Philips DVDR75 - Quick Review

[asichter]

I had the chance to test the Philips DVDR75/691 yesterday. This is the unit without the scart connection, unlike the model currently shown on the Philips (Australian) website. It's currently on special at a local retailer for the same price as the Panasonic E50. Normally the Philips units sell at around a 33% higher cost than the E50 in Australia.

I've been a Panasonic man for a few years now, but I must say I was pretty impressed with the DVDR75. Philips seemed to have ironed out a lot of the issues which plagued their earlier models and caused endless headaches for themselves and their customers. I had nos issues with the DVDR75 during my day of testing. This was a nice change considering all the issues with the range of cheap +rw recorders I tried out a few weeks back.

Open up the box and you've got a very nice looking unit. There are some pretty ugly looking recorders out there, but this isn't one of them. The unit could have done with some extra features on the front panel; channel up and down and input select. I don't like the idea of being dead-in-the-water without a remote, but that's just me.

While you don't get a FR record mode, you do get a choice of 6 record modes including a 2.5 and a 3 hour mode, which I could see being very handy. Record quality is very good in most modes, but it does drop off from the 4 hour mode, as expected. The 3 hour mode is surprisingly good.
Playback of +R's was not an issue for the Panasonic E20, E50, S35, Teac DV2150 or Sony PS2. The +RW's played back in everything except for the E20 and E50, although I only used a small portion of the disc, which can affect playback.

The one thing I wasn't too keen on (with +rw discs) was the fact that it
records from the last title you viewed, which means you can end up recording over programs you wanted to keep. However there is a 'safe record' mode which ensures it records from the next available space on the disc, but still accidents happen! The pay-off for this is the fact that you can add a new recording onto an existing one, with an extremely smooth transition. A nice feature.

Navigation was relatively straight forward, although the manual lacks some detail. I hooked-up my Teac DV2150 DVD player, without the macrovision decoder, I put the 'Matrix' in the DV2150 and hit record on the DVDR75 and it was quite happy to record the movie without any macrovision problems! I haven't seen this happen with any other recorder. Maybe I just got lucky!!!

While I only had the unit for one day I would have to give it an 8 out of 10.
What would make it better?: An FR record mode, some extra features on the front panel and the 'safe record mode' as a standard. All up a very nice unit. I was quite impressed.

Andy S.

[arthur]

as an experiment only, i hooked my multiregion pioneer dvd player (macrovision free) to my philips dvdr70 (ext2) but the recorder refused to play ball. the message "copy protected" came up, which is par for the course with all dvd recorders. i can copy from to pioneer to vhs (why bother?) so that proves that macrovision is disabled. how did you manage to bypass the copy prohibit?

[asichter]

I really don't know how it bypassed the copy protect. I pluged the Teac into the front AV inputs and away it went. I'm hoping to get a hold of the DVR75 again today and do some more testing. I would like to test it on a few more movies and the rear inputs and see what happens.

With the macrovision remover I can copy anything from the Teac DV2150. Copyguard doesn't appear to be active on the Teac DV2150. I recorded about 15 minutes of the Matrix on the DVR75 without any problems. I would like to see how it goes for an entire movie.

Andy S.

[nezza_42]

Mine won't copy copy-protected either.
It will happily copy anything with no copy prot on it though, VHS, ripped DVD, etc.

One odd thing I have noted is that copying from VHS via SCART (UK model), the resulting image is much brighter than the original. Via the front composite conexion, it's fine?

Nezza

[JohnnyCNote]

What is a "SCART" connection? Is it composite, component, S-video or somethign else?

[tommyoz]

So far I have tried The Philips DVDR75, Sony RDR-GX7, Cyberhome DVDR1500 and the Sansui (i forget the model #). This is only my opinion.

Philips - was probably the best one as far as everything working like they said it would. I wasn't to thrilled about the quality as I was mainly using it to record from VCR. I did record from TV (satellite) and wasn't to thrilled either.

Sony - this one ticked me off. The quality of the recordings were excellent.
However, the unit responded slowly to some functions. It did not like any DVD-R that I put in. DVD's were getting stuck and would not play. It did record on rewritables but would not play them. They were also cheap on what came with the recorder. It included a remote (thank GOD), batteries, 1 A/V composite cable & 1 coaxial cable. It did not include Component video cable, s-video cable or DVD media. I did post a different thread on this. https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=207686&highlight=

Cyberhome - Very poorly made. I brought back 2 of them before I got one that worked. Only to find that it's DVD structure was trouble. I was having a problem with reauthoring.

Sansui - Not as bad as one would think. It was nice to have an all in one unit. Especially when mostly what I was doing was VCR to DVD. I also ran in to some trouble with reauthoring. That was why I brought it back.

Should I even try the Panasonic recorders?

