!!!
Here are the positives:
- Very easy to setup, was up and running in 10 minutes
- Impressive image quality - even at M6 (6 hours recording mode per DVD), the quality was better than my VCR's, and I mean, A LOT better!!!
For everyday recording, M6 is great. If you want to keep them and get great image quality, use M4 (4 hours per DVD) or better (noticeable difference between M6 and M4).
- Great compatibility - so far has played every DVD's I've put in there, including the ones I burned on my computer without a glitch. My other DVD players have played DVD's burned on this one without a glitch either.
- Same on the timer record function - has been flawless
- They have a very cool feature that allow you to hide chapters within movies, so if you make the commercial break a chapter, you can then hide it so it doesn't play during playback.
- Love the fact that it uses RW's as well (My first recorder could only use R's). Now for the negative
- A bit difficult to navigate - It does get some getting used to. The buttons on the remote are labeled strangely for what they do. I.e. while playing a movie or recording, the system button will show on-screen display. I was looking for a button that said display, silly me.
- Though the 'hide chapters' feature is great, I wish you could delete them and gain the time back again to record. At this time, if you 'hide' 20 minutes of commercials in an hour show, though the time spent watching it will only be 40 minutes, it will still use one hour of your disc.
- A bit of a delay when you push a button on some features (about half a second), which has a tendency to make you feel it did not get it. Not with every buttons, just some. A little weird.
- If recording something, if you press the stop button, image will freeze for about 5 to 10 seconds, while it writes. Make sure you press the pause button instead, if you don't want to miss what is playing on TV at the moment.
- 480i on Component as opposed to 1080i So with those negatives, why did I rate it 5 Stars? Simple - Bang for Buck! This is $390! I can't expect it to do everything I want for that price, and the negatives are more things I wish it had or did a bit better, not things that are of major concerns as far as what it does. If I had paid $490 for it, I would have dropped it to 4 stars, but considering the price, this is simply a great unit that does what it says it does. I highly recommend it! The only ones I saw that did more things better started at $699 (ones that include a HD). As far as the few negative reviews I saw here, I think every company has some bad units out.
My recommendation?
Just like anything else you buy, if it doesn't work right from the beginning, return it and get another one. You probably have a bad unit. Make sure you buy from a company that has a 15-day return policy. If it works fine for the first 15 days, you should be fine, if it doesn't, return it and get another one. Especially it it's a major brand. One bad unit doesn't mean every unit made is bad.
Just my 2 cents. Hope this helps.
Rating:
Summary: Firewire has problems
Review: I first bought the cheaper magnavox/philips mdv650r, but returned it to buy this one because of the firewire input. But trying to transfer old video from a Sony dig8 camcorder was disappointing. There were glitches every few minutes, like it was getting out of sync. The non-firewire video copies looked good, so I returned this to buy the cheaper mdv650r, which only lacked firewire.
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