Philips DVDR75 Progressive-Scan DVD Player/Recorder
Not ready for primetime.
Bright point: VIVID, almost 1-1 transfer from VHS (S-VHS in my case) to video.  I haven't used it for recording live TV.<br />Bad points: Idiotic/stupid/febrile/infantile/incompetent/moronic user interface design.  Who designed this thing?<br />- Front panel controls don't work until you set the date/time.  Like, oh, the EJECT button.  They worked around this with an in-box insert.<br />- There is no eject button on the remote.  Ah, but if you hold down the STOP button, it'll double as eject.  Got that from the manual.<br />- Too-smart signal processing.  Stops recording if it perceives static.  Just hangs.  Forever...  In fact, all sorts of problems if it doesn't detect a live feed (try setting it up for simple recording from a line input device).<br />- Always defaults to a system-management, not video-management mode.   Unlike every VCR in existence, which is what this should behave like.<br />- Can't go to the line input mode to review inbound input if there isn't a DVD blank in the machine.  Lots of things don't work if there isn't a DVD in the machine.  Modal madness.<br />- Line input is not an option on the remote or front panel.  Instead, you can only select it by down-channelling under channel 1.<br />- No clear way to finish a DVD without having a blank track hanging off the table of contents.<br />- Manual doesn't quite match the final firmware.<br />Overall: this is a \\"Rev 0\\" machine, beta, pre-release.  Not ready for mass consumption.  All of the problems are user interface, not performance.