[nezza_42]

tommyoz, what aspect of the Philips quality weren't you happy with?
What mode (recording speed) and input connection did you use.

TBH, I can't see any difference between the original (analogue sattellitte or VHS) and the recording in Modes 1 & 2 (60mins/120mins per disk) and barely any difference with the 2+ (2 1/2 hour) mode. It's only at 3 hours plus that I see any noticable degregation, and that's not bad until you get to 6 hours per disc! Then it gets quite pixelated.

I get better results on VHS if I connect to the front connectors & not SCART (may be the fault of my DVDR, Video or the SCART lead used).

JohnnyCNote, SCART is a european connection method (also known as PERITEL) and is a multi pin connector carrying in/out video & audio signals (along with control signals to auto change A/V channels on suitably equiped gear) and can support composite, RGB & S-Video depending on cable used & equipment used on.

Nezza

[tommyoz]

tommyoz, what aspect of the Philips quality weren't you happy with?
What mode (recording speed) and input connection did you use.

Nezza_42,
I was expecting to see greater quality then my previous 2 (Cyberhome & Sansui). Upon doing some research, I heard that the Sony provided some high quality recordings. Indeed it does.

I tried M1, M2 & the next one down (M2 something). S-video and composite. I even did a component video in recording as it has this feature. I really wasn't blown away with the quality. I think it's the lack of true TBC (as oppose to virtual TBC). It may be ok for others but I though it could be better. I am from the US so I do not have the Scart.

[asichter]

tommyoz ... I think you've gone through as many dvd recorders as I have in the last month or so! I finally settled on the Panny E50, a rock solid performer. The Philips DVDR75 started doing weird things: turning itself off while editing (fss) on +RW discs, & freezing while recording on (good quality) +R discs. While you may not be a big fan of ram, it's editing features & versatility really are unmatched. You might want to give it a go.

Andy.

[/quote]Should I even try the Panasonic recorders?

[tommyoz]

tommyoz ... I think you've gone through as many dvd recorders as I have in the last month or so! I finally settled on the Panny E50, a rock solid performer. The Philips DVDR75 started doing weird things: turning itself off while editing (fss) on +RW discs, & freezing while recording on (good quality) +R discs. While you may not be a big fan of ram, it's editing features & versatility really are unmatched. You might want to give it a go.
Andy.

I wouldn't doubt that the Panasonic is probably the better built of them all.
I would then have to buy a DVD-Ram reader for my computer. I already have 3 DVD Burners and 4 DVD-Rom players.

[asichter]

tommyoz ... When I only had the Panny E20 I picked up the Panny S35 RAM player. I'd record & edit on the E20 then playback from the S35 while recording to -R om the E20. If you don't mind real time recording it's an inexpensive way to go. I don't have a home PC, so this was the best solution for me. I now have both the E20 & the E50.

Andy.

[JohnnyCNote]

JohnnyCNote, SCART is a european connection method (also known as PERITEL) and is a multi pin connector carrying in/out video & audio signals (along with control signals to auto change A/V channels on suitably equiped gear) and can support composite, RGB & S-Video depending on cable used & equipment used on.
Nezza

Thanks! Is this anything like what they used to call a DIN connector? I recall seeing them on electronics years ago....

[donpedro]

JohnnyCNote, SCART is a european connection method (also known as PERITEL) and is a multi pin connector carrying in/out video & audio signals (along with control signals to auto change A/V channels on suitably equiped gear) and can support composite, RGB & S-Video depending on cable used & equipment used on.
Nezza

Thanks! Is this anything like what they used to call a DIN connector? I recall seeing them on electronics years ago....

Nope. This is SCART

[JohnnyCNote]

You're right, that's definitely not a DIN cable! Thanks mucho! Would you say it works better than the connections on US models? I certainly wouldn't be surprised it if did....

[donpedro]

My understandong is that there is more to SCART than just audio and video. For example if I remember correctly by turning on VCR it can turn on TV too.

More here http://www.hippy.freeserve.co.uk/scart.htm

[nezza_42]

Yep, SCART can auto switch your TV (for example) to the AV channel if you, say, turn on your DVD player or press play on your video, etc.

The lead used must be fully wired for this function (some aren't) and the AV equipments must be equiped to repsond to the signals too (and most new European stuff is).

It can be a pain in the ass (read arse if your English ) if you have loads of stuff linked to common sockets on your TV as the video/dvd/whatever can "fight" over what has control!

For instance, the way mine is setup, the DVD player will auto switch the TV if the video is turned off, but not if it's turned on. Confuses the hell out of the wife!

One of the biggest annoyances with this method of connection is that the plug doesn't lock in place, & as it has generally a very thick, inflexible cable, they often pull out slightly when you move the equipment. This can cause several issues like loss of sound/vision(in and/or out)/switching, control, etc.

But overall, I think it is a worthy addition for the general user.

Nezza