Philips DVD-R80

Don't waste your money! Would not touch another Philips.

Mine went wrong in the first 12 months but got it repaired under the warranty. Basically the DVD recorder stopped reading all discsclaiming they were empty when in fact they had previously been recorded onto. The repair job sorted it but now it has gone again. I have rung a service centre to find that it is a fixed price of £81 to repair. At that price, i'm looking elsewhere for a new DVD Recorder.

The Philips DVD-R80 DVD recorder gave me disc error, after disc error, and I was unable to synchronise my Sky system to it. I was forever getting message 'no disc inserted' when we were trying to watch something. I eventually managed to copy from the TV, taking out the disc and cleaning it, then putting it back in, and half way through what I believed I had copied, up pops a film I copied weeks ago, although the DVDR80 erased the disc and told me it was empty, work that one out. My partner gave it a lot longer than I did before finally reverting back to the trusty £80.99 video recorder - what a life saver. To think I nearly took it to the car boot sale, and sold it as an early electrical appliance used for copying TV programmes to video tape. And oh how my partner loves to point out the amazingly cheap DVD recorders in the brochures, compared to the whopping £300 I spent on a redundant dust gathering piece of rubbish under the TV! Is she making me suffer or what?

This DVD recorder is one of the best buys I've ever made. Since I purchased it over two years ago, my VCR has been packed away - and it's never coming out.

The enclosed setup diagram made it easy to conect it to my other devices. The manual also guided you through the process of connecting external receivers and tuning channels. This process went smoothly.

The DVDR-80 can record from two external receivers (satellite set-top boxes, to you and me). UK users beware, though: not all makes of satellite receiver appear in the setup process.

There are several recording modes. These range from M8 (the manufacturers describe this as video quality, though I think it's better than any recording on my best VCR), giving you eight hours' recording time on a 4.7GB DVD-R or DVD-RW disc to M1, which gives you an hour of ultra-high quality DVD. The average home user will be very happy with M6, giving you 6 hours of better-than-VCR quality.

Programming a recording is straightforward, using one of four options: Guideplus, Videoplus, manual programming or safe record.

The Guideplus electronic programme guide works well, though you need to have a good TV signal if your programme information is to remain up to date. Although I've had problems with it in the past, since I moved eight months ago to an area with a stronger signal, it has worked perfectly.

When using Guideplus you'll need to pay attention to the end times of your programmes. Unlike the Videoplus, Guideplus doesn't seem to pick up the programme start and end signals, so you could end up missing something important, like finding out whodunit in a murder mystery, for example.

Another annoyance is that the recorder doesn't auto select a blank area when you've programmed a recording; you'll have to do that yourself or you may find you've overwritten something you really want to keep.

The device also has a safe record function, but this is a mixed blessing. It works by pressing and holding the record button on the remote, at which point it defaults to the end of your disc - fine if you've got a three hour slot at the end. If you haven't you may find that you've only managed to capture 10 minutes of that vital programme.

With programmes you've recorded through Videoplus or manual programming, it's easy to go into the disc menu and rename it to something more memorable than 'ext2' (the recording source). Pressing the numbers on the remote when in this mode, provides a shortcut to certain letters.

When the recorder comes on there's usually a slight delay - the on screen menu shows all the programmes on the disc. Just use the up and down arrows on the remote to find the one you want, press OK and it loads. Fast forward and rewind buttons work well, though watch out for anything over 8 speed as you can find you've reached the end of the programme quite quickly. The chapter forward and back buttons tend to do about 6 minutes at a time, the default chapter setting.

Sound quality on playback is excellent at all recording settings, with no distortion at high volumes when played back through my hifi. Picture quality varies depending on the setting used, though even on M8, colours are crisp and clear. Fast motion tends to blur on the lower settings though, so sports fans may want to record the big game on M2 or M1.

The disc manager (accessed through a button on the remote control) is a key feature. You can add discs to the disc manager (I've named mine 'disc' and the number) and then it stores information about all the recordings as they are made. You can then browse this list by title or by disc. Selecting a recording in this mode brings up a message telling you which disc to insert to play your chosen recording.

The disc menu stores an image of your programme as well as the date and length of recording. Typically, this is an image from the first few seconds of recording, so if the image showing is from an ad, you might want to change it for one relating to the programme. You can do this with favourite scene select tool on the remote control. This tool also allows you to divide up recordings (in case, for example, you left it running and have recorded several programmes).

The monitor button on the remote control switches between the disc and the TV tuner. This is especially helpful when recording from an external set top box (such as a satellite receiver), as it allows you to check that you're recording the right programme.

Annoyances...

The DVD recorder tends to freeze from time to time. I still haven't figured out what sets this off, but pressing buttons repeatedly once it's gone does NOT help. The only solution at that point is to pull the power cable out and start again. This works like rebooting a PC - a few seconds and you're ready to roll again.

