Philips doesn't seem as bad

[djohlson]

My Philips DVR80 went kaput after 18 mos. Repair shop was a $40 fiasco. Looked alot on this chat room hoping to find a reliable recorder. For every positive comment here or review on the net, there are at least as many negative ones. Anyway, I went and bought a Sanyo DRW500 at WalMart. I see why people get confused setting up a recorder. Comparing the Sanyo to my Philips the Philips looked pretty good. I gather most viewers here record only 2-3 hours per disc; I like to record as much as I can onto a disc. True the 8 hrs. on the Philips is not the best, but it has its place. Also, the Philips has things I can't seem to find on the Sanyo (I called today, but everyone had gone home). Dividing titles, easily record and delete, easy to add titles, simple to quickly record on current TV channel and it has A.M. and P.M. rather than 24 hour clock. The Sanyo is going back. I'm thinking about buying the Magnavox 640 or a Philips 615 (maybe). I figure if the recorder's life is 1-2 years, I might as well enjoy it while I can. Is eBay a good place to look? Any suggestions? Thanks.

[samijubal]

They should last longer than 1-2 years. Philips isn't exactly known for making good quality stuff. My Panasonic E-20 lasted a little over 2 1/2 years, the E-10 I bought in August 2001 still works fine. Magnavox and Philips are the same company.

[djohlson]

Thanks samijubal. I've like Panasonic items before. But I have about 150 +RW discs. Isn't it foolish of me to think of going with -R now? Is it true that +R on the Panasoic can be recorded and erased until it is finalized? If true that might be one way to go since I like rewritable discs. I know SONY has 4 different methods of - and + but it is out of my price range. I see LiteOn also has one with the 4 methods as well as jped feature, which I like, but I don't know much about them. Is that worth a look? Any other models I should look at for around $200. [/u]

[samijubal]

Panasonic doesn't do +R, not unless the brand new models do. They do RAM, which can be recorded and erased and recorded on again and doesn't need to be finalized, but the discs are expensive and aren't compatible with anything but newer Panasonic players. I don't know anything about Liteon.