Philips DTR1500 Reviews

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Philips DTR1500
★★★☆☆
3.4
56.0% of users recommend this
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Latest Reviews

“Compared to al lot of digi-boxes I've used, it's just...”

★☆☆☆☆

written by on 30/12/2009

Compared to al lot of digi-boxes I've used, it's just about as deaf as a post! And the remote is difficult to use. A truly dreadful product.

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“I have had my Philips dtr 1500 for a number of years....”

★★☆☆☆

written by on 01/10/2009

I have had my Philips dtr 1500 for a number of years. When I bought it, it was towards he top end of the price range. Now with the digital switchover it will not register the new channel 5. I know people with older and cheaper boxes that have re-tuned with no problems. I'm off to get a chaepie replacement- not a Philips

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“The Philips DTR1500 worked perfectly for 4 years until...”

★☆☆☆☆

written by on 30/06/2009

The Philips DTR1500 worked perfectly for 4 years until digital switchover when several channels including BB2, ITV and BBC news 24 were no longer available. Eventually received an e-mail reply from Philips who said due to its age (!) it may longer be compatible with the new signals. No amount of retuning will solve the problem so it will have to be replaced.

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“Iv'e had a philips dtr1500 for three months and...”

★☆☆☆☆

written by demmie on 07/05/2009

Iv'e had a philips dtr1500 for three months and received one channels update but so far no software update. The software installed is dated 2005 does anybody out there have any comments on this.

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Westcoastwatch's Response to 458653_demmie's Review

Written on: 18/09/2009

I have 10 of these boxes in our Guest House. Bought on ebay 3 years ago-really, really reliable. Went digital 2 days ago and they are working perfectly after returning them to factory mode and then downloading available channels. Remember, most digital channels are being transmitted on different frequency after changeover.

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“"The Philips DTR1500 looks quite good and is easy to...”

★★★★★

written by kentynet on 28/04/2009

"The Philips DTR1500 looks quite good and is easy to use but the sound cuts out and now the picture on some channels freeze. It starts with ITV, then after a couple of days, I lose all channels."

I had this problem to after a over-the-air software update, until then it was fine.
I found a solution though:Create a favourites channel list and add all the channels to it, after that mines was fine, but if you reset the box, you'll have to do it again.

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“bought the Philips DTR1500 as i live in a weak signal...”

★★★★★

written by on 04/04/2009

bought the Philips DTR1500 as i live in a weak signal area and i also have my aerial in the loft. tried a few different boxes, but freezing was always a massive issue, until i discovered this model. money well spent.

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“The Philips DTR1500 looks quite good and is easy to...”

★★☆☆☆

written by alan clayton on 05/09/2006

The Philips DTR1500 looks quite good and is easy to use but the sound cuts out and now the picture on some channels freeze. It starts with ITV, then after a couple of days, I lose all channels. I'm very disappointed with my Philips DTR1500 since I paid top price and it only lasted a year. I have had a cheap and nasty Bush which has been pretty good.

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“I bought my Philips DTR1500 freeview box from Ebay as...”

★★★★★

written by philb611 on 24/04/2006

I bought my Philips DTR1500 freeview box from Ebay as I wasn't sure of the reception where I was moving to. There was no aerial in the house, and it even worked very well with a portable aerial from Argos. Now I have a decent aerial in the loft, I have crisp perfect reception. No faults, reception issues or problems. No gripes at all, especially for £25.

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“I have owned the Philips DTR1500 Freeview box for over...”

★★★★☆

written by Embyo on 06/09/2005

I have owned the Philips DTR1500 Freeview box for over a year, and to be fair it is a good little box, and is not the ugliest by any means. The aerial setup is my biggest gripe as you have to select a single channel and adjust the aerial, while not knowing if the other frequencies have fallen away!
It has suffered from overheating with the sound going funny, and distortion at the top of the picture. This has happened 3 times over the course of a year, so not really a big issue.
I find it hard to get passionate about it, but it does the job and does it well. New buyers should purchase one of the Twin Tuners that are coming onto the market, so you can record one channel while watching another. I would also suggest you go to the Manufacturers website and download the User Manual before buying, so you Know exactly what to expect. I am off to buy a Daewoo 608P as a second tuner, which has a more sensitive tuner, and a decent aerial positional menu.

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“Bought for £69 at Comet, I am generally very pleased...”

★★★★☆

written by GTU00 on 14/02/2005

Bought for £69 at Comet, I am generally very pleased with the Philips DTR1500 box except for a problem with the sound. Every 30 seconds or so, the sound cuts out for about a second. This happens on all the TV channels and all the radio channels, more so on some than others (channel 5 is the worse). This is annoying especially when listening to music on the radio channels. There is no corresponding interference on the picture. Any users got any ideas on how to correct this ?

