Philips DVDR70 - good & bad...

[a1anp]

Hi there,

I’ve just recently benefited from the price war that is currently going on in the UK over DVD recorders, and got the Philips DVDR70 – a +R/RW model. I wonder if there are many users of this machine on the forum – everyone seems to have Panasonics…

Anyway, the good:
Quality is excellent! Even on 3hour mode, it’s at least as good as I was getting with my 352x576 captures with my ATI AIW Radeon.

Editing – once you get used to it, the process of chopping out the ads actually works quite well. Basic, but it works. Better than sophisticated and complicated, cos I’d never get round to working out how to use it…

Now the not so good:
Fast forwarding and rewinding – this is not a problem with the Philips unit itself, but when I try to use the disks on other DVD players, they complain! (This is the +RW disks - not tried +R yet) My Dansai 1010 won’t FF at all, and my Bush 2004A will only go at 2x. This is a problem, because I intend to make the recordings in one room (the one with the Sky box, where the kids are normally watching their cartoons or generally making a racket) and watch them later in another, quieter room. But if I’d looked up the FAQ at the dvdplusrw.org site, then I’d have known that this is a “feature” of the system, and I’m supposed to just put up with it! So I need to put up with the ads, or edit them out on the Philips box before watching…

Recording in widescreen – the Philips recorder just doesn’t do it. Again, this is a “feature” that I’ll need to put up with. Apparently, you can’t mix 16:9 and 4:3 in one title, so the unit just records as 4:3, even if it is really 16:9. That seems to be the gist of it. That’s fine if your TV allows you to manually select 16:9 mode when you play back, but if it doesn’t, like the one in my TV watching room, then everything comes out stretched.

So, the solution seems to be to copy the VOBs onto my hard drive, re-encode in 16:9, and author a new DVD. All in all, about 18 hours of computer time for my PC. There must be an easier way!!! If only the Philips unit would let you select 16:9 or 4:3 manually…

Anyway, don’t get me wrong, I like the Philips recorder. If I was using it as my main player as well as recorder, and using it with an aspect ratio-selectable TV, then there wouldn’t be any problems at all…

Cheers,
Alan

[RabidDog]

what price and where did you buy it? is it just dvdr recording?

Recording in widescreen – the Philips recorder just doesn’t do it. Again, this is a “feature” that I’ll need to put up with. Apparently, you can’t mix 16:9 and 4:3 in one title, so the unit just records as 4:3, even if it is really 16:9. That seems to be the gist of it. That’s fine if your TV allows you to manually select 16:9 mode when you play back, but if it doesn’t, like the one in my TV watching room, then everything comes out stretched.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that would be because the DVD Standard only supports one of the two modes (4:3 or 16:9) on a DVD.

But some authoring apps can - DVDMaestro can use both of the two modes on a DVD, but (as far as I know) Sonic Scenarist can't.

I may have one, or two, solutions to this problem.

1. You can always record in 16:9. Then, when you want to playback a recorded 4:3 movie in a DVD-player (with a 4:3 TV), you will just have to set that DVD-player to playback "Wide-screen" (even if you are using a 4:3 TV). Then the DVD will not add the black borders and the.
If it is a 16:9 movie you are watching, then just set you DVD-player to letterbox as usual.

2. Copy the whole DVD to your computer and change the aspect ratio in the IFO-file(s) with IFOEdit. Then re-burn.

[zetor]

Yes I've been tempted by this model, down to £280 at Argos, I have a couple of questions, how do you go about timed recording s from Sky? if Autoview is selected would it switch the DVDR70 to record? I was also thinking of getting a video card for my comp, any idea what card would be good for playing a film on my comp and recording it onto the DRDR70 assuminmg this is possible?
Zetor

[a1anp]

Thanks for the replies guys.

Rabid: I got it from Argos for £299. I went along on 1st September to get the new Bush model, and found that sold out, but the Philips one was down from £399, so I went for it like a shot! Then they dropped the price by another £20 a day or so later!

Zadman: Thanks for the ideas – I’ll try fooling about with the settings on my DVD player. But the Ifoedit / Vobedit route is probably going to be the best in the long run. Will need to set aside some time to (re)learn these…

Zetor: The manual says it is possible to do timed recordings from “some” satellite decoders – so your Sky one may or may not be suitable. But they can be programmed to send codes to the recorder to start recording at a pre-arranged time. Sorry, I’ve not got that far yet! As for your other idea – I take it that is for backing up DVDs via TV out from your PC. I suppose that might work. You might be easier hooking it up to an extra DVD player that you can disable macrovision on. But these might be getting a bit thinner on the ground these days.

[zetor]

From what I can understand a DVD+RW can be played in a DVD player without finalising the disc, this is exactley what I want to do, I can record say a series each week and copy them to a DVD+R, but what I was going to ask concerning the fast forward and rewind problem in a DVD player, was the DVD+RW finalised or not? maybe if it was finalised then the problem may not occur, just a thought.
Zetor

[GeorgeDawes]

I have looked all over the forums and cannot find the answer to the question of,does it play DVD-R discs as i have a Pioneer 105 writer?
I have been told that it does and does'nt play them and all of my back up discs are DVD-R

[goldmember1]

The R70 plays minus no problem.

[PhilipL]

Withdrawn

[zetor]

Would recording using DVD-R\ DVD-RW would have better results when FF and RW on a DVD Player?
Zetor

[PhilipL]

Withdrawn