Philips DVDR70 Multi Region Capable DVD Recorder

In truth, at anything more than 2.5 hours per DVD, quality starts to suffer perceptibly. Simple recordings from the TV are OK at 4 hours per DVD if a recording is planned to be junked immediately after veiwing. The 6 hour mode is like LP (long play) on a VCR - use only if you really must.

Copying from other DVDs or VCRs is straightforward once the on-screen menus have been mastered and provided that recordings are kept to 2 or 2.5 hours per DVD. The downside is that you rapidly realise how poor VCR quality is by comparison to DVDs!

The recorder is reasonably slim, though significantly larger than most VCRs or DVD players. The same doesn't go for the instruction manual which is a monster and not really thought through from a consumer's viewpoint. All the commands are there, but not in a particularly easily-followed manner. The writers really should have included a basic "how DVD recordings compare to VCR ones" to clarify the way tracks and chapters are used and how to perform simple tasks such as recording over unused parts of a recording. The latter is much too complex to work out either intuitively or from the manual. Once figured out, it's easy, but the omission of a 'how to' section, written from a naive user's viewpoint is symptomatic of the manual.

Similarly, the recorder has no fast forward or rewind buttons, instead relying on fixed 4x/8x and 32x speeds accessed by keeping the forward/back chapter buttons pressed. This is a real pain when trying to reach a particular point in a recording.

However, despite these few negatives, this remains a superb machine and the price is an absolute steal. Give yourself some time to cope with the manual and ergonomics and you'll never, ever want to use a VCR again.

Strongly recommended.

Recording at 6hr level from tv is also quite good, but to me it is the quality and durabilty of the DVDR system, as a whole, that will preserve my VHS video collection for posterity!

Great value for money, great bit of kit.

Go and buy, you won't be disappointed.

Steup: Nothing too complicated - a scart cable was connection from the sky box to the DVD-R's AUX2 input and then the TV's AUX input was connected to the DVD-R's main scart socket. The manual was not very helpful at this stage telling me that I had to connect UHF ariel leads which, it turns out, were completly un-nessisary (at least in my setup)

Usage: Everything works fine, the On Screen Dispay is great and the menu is easy to pick up and use - data regarding the DVD placed in the drive is displayed showing the time remaining on the disc and giving you options for renaming, deletion or protection of your recordings. The "Scene Cut" tool works well and allows you to "chapter" your recordings, great for splitting up programs that you recorded in one sweep or killing advert breaks.

There are various different recording modes, but I have found the 2x mode the most viable, this gives you 2:30 hours recording time per DVD - the lower settings, although useful, provide "sub-dvd" quality recordings - which, imho, kinda defeats the whole point of owning a DVD-R :)

The timer functions work great and programming the my skybox for automatic channel changing was nice and painless as well.

DVD-RW's are the most versitile format for this machine allowing you to record again and again - much like with a VHS videotape, except the quality never drops.

My only reservations are that the manul is so incredibly poor, you don't get a SCART cable with the machine (so make sure you buy an extra one if you don't have a spare lying around) and that you can't take advantage of Panasonic's "Time-Slip" technology which allows you to record and playback from a DVD-RAM at the same time.

These aside tho, I would highly reccomend this product, and yes, the VCR is in the bin.