Philips DVDR615 - DVD Recorders and Blu-ray Recorders

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Philips DVDR615

Write
~~CDR~~
~~CDRW~~
~~DVD-R~~
~~DVD-RW~~
~~DVD-R DL~~
DVD+R
DVD+RW
~~DVD+RDL~~
~~DVD-RAM~~

Read*

CDR
CDRW
DVD-R
DVD-RW
~~DVD-R DL~~
DVD+R
DVD+RW
~~DVD+R DL~~
~~DVD-RAM~~

*based on user reports.

Desktop, Firewire

$400

6.9 (7.0)
30 votes
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DVD Player features:
Video formats:
~~DivX~~ JPG DVD-JPG
Audio formats:
MP3
Other features:
Progressive Scanning

More information
Region code free hack

DVD Media comments for this DVD Recorder (click on the link to read the comments):
2 Philips 4xDVD+RW (PHILIPS.041) comments, 2 good, 0 mixed, 0 poor.
1 Sony 4xDVD+RW (PHILIPS.041) comments, 1 good, 0 mixed, 0 poor.
1 Verbatim (DataLifePlus) 2.4xDVD+RW (MCC.....A01) comments, 1 good, 0 mixed, 0 poor.
1 Verbatim DigitalMovie 4xDVD+R (MCC.....002) comments, 1 good, 0 mixed, 0 poor.
Add your DVD Media comments here

Comments

36 comments, Showing 1 to 25 comments

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Marx from United States reported January 28, 2008:
Read features:						Time used:	Rating:
CDR? CDRW?	DVD-R? DVD-RW? DVD-R DL?	DVD+R? DVD+RW? DVD+R DL?	VCD? XVCD? XSVCD?	SVCD? SVCDSubs? SVCDTracks?	MP3? CVD?	over 1 year	3 of 10
DVD-RAM?
Comments:
my final review of 615/37. the cdrom broke yesterday. online parts to replace cost $ 120 usd. i finally gave it a proper burial. never will buy philips again. not because of that but this thing was aweful quality. it would crash, it kept terrible time, had to hassle with a firmware upgrade, audio lagged video often, lud fan in back.and finally the cdrom part totally failed with the tray becoming jammed and broken with my dvd in it. i tried to fix but cdrom mechanism was frozen. i still gave it a 3 because it did provide good recordings when it worked. git a toshiba. it will do for now.

Monty from United Kingdom reported January 13, 2007:
Read features:						Time used:	Rating:
CDR CDRW	~~DVD-R~~ ~~DVD-RW~~ DVD-R DL?	DVD+R DVD+RW DVD+R DL?	VCD XVCD? XSVCD?	SVCD SVCDSubs? SVCDTracks?	MP3? CVD?	over 1 year	9 of 10
DVD-RAM?
Comments:
Have had this recorder for 18 months, and you will notice from my first review two months after I bought it that I gave and 8 out of 10 rating. So why 9 now? For one reason, and the best reason of all - it has been and continues to be a very reliable, quality machine that produces excellent results every time. The glitches with the remote control have been well and truly forgotten, and also that silly manual which needed alot of interpretation is now just a memory. I hope that it will continue to provide many more trouble-free years of operation, and it may well prove that things do improve with age :)

Jeffrey from United States reported November 08, 2006:
Read features:						Time used:	Rating:
CDR? CDRW?	DVD-R? DVD-RW? DVD-R DL?	Few DVD+R Few DVD+RW DVD+R DL?	VCD? XVCD? XSVCD?	SVCD? SVCDSubs? SVCDTracks?	MP3? CVD?	over 1 year	3 of 10
DVD-RAM?
Comments:
This is a second posting I am making about this machine-after a year of use, it has numerous problems. The machine will occasionally "freeze" in the middle of the recording, it will not respond to any of the remote control buttons,the only way to retrieve the disc is to unplug and replug the machine-which renders all data on the disc as UNRECOGNIZED- I have wasted dozens of discs this way. I have never owned an electronic item that could not even keep the CORRECT TIME, the clock is always about 15 minutes fast.I have not been able to burn a firmware upgrade from the Philips site-Philips customer service refuses to send me a disc that costs them about 25 cents- they want 15.00 in summary.. Picture quality-10 - build quality, reliability-2 I will NEVER buy any electronics from Philips again..

