Philips DVDR3576H/37

This is my 2nd purchase attempt at a DVR with a digital tuner. The Philips DVDR3576H, and the similar Magnavox H2160MW9 did not recognize the basic, non-scrambled digital sub-channels from my cable co-ax.… My Samsung LCD TV with digital tuner has no issues with cable and recognized literally dozens more channels than the Magnavox did. And if can't receive the stations, what's the point of buying a DVR? I have no idea if it's a Qam tuner issue, or an earlier ATSC design but whatever it is, its already late '09 and these design defects should have been solved by now. Also, while you do a channel up or down, there is a long pause with a 'channel scanning' message on the screen with a delay before going to the next station. Lame engineering. I cannot comment on DVD recording or playback, as I returned the unit because I wanted a modern version of a VCR to time shift shows with no subscription fee, and this device failed to do its basic premise. Reading a review of a Polaroid DVR, the author had similar problems with his tuner. Hopefully things will be resolved by some manufacturer as there is a demand for a consumer DVR.

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This product wasn't hard to set up, but once I started using it, I found out what it is really lacking. You can only view or record one program at a time. If you are using it to record one proram, your… only option is to watch nothing or to watch what is being recorded. You can't switch to a different channel. Gee, even my old VCR did more than that! Also, the remote control has such small buttons that you need a magnifying lens to see them and there is no "last channel" feature to allow you to go back and forth between two programs. You have to punch the numbers in every time to switch channels, a difficult task with the tiny buttons. Also, the remote won't control volume on my TV, just the channels, so I have to use a second remote. I do like this product's memory feature that allows me to keep some programs until I want to watch them, without burning a disk. And I like that it does burn DVDs from television if you want to keep certain programs. I burn Sesame Street for my daughter, because her Dish Network doesn't carry the program. I bought this product for those features, but did not realize what I was giving up.

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FIRST OFF, Let me solve the quandary over the best DVD to use for Dubbing recordings from HDD to DVD or recording direct to DVD - Use a FujiFilm DVD+RW, 4.7GB, 120MIN, "Up To 4x" speed disc. This was the… one hiccup I had with the device - finding a DVD the machine would accept. The FujiFilm discs never fail and can be used over and over again. Other than that; we bought this machine last Xmas and never regretted it. It has paid for itself many times over in the last 10 months. We watch every show we want and never miss an episode. Contrary to the few negative reviews this machine is extremely reliable. The video quality is excellent. DVD format is completely compatible with all major video editing suite codecs (Womble is my choice). Excellent remote control. Logical and readable menu system. Loses timer programming if power goes out. Buy it, you won't regret it!

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We have been using the Phillips Philips DVDR3576H for over 6 months now and we have found it to be more than adequate for our needs. Prior to owning the Phillips, we owned a Toshiba that we were very happy… with, but the DVD burner in it stopped working and we could not get it repaired. As for the Phillips, the recording menu is fairly intuitive and easy to use. Transferring content from the DVR to the DVD takes a bit of work, but we finally got that worked out. The video recordings look sharp and clear, but we have not moved to a HD TV yet. We love the ample hard drive space. We have literally dozens hours of programming recorded on it. My biggest knock on this Phillips model is the remote is rather small and the text on it is difficult to read in low light - such as when you're watching TV. Other than that, we are quite satisfied with the Phillips and wish that more manufacturers would develop and sell more stand-along DVRs. We like not having to pay either Tivo or our cable company a monthly fee.

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Has a lot of great features as advertised,can record while watching other recorded programs, can edit out commercials before dubbing on to recordable DVD's, plenty of hard disk space, can record at multiple… speeds, can be used as a DVR to pause live TV and skip commercials. One minor short coming, can only set the timer for one month in advance; and one MAJOR headache, when the hard disk is close to full, glitches appear in the recordings and they freeze and skip in the recording. These glitches sometimes start to appear in recordings where no glitches were seen before. If you keep plenty of empty space on the hard disk, it's not a problem, but plenty annoying.

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