- 160GB Hard Drive
- Upconverting DVD player
- DVD recorder
- Single built-in ATSC Digital Tuner
Buy the Philips DVDR3576H/37 here
My experience:
I bought the Philips DVDR3576H/37 Harddisk/DVD Recorder from Walmart. It looks nice. I record everything in standard mode with reasonable picture quality and good sound. It recorded a months worth of stuff without running out of space. After comparing the picture to my VCR their is no contest. The Philips blows it away. The biggest miss I have with it is the lack of a program guide. The recording scheduler works like my VCR did. If you know the channel and time it's great. If you don't know, you will have to find out the program time and channel. I use this in the bedroom and it does make some noise but not objectionable. With the lights out, you will notice a horrific bright blue light when the hard drive is active. It's so bright, I think my neighbors can see the blinding blue light. What were they thinking? Anyway, a simple cure - a small piece of black tape over the light and no more annoyance. Recording a single recording to a DVD is easy. Just pick the icon and tell it to record to disc. It records in a reasonable time. Recording multiple sessions is a bit different. Once you figure out how it works, the recording process takes forever. Apparently it has to re-encode the video to make it fit the target DVD disc. The transcoding is not nearly as fast as say Nero or other transcoding software. I haven't had the need to do this that often so it's not a deal breaker for me. I used it a few times to copy some old VCR recordings through the S-video port. The result was not steller picture quality, but not really worse than the original either. Playing DVDs works very well. I have the output set to 720P through an HDMI cable to a 720P LCD TV. The upscaler is as good as the TV's scaler. It is still setup this way. I have had no issues with the HDMI connection. The player has played every disk I have thrown at it. I currently have a subscription to blockbuster.com and it has played them all. I had one disk I was going to watch on a Sony DVP-NS75H in the family room but the Sony wouldn't play the disk. It just locked up the player. I put the DVD in the Philips and to my suprise it played it perfectly. The Philips player for most DVDs skips over the previews and menus and starts playing the movie right away - I like that. This unit also performs timeshifting or pauses live TV as some would call it. You can be watching a show and simply press pause or rewind to go back in time. Similiar to a TIVO. You can also be recording to the hard drive while watching a DVD or previosly recorded show. It would be nice to be able to record one channel and watch another but it has only a single ATSC tuner. While it does not record in high definition, this is actually a benefit. A much smaller hard drive can record lots of video. So far it has had no issues.
Philips DVDR3576H/37 Hard Disk/DVD Recorder Pros:
- Much better recording quality than a VCR
- Ability to export recordings to a DVD
- Built in ATSC tuner works well
- DVD player works well
- Never missed a recorded schedule yet
- Timeshifting/Pause live TV feature works great
- Able to view a DVD while recording to hard drive
- Does not record in High Definition - Con or Pro?
- Has annoying bright blue light that comes on when hard drive in use
- Does make a little hard drive/dvd noise
- Very slow DVD recording if it has to recode to fit the disc
- Does not have a built in TV Guide/EPG
- Only has single ATSC tuner
Philips DVDR3576H/37 Harddisk/DVD Recorder Spot Rating:
This hard drive recorder has not missed a lick. Although the recording quality isn't as good as the original source. It works great and is very convenient. Getting rid of the old VCR tapes is a dream come true.
Buy the Philips DVDR3576H/37 here