Benman from Netherlands reported November 30, 2005:
Read features:						Time used:	Rating:
CDR ~~CDRW~~	DVD-R DVD-RW? DVD-R DL?	DVD+R DVD+RW DVD+R DL?	VCD? XVCD? XSVCD?	SVCD? SVCDSubs? SVCDTracks?	MP3? CVD?	60 days	4 of 10
DVD-RAM?
Comments:
Had a few problems within a few months. "Blocked"-problem so i had a new serversection set in for free. 3 weeks later, childrensafety kept falling in, chapters kept repeating, stopped with intervals, needing a coldboot afterwards. Brought it back saying i did not want a 615 nomore. Got a 33XX-series instead and this one plays DIVX too .... Philips themselves admitted there wer certain problems with earlier models. i probably had one of those.

Samtron from Finland reported November 24, 2005:
Read features:						Time used:	Rating:
CDR CDRW	DVD-R DVD-RW DVD-R DL?	DVD+R DVD+RW DVD+R DL?	VCD XVCD? XSVCD?	SVCD SVCDSubs? SVCDTracks?	MP3? CVD?	360 days	9 of 10
~~DVD-RAM~~
Comments:
This recorder is super! Why not 10/10: Only cons I give is for the copy protection they use and for the power-on-not-working-bug (not fixed even they have released many firmware updates since I get this little fellow, It's very weird). If you have not used it for a long time.. say for a few days, you will need to keep the power button pushed down for some seconds and push again the power button to be able to start the system.. bummer. :( Not a big bug, but pretty annoying. I have tried to edit my video clips (with PC) since I get the DVDR615, but have not been able to edit them with Nero. Today I discovered that the DVD's I have recorded have a copy protection. I have no idea why! I hate that PHILIPS have added such a thing without any notice at all in the manual. Ohh, and I am using the latest firmware (v BT1_35). Copy protection: "ALPHA-DVD copy protection". How to remove it (to be able edit the videos you own): Use your PC with the latest AnyDVD for example (tested and working great). Copy all files to HDD first and then edit them. Easy as hell. If you are wondering, go out and buy this recorder! It's very easy to use and makes HQ video/audio from any source you can connect to it.

Plazmid from United States reported November 22, 2005:
Read features:						Time used:	Rating:
CDR? CDRW?	DVD-R DVD-RW? DVD-R DL?	DVD+R DVD+RW? DVD+R DL?	VCD XVCD? XSVCD?	SVCD SVCDSubs? SVCDTracks?	MP3? CVD?	7 days	8 of 10
DVD-RAM?
Comments:
Here are the settings I used successfully to burn a Frimware Upgrade CD. This upgrade is a must! They fixed quite a few very annoying software issues with this. Props go to Marx for posting these settings as a Nero project. No Multi-session Data Mode: 2 / XA File System: ISO 9660 + Joliet File Length: ISO Level 2 (31 Chars) Char Set: ISO Standard 9660 Name the CD: FF953 Burn at 8X Track-at-once Method Finalize CD Relax Restrictions: (May not matter) Allow Path Greater than 8 Directories Allow More than 255 Chars in path Allow More than 64 Chars for Joliet Names

Redking from United States reported November 19, 2005:
Read features:						Time used:	Rating:
CDR CDRW	DVD-R? DVD-RW? DVD-R DL?	DVD+R DVD+RW DVD+R DL?	VCD XVCD? XSVCD?	SVCD SVCDSubs? SVCDTracks?	MP3? CVD?	120 days	9 of 10
DVD-RAM?
Comments:
I tried the firmware upgrade recently subnitted by another reviewer and despite the many diffrent ways I burned the disc, the Philips replied 'Bad File' and did not upgrade the unit. Will someone with a working upgrade contact me.

