Philips DVP620VR

Author's product rating:   

Sound Level	Excellent
Instructions	Quite Helpful / Understandable
Value for Money	Excellent

Advantages:	Cheap, convenient to have an integrated unit
Disadvantages:	Instructions / setup, VCR image quality

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

This product is a combined DVD player and VHS video recorder. I discovered this product when I was originally shopping for seperate DVD and VHS products. I was surprised by its low price of £80, which even included SCART, RF and audio cables in the box, which many manufacturers do not include.

When I got it home, I soon realised there are many other advantages of a combined unit. It has meant much less cabling behind the TV, one less remote control, one less mains socket used, and ultimately one less gadget to learn how to use.

As well as the two "halves" working independently, it also has a dubbing function to make copies of DVD recordings onto VHS tapes, though I presume it would not work with copy-protected DVDs.

The DVD part has pretty much all the normal features one would expect in a DVD player of today. Sound output is a choice of Dolby Digital, DTS or downmixed to a normal analogue stereo pair. Unfortunately it does lack a surround sound analogue output, so if you want to have surround sound, you will need an amplifier that can decode Dolby Digital and/or DTS. The picture is output via either a conventional SCART connector or S-video connector. There is a second SCART socket if you wish to connect something else to record into, such as a digital TV receiver, sattelite system or similar. However, if you already have lots of equipment connected to your TV, this possibly could be a bit restrictive, though not as bad as having to connect a standard VCR and DVD player to each other.

The VHS side of things also has all the features one would expect - NICAM stereo sound, Videoplus+ (which allows you to program recordings more easily using the codes given in TV listings magazines.) It also has Programme Delivery Control (PDC), which is a system that will delay the start of a recording if a previous program has overrun. This is very useful if you are recording something that is on after a football match, and the football goes into a lot of overtime.

The VHS picture quality is not the best I have ever seen, though it is by no means poor. The machine does not support the use of S-VHS tapes, so home recordings are not of the best possible quality. That said, I doubt you'd find any S-VHS equipment for £80, let alone with a DVD player as well.

Where this machine unfortunately does let itself down is the setup and instructions. The handbook, whilst it is comprehensive in content, is rather messily presented and not written to be very clear to an inexperienced user. It did however come with a big fold-out wiring diagram to show what cables go where, so at least the physical installation is reasonably clear. The on-screen setup is not brilliant either - the automatic tuning does have a tendency to detect channels more than once, if you live in an area with more than one transmitter in reach, and requires the user to go through and decide which of the possibilities gives the best reception and remove the rest.

Once it is installed, general day-to-day use is very straightforward.

In summary, this is a convenient, good value device, but perhaps not one for the enthusiast.