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“I bought a Philips DTR1500, my 1st venture into the...”

★★★★★

written by stevoation on 24/10/2004

I bought a Philips DTR1500, my 1st venture into the world of digital TV, because I refuse to pay a subscription to other digital providers, I went with Freeview.
This in my opinion was the best box on offer at the time, and I was right, as I was surprised to find that other boxes only had one Scart connection, so how you connect it up to a VCR, as well as your TV I don't know.
But anyway this has 2 Scart connections one for the TV and one for the Video.
After the simple processes of connecting it up I had it tuned and working within minutes, the ONLY problem I had, was it was pre set up to send a RGB signall to my TV, through the scart, which my TV didn't like, and made all the TV's OSD go really weird and all the Analogue channels scramble???? (My TV is a bit old)
So after a bit of fiddling about with the settings, so it would send a PAL signal to my TV, I managed to get it working properly, the only thing I don't like about it, is that its slow to respond when switching it on via the remote.

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“Im very happy with the Philips DTR1500 freeview box...”

★★★☆☆

written by Picky consumer on 15/09/2004

Im very happy with the Philips DTR1500 freeview box except that it appears to loose some channels when an automatic update of channels list happens. You have to do a "Factory reset" to recover this and loose you favourites. Also the manual is wrong with the instructions of how to do this.

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Alanmurray's Response to Picky consumer's Review

Written on: 01/08/2006

Have tried "factory Reset", but does not work. What are the correct instructions to achieve reset?

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Picky Consumer's Response to Picky consumer's Review

Written on: 03/08/2006

The light sequences are incorrect in the manual at the end of the instructions. Ignore then and keep trying - it works after two or three times - but leave a little waiting time at the end of keycode input.

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“Philips DTR1500 - Easily set up, once you have read...”

★★★★☆

written by Powerful on 13/08/2004

Philips DTR1500 - Easily set up, once you have read the manual and identified your particular configuration.
Picture and graphics quality is good considering signal strength in my area.

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“I have had a DTR1500 for 6 months mated to a Philips...”

★★★★★

written by gendy943 on 06/08/2004

I have had a DTR1500 for 6 months mated to a Philips VCR850 for timer recordings off Freeview - it is superb for this but obviously only at CVBS level though numerous output formats can be chosen including SVHS and SVideo as well as RGB and PAL-CVBS.
The menus are easy to navigate but very comprehensive - you really can set this box up to meet every equipment set-up. The instruction book really takes some getting to know but is well worth the effort.
For me the graphics are better than Sony (includes channel-locked, no signal and radio channel selected graphics) as is the Philips box overall. The DTR1500 has been generally under-rated and is probably the best Freeview box out at the moment and at very good prices around £70.

Pity it seems now to be superseded by the Philips DTR1000.

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“Was looking for a DVB Freeview box and after checking...”

★★★★★

written by graeme0781 on 01/06/2004

Was looking for a DVB Freeview box and after checking out prices on the internet saw this Philips DTR1500 for £68.00 inc. delivery!!! Bought it straight away from greatsaves.co.uk and although the price is now, at time of writing, £75.00 it's still cheaper than anything listed on kelkoo, pricerunner(or indeed this website).

Received it 2 days later, pleased to find batteries for remote were included, and plugged it in. In order to get record function working properly I needed 3 scart and 3 co-axil leads, you get 1 of each supplied and if you already use a scart with your tv and vcr all you should have to buy is 1 scart lead (£7 @ B&Q). This allows you to watch digital while taping terrestrial and vice -versa. Be warned though, this set-up requires both scarts on my tv, so if you have a dvd you'll need to compromise or use a different connection as I do with the dvd player.

Switched the box on and straight away it began to tune itself in, within 30secs all the available channels were there. Menus and controls are idiot-proof. Digital broadcasts are mainly in 16:9 format - no more stretched or squashed pictures or watching 4:3 on a widescreen tv.

Best of all standing vertically it really compliments my tv and dvd.

My review of how to use it is quite short because it really is very easy to work.

If you choose to buy it I'm sure you'll be satisfied.

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Peterkn's Response to graeme0781's Review

Written on: 28/08/2004

I found the connecting-up between the VCR - Telly - Digibox a real pain. I seem to have it in such a way that everything works, but when recording a different channel to the one I'm watching, I'm never really sure if I'll get a recording or not.
<br>
<br>Apart from that, the picture is excellent, whereas before it was so-so at best.

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“Excellent clear graphics and text ”

★★★★★

written by crabtreemp on 17/11/2003

Excellent clear graphics and text
Excellent picture quality
Easy setup
Clear instruction manual

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