Plazmid from United States reported November 16, 2005:
Read features:						Time used:	Rating:
~~CDR~~ ~~CDRW~~	~~DVD-R~~ ~~DVD-RW~~ ~~DVD-R DL~~	DVD+R DVD+RW ~~DVD+R DL~~	VCD XVCD? XSVCD?	SVCD SVCDSubs? SVCDTracks?	MP3? CVD?	5 days	7 of 10
~~DVD-RAM~~
Comments:
Does anyone know or have a guide on how to operate features such as zoom on this thing? After upgrading the firmware (props to all who explained how to do this, it was difficult and I had to unplug, re-plug the unit several times until I used a cd burned with the process it liked, ugg). This unit is certainly not that user friendly, but I must say the image quality is good, as are the DVD's it produces. I've been using this to clear old presentations off my TIVO. (Those of you who use the home media option know what a pain that is to make DVDs from transferred shows, so I opted the lazy route and record the directly to DVD) And yes, the new firmware fixes that annoying display of chapters while playing commercial DVDs. Eventually I'll get this thing figured out. Truly, it is the remote that is a bad design, not the player itself.

Marx from United States reported November 04, 2005:
Read features:						Time used:	Rating:
CDR? CDRW?	DVD-R? DVD-RW? DVD-R DL?	DVD+R? DVD+RW? DVD+R DL?	VCD? XVCD? XSVCD?	SVCD? SVCDSubs? SVCDTracks?	MP3? CVD?	7 days	8 of 10
DVD-RAM?
Comments:
firmware, finally got it to work > ISO file for the settings is here: http://scum333.homestead.com/files/firmware_9.53.nri basically you have to relax all file restrictions. love the recorder. don't like the fan on the back. i can hear it. everytime I turn the recorder on I have to switch my TV from channel 3 and back to clear the picture of snow. must be my TV.

Marx from United States reported November 03, 2005:
Read features:						Time used:	Rating:
CDR? CDRW	DVD-R? DVD-RW? DVD-R DL?	DVD+R? DVD+RW DVD+R DL?	VCD? XVCD? XSVCD?	SVCD? SVCDSubs? SVCDTracks?	MP3? CVD?	7 days	8 of 10
DVD-RAM?
Comments:
firmware 9.53 for 615/37, finally got it to work > ISO file for the settings is here: http://scum333.homestead.com/files/firmware_9.53.nri basically, you have to relax all file restrictions. love the recorder. don't like the fan on the back. i can hear it. everytime I turn the recorder on I have to switch my TV from channel 3 and back to clear the picture of snow. must be my TV. best recorder in it's class.

t1b1m from Romania reported October 31, 2005:
Read features:						Time used:	Rating:
CDR? CDRW?	DVD-R? DVD-RW? DVD-R DL?	DVD+R? DVD+RW? DVD+R DL?	VCD? XVCD? XSVCD?	SVCD? SVCDSubs? SVCDTracks?	MP3? CVD?	60 days	No rating
DVD-RAM?
Comments:
tested with proformance & verbatim dvd+r and the "divide title" not work. On the dvd+rw work. A question: always I have an "Emty Title" menu. Can i delete somehow this ?

Redking from United States reported October 14, 2005:
Read features:						Time used:	Rating:
CDR CDRW	DVD-R? DVD-RW? DVD-R DL?	DVD+R DVD+RW DVD+R DL?	VCD XVCD? XSVCD?	SVCD SVCDSubs? SVCDTracks?	MP3? CVD?	150 days	8 of 10
DVD-RAM?
Comments:
Ah...the firmware issue. Does anyone have a working burned firmware upgrade that doesn't hang/crash? If so, I would like to borrow it long enough to complete the upgrade. Will reimburse costs. On another subject, this player doesn't have zoom for dvd? Why not? It will zoom for jpeg images only. I'd like to watch those letterbox movies full-screen. I can do this on my Philips DVP 642/37 BUT MAN DOES IT DEGRADE PICTURE QUALITY! To see how bad it is, try 'The Getaway Uncut, unrated version'. This disc is 2.35:1 non-enhanced for widescreen. Press zoom once: pixelation/tearing/grain. Jeez. I expected better from Philips.

