Philips DVDR80 DVD Recorder

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DVD Recorder

Write support

Read support

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Philips DVDR80

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

$500

7.7/10
17 votes
Read 19
comments
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DVD Player features:
Video formats:
JPG
Audio formats:
MP3
Other features:

Visit manufacturer's site
Region code free hack

DVD Media comments for this DVD Recorder (click on the link to read the comments):
1 Mitsumi 4xDVD-R (OPTODISCR004) comments, 1 good, 0 mixed, 0 poor.
1 Verbatim (DataLifePlus) 4xDVD+RW (MKM.....A02) comments, 0 good, 0 mixed, 1 poor.
Post your DVD Media comments here

Comments

19 comments, Showing 1 to 19 comments

Dr. Mabuse from Sweden reported May 29, 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?	300 days	No rating
DVD-RAM?
Comments:
The encoding chipset have performance problems. I haven't used it much as recorder because of this. When there is a lot of movements in the picture it gets grainy, blocky... many artifacts. I recorded the Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix with both the DVDR80 and a Panasonic VCR on Long-Play, and the image quality of the VCR was far superior when the cameras followed the cars. When the cameras were fixed, there was temporal (shadowed) artifacts from the moving cars on the DVD-recording. How disappointing! In many DVDs, I get intermittent sound-problems: The player drops the audio-stream for a half second. Once that happens the glitch comes in short random intervals usually less than 15 seconds. The only way to get rid of the glitches it is to stop the playback by pressing "stop" then "play" again. I'm running the DVDR80 on the original firmware, but plan to upgrade. However, I expect only the sound-problem to be fixed by it, since the video encoding is in the chipset. (Read the forum, on Fatal Flaws of DVD)

Grittle from United Kingdom reported May 05, 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:
I'm having real problems with the IR G-Link. It worked 95% of the time to start with, controlling a Pace Cable box (Telewest). Changed the TV (plus stand) and now the G Link only changes the channel properly 25% of the time. The G-Link needs to send a 3 digit code, and it seems to send one, or two more often than the three. I've been through the setup and it does change the channel okay when setting up (sends signal 42). I've also spent ages trying to reposition the IR led (holding the remote really close lets me work out where the IR receiver is on the Pace) Previously the Pace was behind a smoked door, now it sits on a shelf, sometimes in bright sunlight. The Pace remote works just fine. I tried putting a shoebox over the Pace + G Link and it changes channel much better (and of course stops the Pace remote working and looks daft). Summary is the G Link is not putting out a strong enough signal (or does but too fast). Great idea, means if you are away and the Pace box resets it should still record the right channel - but right now it is worse than useless - totally unreliable

Runo from Denmark reported March 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?	over 1 year	7 of 10
DVD-RAM?
Comments:
No comments

Andy from United Kingdom reported June 20, 2004:
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?	N/A	8 of 10
DVD-RAM?
Comments:
I too had a problem with the light around the disc tray not working, turned out to be the fact that I had dimmed the display from within the sytem menu, turned it back to bright and hey presto the light was back. I may be wrong but I don't think this is mentioned in the manual. Having said that the picture quality is very good in M1,M2 modes anything in M3 and greater is really just for stuff you don't want to keep as the quality is not that hot.The operating logic is really not that intuative and you have to refer to manual for everything new you want to do, this should not be the case in this day and age. I had an old Philips video recorder a number of years ago and that too used strange logic ie holding down the STOP button to eject the tape, Maybe the guy in charge of the logic dept. at Philips in Holland has been on the wacky backy a bit too much.

matthew from United States reported May 20, 2004:
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	10 of 10
DVD-RAM?
Comments:
love it great pq

Gerben Plantinga from Netherlands reported April 07, 2004:
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?	N/A	8 of 10
DVD-RAM?
Comments:
No comments

Paul Matthews from United Kingdom reported February 28, 2004:
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?	N/A	6 of 10
DVD-RAM?
Comments:
Had the DVDR80 for about 2 weeks now, replacing my old DVDR880. Far better quality even on the longer play modes. Can not get it to control my NTL cable box via the IR link and the Guide + only seems to work some of the time. Also had the problem with the Red LED around the drive door, not working after about the first hour. Can not get the Fire Wire port to detect signal from a Sony Digital-8 camcorder. General view = Nice recorder but lots of bugs.

