Philips DVDR 7300H > Reviews > Matthew Fuller

Author's product rating:   

Picture Playback	Excellent
Sound Level	Excellent
Ease of Use	Difficult
Range of Features	Above Average
Value for Money	Poor

Advantages:	Guide +  (when it works), big hard drive, HD upscaling
Disadvantages:	poor DVD burning, slow interface, regulary locks up and recordings fail

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

Bought this 22 months ago. Had problems consistently since.

As a DVD player, just like any other, with good quality image, and excellent upscaling feature for regular DVD's to HD TVs.

Recordings are made to buffer then transferred to hard disk when unit is set to standby. Huge 6hour buffer, and 250Gb hard drive gives approx. 100hrs at standard DVD quality (half that for HD recordings). Can often fail to transfer (i.e. save) recordings or saves without audio.

Recordings are editable on hard drive. Can divide recordings (to delete unwanted beginning or end) and Hide/Show markers (to edit out advert breaks). User interface is very slow, limited, unfriendly, regularly locks up and can only be restored by switching power off at mains and waiting 60secs. Occurs at least twice a week.

Edited or unedited recordings can then be copied to DVD, and discs must be finalised (closed) to be used on other players. Most recorded discs don't work well on other players (yes, they are finalised discs), and dual layer discs never have worked successfully.

Guide+ feature is brilliant as is the timer (works like Sky+). The iLink is used to change Sky/Cable set-top channel. Note, however, this usually fails for timer recordings, so you still have to set your set-top box to be sure. Unit has recently been suffering with complete loss of guide info and timer setups on increasingly regular basis.

Philips were pretty good at sorting problems during warranty period, but now simply suggest to me that unit is beyond repair and better to buy new one. Perhaps it is better NOT to buy Philips in future!