Redhead from United States reported October 12, 2005:
Read features:						Time used:	Rating:
CDR? CDRW?	DVD-R? DVD-RW? DVD-R DL?	DVD+R? DVD+RW DVD+R DL?	VCD? XVCD? XSVCD?	SVCD? SVCDSubs? SVCDTracks?	MP3? CVD?	7 days	8 of 10
DVD-RAM?
Comments:
Just bought this unit (Oct 05) and so far it is OK. I use it to record TV shows from satellite and the quality is good. Price was just $139. As others have said, the menu movement is a bit confusing but we got the hang of it after a few attempts. The instruction manual leaves much to be desired and you must rely on some intuitive guesses to do what you need. I am getting the chapter display also but it comes on for a few seconds and then goes away until a new chapter is encountered. We find it a bit annoying, but it is not really that bad once you get used to it, especially when considering the cost of the unit. When fast forwarding, we were required to use the 'edit' mode, which seems strange to us. When I tried the >> button without the edit mode, I just got an error message. Also would not let us pause unless in the edit mode. I like the fact that it does warn you that the timed recording is due in a few minutes (5 minutes ahead?) Overall, so far this unit seems like a deal. We'll see if it is a poorly reliable as some others have found. We're just using it for a replacement for the VHS machine, so we have minimal requirements.

Bill from United States reported September 22, 2005:
Read features:						Time used:	Rating:
CDR? CDRW?	DVD-R? DVD-RW? DVD-R DL?	DVD+R? DVD+RW? DVD+R DL?	VCD? XVCD? XSVCD?	SVCD? SVCDSubs? SVCDTracks?	MP3? CVD?	150 days	6 of 10
DVD-RAM?
Comments:
I have a DVDR 615/37 which had the Chapter display problem. Thanks to others in this thread I downloaded the firmware update version FF9.53 from www.p4c.philips.com. When I attemted to follow the update instructions from the Philips site every CD I burned and tried gave me the error that one of the files was bad and the 615/37 hung. I tried both Nero and Roxio Easy CD Creator to burn the update CDs. I ended up just burning a CD with most of the defaults in Roxio Easy CD Creator. To my surprise the upgrade worked! The only glitch was that at the end of the upgrade the CD would not eject. I had to reset the power, to eject the CD. Once it was was powered back on the version showed FF9.53 and it no longer has the annoying chapter display problem! To create the CD I just unzipped the update and burned the 11 files on the CD. The "CD Project Properties" I used for Easy CD Creator were: File System: UDF Record using a single track only (checked) Mode 1: CDROM For burning I used write speed of 4x and set Track-At-Once with "Finalize CD". I got this DVDR from Philips as a replacement for my DVDR 985 which had started to have recording problems. The 615 is much more complicated to use but does have a great picture. The 985 had a much nicer user interface. I hope this helps others trying to update their 615/37 recorders.

redking from United States reported August 19, 2005:
Read features:						Time used:	Rating:
CDR? CDRW?	DVD-R? DVD-RW? DVD-R DL?	DVD+R? DVD+RW? DVD+R DL?	VCD? XVCD? XSVCD?	SVCD? SVCDSubs? SVCDTracks?	MP3? CVD?	210 days	9 of 10
DVD-RAM?
Comments:
For some reason, my previous post never got posted so I'll try again. I downloaded the firmware update: FF9.53 from http://www.p4c.philips.com. Despite my efforts I could not get the unit to read the disc, it just kept ejecting it. This after several burns on a cdrw and a cdr, nothing. So I gave up on that idea. This unit needs a major firmware update not a minor one as the unit has some irritating quirks. The chapter display cannot be shut off and there is no reason for it to be displayed. If you forget to put a disc in for a timer recording the unit will not alert you to your error. The ir section seems to be prone to being activated by other non-Philips remotes. If you erase a dvdrw on another unit other than the Philips, you'll have a time getting the unit to recognise the disc. The only way out of this is to record a minute or two and then erase the disc. Even with it's quirks, I'm not about to dump my unit despite what the other posters have said about this unit. It has a great picture which plays perfectly on my Pansonic DVD RA-60, not one failure ever. I do miss the complete lack of any picture adjustments, no submenu that I have found, just a black level adjustment. I have made some dubs from VHS that look very good, from camcorder as well. The M1 and M2 modes look very clean, even the slower speeds look better than any VHS machine could ever do. I am using Direct Tv and SVHS leads. I wish the unit would do audio-only but without a video signal, no go. If anyone can get a working burned update of the firmware, let me know.

lordsmurf from United States reported August 18, 2005:
Read features:						Time used:	Rating:
CDR? CDRW?	DVD-R? DVD-RW? DVD-R DL?	DVD+R? DVD+RW? DVD+R DL?	VCD? XVCD? XSVCD?	SVCD? SVCDSubs? SVCDTracks?	MP3? CVD?	2 days	1 of 10
DVD-RAM?
Comments:
This machine is best used as a boat anchor. See full review here: http://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=276785 In short, the machine is plagued by typical Philips errors. All sort of mechanical errors and power issues. A real shame too, as it had an LSI chipset. Oh well.