FKrueger from Other reported February 09, 2004:
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?	N/A	10 of 10
DVD-RAM?
Comments:
You bet xaver

Michael from United States reported February 03, 2004:
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?	N/A	6 of 10
DVD-RAM?
Comments:
Bought this recorder in November. Guide+ has always worked for me. Have had numerous difficulties with different features. Users manual is very poor, I have placed numerous calls to Philips support. Many features ARE NOT explained in the manual. I have received a firmware upgrade. Haven't noticed much improvement. Most of my recordings have been from VHS. Recording animated programs has not been very successful. Some are washed out (increased brightness) and others look like overexposed pictures. Even a few color movies did not look too good. Black and white movies have been the most successful. Recording from TV has been almost flawless. A few DVD+RW have been damaged and had to be thrown out. I got the "disc contains unknown data" message at these times. I do like the feature where you can "program" how long you want a recording to last (adding 30 minutes with each click of the REC button).

Paul from United States reported February 01, 2004:
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?	N/A	7 of 10
DVD-RAM?
Comments:
TiVo's the best option for daily TV recordings. While the DVDR80 can't compete with TiVo in terms of convenience, I'd say that it is definitely a "VCR-killer"... that is, for archiving to external media. The video capture quality looks excellent to me. I have a whole bunch of old SVHS-ET tapes that I am in the process of transferring, and it does a great job. At M2x recording quality, it produces about 2.5 hours on a DVD at 720x480/6880 kbps, variable rate encoding. Looks virtually indistinguishable from the original. The M3 and M4 also look good, although there is a drop in resolution (352x480). M6 and M8 are the only recording levels that look obviously worse than the others on my 32 inch digital TV. At "M2x/component video/progressive scan", video quality looks noticably better than "SVHS SP" or "TiVo best quality" with S-video. Before I bought DVDR80, I tried the Plextor ConvertX PC capture device (retail: $179). I had lots of problems. The video that was produced was pretty low quality, and would break up on my DVD player after only a few minutes. The DVDR80 captures video at much higher quality, much more reliably. However, DVDR80 suffers from usability problems. For example, there aren't any fast forward and rewind buttons on the remote :-() You have to hold down chapter forward/backward to get this. It seems totally bizarre that a device for recording TV, where people frequently fast forward over commercials, doesn't have dedicated buttons for this. If you aren't careful, you can advance chapters rather than fast forwarding. There's several other buttons on the remote that I would have been happy to live without in exchange for such a basic feature -- who ever uses "angle" and "zoom" anyway? Another example is the Guide output. For the first few days, I didn't think that it worked. Everytime I turned the DVDR80 on, the guide would come on automatically, as indicated by a white light on the front. But what I saw was not the guide, it was the DVD title menu, which wouldn't respond until I turned the guide off. By accident, one day I discovered that the guide was working, but it only displayed through the component video output (I use this for watching DVDs, and S-video for watching TV). I don't understand how everything else can be displayed on both outputs except this. Don't get me wrong, once I figured this out I found the guide to be a lot better than manually programming a VCR. However, it doesn't compare to the convenience and usability of TiVo. I was hopeful when I saw a "record regularly" option, thinking that this was like a TiVo season pass. Not quite. It records the same show when it is on at the same time of day, but doesn't seem to be able to find the show at different times of day. Nor is it able to not record repeats. I was disappointed that it doesn't support "shuffle" for DVDs -- this is a CD-only feature. I looked in the manual before I bought it, and it didn't say that. I wanted to make a DVD of music videos, and use it like a video jukebox, randomly playing videos in a different order each time. Maybe they'll support this in a firmware upgrade. There's an interesting "hidden" feature, described way at the end of the FAQ. It seems to support "bit setting" to allow you to change the "book type" of a DVD+RW to make it look like a standard DVD-ROM. Some old DVD players, such as my Toshiba 5109, won't read DVD+RW directly. But they will if you change the book type of the disc first. It's a pretty good recorder, but you may have to adapt to some awkwardness before you get the hang of it.