I was also not happy that it didn't integrate as promised with my Philips Freeview box. However, I've learned to live without that.

My final gripe is that this is supposed to be a multi-region DVD player, but so far I've not managed to get that to work.

I paid around £300 for the DVD recorder, but it was quite a new model then, and I've seen it on sale now for as low as £150 from many online retailers.

In spite of the annoyances I've mentioned, I have no regrets about buying this recorder. The only useful addition would be a hard disk as well, and Philips has another model with this feature.

Bought an R80 from rgbdirect for £230. Got it 2 days later but set it up and tray didn't work. I rang rgb and was said they will collect and deliver replacement. And they did all within week! great service. They actually rang us back within a few hours of us ringing them. New one worked great. Use it to record old videos. It's great you can put chapters in every 6 mins. Overall good to excellent recorder.

Now on my second replacement DVD R80 unit, no better than before constant crashing of unit, will not manually record, Disc Error comes up all the time. Anybody that is thinking of buying one BE WARNED, IT WILL GIVE YOU HIGH BLOOD PRESURE, GREY HAIRS ETC, THERE ARE MUCH BETTER dvd recorders out there, oh and by the way Philips have now replace this with a newer model stange after only being introduced to the market 9 -12 months ago

I bought this Philips DVD R80 DVD Recorder after rave reviews and because it play mp3s and records to +RW disks (so I can play them on other DVD players and then write over them when finished viewing) but most importantly for Guideplus.

First impressions were good. Nice looking player especially when it is recording as the disk tray lights up red...very cool!

The installation manual isn't the best for those not in the technical DVD know!

Playback of mp3s is extremely impressive leaving my CD player in the cold!

It has 8 DVD quality recording settings. The top 3 settings will produce recordings as good as the original program! Digital sound (ie 5.1) is rich and warm.

My biggest gripe with this player is the Guideplus system. I specifically bought this player for the ease that Guideplus offers. It takes at least 24 hours for the initial 7 days of program data to be loaded into the DVD player. I then found that the automatic update of the Guideplus was not occuring and I had to reset the machine to get it to load the next 7 days of program data. Rubbish eh? I phone Philips who offered advice like "Leave it switched on rather than on standby", "Only put in the first part of your postcode". The recorder even went back to a Philips repair centre which reported they had fixed it, yet it still wouldn't update the Guideplus program schedule. So, eventually, I got a replacement and this worked for the first 10 days and now again the Guideplus system does not seem to update....looks like I'm gonna give up and get my money back. Shame as apart from the Guideplus it is a great product.

I hope no-one else has the problems I am having with the Guideplus system or if anyone has a solution to this problem leave it in your review for others to see.

I bought the Philips DVD R80 DVD Recorder as a means of keeping stuff permenantly, working in tandem with a Sky+ satellite reciever. All I can say is that the R80 is perfectly suited to this role. The connectitvity from Sky+ to R80 to (widescreen) TV is RGB/Scart throughout, and consequently highest possible quality without direct digital connections. The Guide+ system works superbly, instructing the Sky+ to tune into whatever is demanded from the R80, although configuring Guide+ is less than trivial. Fortunately, once configured, using it is a snip! Note that you do need fairly good analogue UHF reception to maintian Guide+ as it gets its info from ITV analogue teletext type signals. When recording through Guide+, titles allocated to tracks are derived from the program title as known by Guide+. However, most of my recording is from the Sky+ HD, where no program info is available. Adding program titles is somewhat long-winded (R80 Disk Manager functions), but once done - and +R discs finalised, it is all available on regular DVD Players, so worth the pain! The R80 has been fairly tolerant of me pressing wrong buttons on its remote control, although I did think I had a fault when the Record lights (usually spectacular!) didn't work - I had inadvertablty turned the display off!

In summary, I'm impressed, and feel I have spent my DVD Recorder budget well. Top marks to Philips for this, if you are intending to use a DVD Recorder with Satellite or Freeview box (which already have their own HD), this IS the business!

I am marking perfect for everything except ease of use, because this isn't the easiest device I've ever come across - but managing such a rich feature set is never going to be easy!

When you place chapter markers on a DVD+R disc they can only be recognised by the Philips DVD R80 DVD Recorder itself. No other machine (including Philips players) will recognise them. Apparently it is OK if you use DVD+RW discs but you can't finalise them.

Some people won't mind this problem, if they only play back their recordings themselves. But if you want to share your recordings with other people its not so good. But then again are any of the others? You never get the whole story. Its only when you've had a product for a few months that the little problems come crawling out of the woodwork.

When I bought this machine all the reviews were raves. 5 out of 5 every time. It was a new product and it takes time to find the problems. Now they are more realistic.

I have had this Philips DVD R80 DVD Recorder for 6 months now, picture quality is outstanding and sound quality excellent.

Very easy to use, program and set up using guide plus or manual setup.

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