David from United States reported August 16, 2005:
Read features:						Time used:	Rating:
CDR CDRW	DVD-R DVD-RW? DVD-R DL?	DVD+R? DVD+RW? DVD+R DL?	VCD? XVCD? XSVCD?	SVCD? SVCDSubs? SVCDTracks?	MP3? CVD?	2 days	5 of 10
DVD-RAM?
Comments:
Wow-- I have the same problem with this dvd recorder-- I've talked with the customer support, and they gave me a run around. Basically, it is a well known issue with Philips that the 615/37 has a malfunction out-of-the-box where the during play-back a chapter heading will be displayed whenever a new chapter is encountered. Philips told me that the firmware upgrade should resolve this problem, but I get the exact same results as the previous reviewer. The recorder hangs during installation of the firmware (yes the readme is incorrect, you have to unzip the files and burn those directly to the cd-r). There apparently is a corrupt DL file in this firmware upgrade (my installation reports "DL Bad File" just prior to hanging on "Philips". I've reported this to philips, called them several times, emailed them, and will wait a couple of days for a response (see if they'll fix the firmware) before I return this lemon back to circiut city. One of the support agents told me that they can't even send me a firmware upgrade b/c they suspended doing that back in June (no doubt b/c it doesn't work). Other than the chapter problem, it has a great picture (however that picture is ruined by the chapter bar being displayed every 5-10 minutes). Also-- I just returned a Samsung dvd-r120, and would not recommend buying it. After about 2 weeks it started to give after images (or stuttered images)-- picture quality was really poor compared to older dvd players. I'm thinking maybe I'll try a toshiba or sony next if this isn't resolved (also tried a magnavox from Best Buy, and at about 30 days it stopped recognizing blank disks!). David

thomseye from United States reported August 16, 2005:
Read features:						Time used:	Rating:
CDR? CDRW?	DVD-R? DVD-RW? DVD-R DL?	DVD+R? DVD+RW? DVD+R DL?	VCD? XVCD? XSVCD?	SVCD? SVCDSubs? SVCDTracks?	MP3? CVD?	4 days	2 of 10
DVD-RAM?
Comments:
Oh my God!!! I've never had a worse experience with any electronic device in my life. So far I have owned the ILODVDR-04, Cyberhome 1600, Panasonic DMR-E10 and this Philips. Where as the previous DVD Recorders had flaws that annoyed my, this recorder has flaws that make it completely unusable. I bought this recorded based on the recommended chipset by lordsmurf. He hadn't recommended this recorder in particular, although the chip was highly regarded for picture quality and this was most important to me. The picture quality is indeed the best of all the recorders I've seen. It's remarkable... However, because I edit these DVD's on my PC, it's extremely important to be able to cut out commercials and to edit out Music Video's from the recorded DVD in order to make new DVD's from the recorded footage. This is where I ran into problems. Once I copied the vob file onto my PC and edited the video, upon playback I noticed that the audio was not in sync with the video. I then wrote to a DVD Authored Video via Nero and played this on my stand alone Mintek and noticed there was no audio what-so-ever. I then decided to try a firmware update via the Philips web-site. This was a 4 hour complete waste of time. I downloaded the .zip file and tried to burn that to a CD-R based on the philips guidelines. This CD-R would simply eject from the DVD Recorded after pushing the close button. I though that it was strange that it was a .zip file so maybe the problem was with the fact that it was a compressed file, so I returned to the philips site to check the instructions. There was absolutely no information as to extracted the files from the .zip file. It simply stated to NOT rename the file and to write the file to the CDR. I burned another CDR thinking that maybe I had a bad write... this too was rejected by the recorder. I then figured that I'd extract the files from the .zip and write those files to a CDR. I then placed the disc in the recorder per the instructions and this time my unit powered down and then on again per the philips website. Everything seemed to be working, so I was skeptically pleased. However, after 45 minutes, my recorder was still in "hang-mode", meaning that it was stuck at one of the steps. My recorder had "philips" displayed on the panel, but the web-site said that this would be followed by other messages. After 45 minutes, I ended up unplugging the unit to try again. Keep in mind that the web-site indicated that the entire upgrade process would take 4-5 minutes. I tried again to update the firmware, this time I thought that I'd give it more time... So I waited 1 1/2 hours and the same exact thing... the unit just hung on the "philips" message. I unplugged again and gave up. I then decided to see if I could try other means at copying the vob files to my hard drive to avoid the sync problem. So I tried DVD Decryptor... Unfortunetly, I had the same sync problems that I had when I simply "copied" the vob files to my hard drive. Now I have used 3 other DVD Recorders and have not run into this problem with any other units. It's really too bad because I really did appreciate the picture quality. I will be returning this crap machine tomorrow and getting a Samsung DVD-R120 which also uses the same LSI chip. I hope that it has the same quality, minus the sync issues I had with the philips. I am very disappointed in this DVD Recorder. If you will be using this unit for further editing on your computer, STAY AWAY! If you have, however figured out how to edit without the sync issues, please let me know... I would get this unit back in a heartbeat without this fatal flaw. peace thomseye