tim ng from Other reported January 07, 2004:
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?	N/A	9 of 10
DVD-RAM?
Comments:
I've had some of the same problems with brightness added to my DVD recordings from EP tapes. My Guide Plus System still does not have the right channels even after I reset the system three times. Even after all of that, I'm happy with the recorder. It does a good job, and beats my old trusty Super VHS. My only real concern is the unit tends to get really hot over extended recording times.

charlie from Other reported January 07, 2004:
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?	N/A	8 of 10
DVD-RAM?
Comments:
It works okey, but there is one thing that don't work; my guide+! Could it be becose I don't have the right channel that support guide+, or is there something else I'm doing wrong? I live in norway, and I don't now whitc cannels that support guide+. Any clue? Another thing about the recorder is that it's a bit noisy. Specially when Im whathcing a movie or recording, but olso when i'ts just standing on. I's there anyone who has a comment on this?

RichieB from Other reported December 29, 2003:
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?	N/A	No rating
DVD-RAM?
Comments:
Wondering if anyone else had a problem with transferring Video to DVD with this unit? It works great, but as of yet, I have found that it adds alittle brightness in the transfer. Outside of that, it works great.

Roy from Other reported December 19, 2003:
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?	N/A	9 of 10
DVD-RAM?
Comments:
works as a dream. Hard to make region free, but I made it (described under DVD hacks) Macrovision elegant solved by SCART or red box www.sonel.com or www.dimax.com.ua.

Roy Halvorsen from Other reported December 12, 2003:
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?	N/A	7 of 10
DVD-RAM?
Comments:
I forgot to give you the UK guy's email: barry_ashby05@hotmail.com Regards, Roy

Roy Halvorsen from Other reported December 12, 2003:
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?	N/A	7 of 10
DVD-RAM?
Comments:
Hi, have had it for 2 weeks now. Good unit, well engineered. It has a cooling fan inside that is located above the player unit. The unit misses some ventilation holes in the cabinet. It gets rather hot when it's writing. Bought it because I want's to transfer all our VHS Disnesy's to DVD. Popped into the Macrovision problem: "COPY PROTECTION" in the display of the writer. After some search I got into a nice guy in the UK, who had the solution: A SCART lead with some nice electronics inside. Send him an email, pay £ 40.00 and he'll send you a cable. It works perfect! Easy to use, and nice result. The only disadvantage so far, is that the cool red light that bounds the DVD tray, died. Have to talk to the dealer about that. Also found out that you can use the numeric keys on the remote to type titles, the same way as SMS on your cellular... Doesn't find anything in the manual about it, but it works! BTW: I urchased another Macrovision item that works flawless: http://www.dimax.com.ua/English/dvd_recorder.htm It's a RCA box, and it requires an external power. But it's nice and it works too!

neukrisz from Other reported December 10, 2003:
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?	N/A	10 of 10
DVD-RAM?
Comments:
Absulety correct!

xaver from Other reported December 03, 2003:
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?	N/A	2 of 10
DVD-RAM?
Comments:
to replace old VCR is very good, but DVD recorders dont only replace VCRs.

Dennis from Other reported December 02, 2003:
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?	N/A	9 of 10
DVD-RAM?
Comments:
I recently bought this recorder to replace my 14 year old Philips VCR. Had some problems getting the Guide+ system (a built-in TV-guide for one-click timer recordings) to work. I figured that out so now I'm really satisfied with it. Recordings are great, you can easily edit them on the PC. Also plays SVCD's by the way.

19 comments, Showing 1 to 19 comments

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OEM
Original Equipment Manufacturer.

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The manufacturer of the main chipset the DVD writer/recorder is based on.

Write support / Read support
DVD-R = Works
~~DVD-R~~ = Is not supported
DVD-R? = Not tested

Connection
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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