Philips DVDR75 Progressive-Scan DVD Player/Recorder
Great recorder - controls and remote needs help
I have a 10 year old wedding video that deteriorating fast and a drawer full of old VHS-C tapes of my kids....what to do?<br />Go buy a DVD recorder! I said.  I looked into buying a DVD burner, analog video capture card / device, and some good video editing software for my PC...oh yeah, would need a larger hard drive, etc. etc....$500 or more...so I did some online research and saw many \\"bang for the buck\\" reviews recommending the Phillips machines....it also helped that Amazon's \\"hidden price\\" was very good.<br />Went home....scanned the mannual...stopped reading it and tried to figure things out for myself like a good male engineer...in 10 minutes, I was up and running... it took me more time to move cables and components that it did to hook up the DVD recorder to my VCR and begin transferring the wedding video....DVD+R in, hit play on the VCR, record on the DVD recorder and an hour and 15 minutes later, voila! My wedding video is now on a medium that will probably outlast me!<br />Only complaint...maybe not fair...is remote control and online menu during DVD viewing....a lot of symbols that are not so intuitive...especially when compared to your basic $100 DVD player...it takes some getting used to for things like zoom, camera angles, fast forward and slo-mo.....so my old DVD player will still see some use in another room...<br />Also, I wish Phillips made a black colored unit to go w/ the rest of my home components....the chrome-like plastic on the buttons and the DVD slot are a bit cheesy.<br />Finally, did have some second thoughts..mabye I should have looked more at the Pansonic units...a bit cheaper...a few more features...but concerns about lack of portability of DVD-RAM (for now)...Phillips doing a nice job marketing and advertising lately, so maybe I was just brainwashed.<br />Anyways, I just realized that in 3 months, many manufacturers will offer cheaper models with more features anyways...my first 4-head VHS-S VCR was over $400...now, they cost $59.<br/>So best just to enjoy my old tapes on DVD and my new replacement for recording shows off cable TV...and buy another recorder in a year or two the standards settle down and the cost $200 or lesss.