Bowho from United States reported August 13, 2005:
Read features:						Time used:	Rating:
CDR? CDRW	DVD-R? DVD-RW? DVD-R DL?	DVD+R DVD+RW DVD+R DL?	VCD? XVCD? XSVCD?	SVCD? SVCDSubs? SVCDTracks?	MP3? CVD?	7 days	No rating
DVD-RAM?
Comments:
Redking, can you post that url/link ? I have searched Philips site and can only find firmwre update for DVDR615/17. Thanks

Redking from United States reported August 13, 2005:
Read features:						Time used:	Rating:
CDR CDRW	DVD-R? DVD-RW? DVD-R DL?	DVD+R DVD+RW DVD+R DL?	VCD XVCD? XSVCD?	SVCD SVCDSubs? SVCDTracks?	MP3? CVD?	180 days	9 of 10
DVD-RAM?
Comments:
There is a new firmware upgrade which can be found on the Philips support site it is: FF9.53 and is 4.66Mb. I will download/install and report on it. This is for the DVDR615/37 ONLY! Hopefully they will have fixed the chapter display problem on the screen as well as a few other quirks. I recently transferred a vhs tape to dvd(Memorex Dvd+R)with no problems and the picture in the M2 mode looks great. The unit so far doesn't seem to be fussy about media and I use Tdk, Sony, Philips +RW media. There should be a 'no disc' warning when setting up timer recordings. A foolish mistake but Philips needs to 'goof proof' their units. I have noticed that at times, my direct tv remote somehow activates the Philips unit to show the browser screen, this also happens with my teac remote. This shouldn't be happening. I have some svhs tapes I need to tranfer to dvd as soon as I can get another svhs unit, those transfers should look very good.

Monty from United Kingdom reported July 26, 2005:
Read features:						Time used:	Rating:
CDR? CDRW	DVD-R? DVD-RW? ~~DVD-R DL~~	DVD+R DVD+RW ~~DVD+R DL~~	VCD? XVCD? XSVCD?	SVCD? SVCDSubs? SVCDTracks?	MP3? CVD?	60 days	8 of 10
DVD-RAM?
Comments:
Been debating for a long time about whether or not to buy a DVD-Recorder, and by a combination of impulse and research (impulse being when to buy not what) finally bought this Philips example home. And, I am glad I did :-) Okay, first things first.....the grumbles. Like most other owners/reviewers here I agree wholeheartedly about the poor manual (you have to quite literally read, interpret and also solve those "hidden meanings"), and the badly laid out remote control which must have been designed late one Friday, 5 minutes before home time!!! But after those initial frustrations and fairly steep learning curve, I got to know how to operate my new DVD-Recorder, and I also saw its capabilities. Picture quality is excellent, even at 6 and 8 hour modes and from VCR recordings. Sound is very good too, and the machine has been given no trouble whatsoever. Have to say that I am very pleased with my purchase, and, if anyone is thinking about buying a DVD recorder then I can recommend this one, BUT be prepared for that annoying manual and remote control.

chuckes from Singapore reported July 07, 2005:
Read features:						Time used:	Rating:
CDR? CDRW?	DVD-R? DVD-RW? DVD-R DL?	DVD+R? DVD+RW? DVD+R DL?	VCD? XVCD? XSVCD?	SVCD? SVCDSubs? SVCDTracks?	MP3? CVD?	30 days	6 of 10
DVD-RAM?
Comments:
Follow up. I am using BTS1_31 firmware (not BTS1_32 firmware). The button layout of the remote is very poor - main viewing functions should be located together: Tuner, Browser-Disk, System menu, Timer - there ought to be different shaped buttons to allow more intuitive use. Try a Sony TV remote, and you can feel your way around the main buttons - where's the subtitle button, this is a DVD player after all! I just archived 6 hours of edited DV tape to DVD through the DVDR615 firewire input. I had to import the files to my PC and rewrite the 16:9 clips to proper aspect ratio (using TMPGEnc MPEG editor). I give a 6. + video quality is great + recording modes are flexible - usability (remote, on-screen menus) is pretty difficult to work with. - Power on startup is very slow. - bug in the 16:9 aspect ratio in the firewire recording (displayed as 4:3 in other players) needs fixing - Recording to DVD-R and Dual Layer disk support is needed. Philips is heavily advertising that they have best support for all disk format...

Chuckles from Singapore reported June 24, 2005:
Read features:						Time used:	Rating:
CDR? CDRW?	DVD-R? DVD-RW? DVD-R DL?	DVD+R? DVD+RW? DVD+R DL?	VCD? XVCD? XSVCD?	SVCD? SVCDSubs? SVCDTracks?	MP3? CVD?	14 days	No rating
DVD-RAM?
Comments:
:: 16:9 DV Firewire recording update :: By taking the DVD-RW disk to my PC, I used TMPGEnc MPEG Editor to copy the MPEG file (wrongly marked as 4:3 aspect ratio) to my hard disk, and from that file then quickly create a new MPEG with correct 16:9 ratio. The good thing is that the the TMPGENc software does not re-encode the video information, so it is quick to write the new MPEG file. So Philips dudes: all you have to fix is the DAR flag in the MPEG video stream for 16:9 video captured from the DV Firewire - shouldn't take long to update the firmware to do that (please?!)

Chuckles from Singapore reported June 23, 2005:
Read features:						Time used:	Rating:
CDR? CDRW?	DVD-R DVD-RW DVD-R DL?	DVD+R? DVD+RW DVD+R DL?	VCD? XVCD? XSVCD?	SVCD? SVCDSubs? SVCDTracks?	MP3? CVD?	14 days	No rating
DVD-RAM?
Comments:
I have upgraded to BTS1_32 firmware (June 2005). :: DV date and time -> subtitles. To Fred from United States - yes, I find this model records the date and time from the DV-connected camcorder (mine is a Panasonic) to the DVD subtitle; a very nice feature when archiving video to DVD! :: 16:9 from DV camcorder. To Werner from Netherlands - the DVDR615 records 16:9 from my Panasonic connected through the DV connection. The DVDR615 plays back the recorded clips as 16:9. So it seems to work fine for me. BUT, when I take a finalised DVD+RW disc to other DVD players (Pioneer, and my PC) unfortunately the 16:9 clips are shown in 4:3 resolution. Something is not right about 16:9 recordings... Philips dudes, please take note and check it out!

J.K. & Calypso from United Kingdom reported June 23, 2005:
Read features:						Time used:	Rating:
CDR? CDRW?	DVD-R? DVD-RW? DVD-R DL?	DVD+R? DVD+RW? DVD+R DL?	VCD? XVCD? XSVCD?	SVCD? SVCDSubs? SVCDTracks?	MP3? CVD?	2 days	No rating
DVD-RAM?
Comments:
Philips Customer Services are appalling. I've never had the misfortune of having to deal with such a frustrating bunch of blockheads.

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Original Equipment Manufacturer.

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Write support / Read support
DVD-R = Works
~~DVD-R~~ = Is not supported
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FireWire = Computer desktop DVD Writer with IEEE 1394/FireWire/i.Link connection (some standalone desktop dvd recorder supports this also but then it is usually to connect your DV camera to the recorder)

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