Philips DVDR985 Progressive-Scan DVD Recorder and Player
Poor documentation - Unstable operation
We own a small home based video production business and thought that this DVD recorder would be an excellent addition for providing DVD's to customers that requested them.  However, it fails during recording about 1 of 3 dvd's and unless you are watching the screen at the time, you will not know it until the finished product is watched and a screen freezes or jumps ahead about 3-4 minutes into the program.<BR>There is absolutely no mention what-so-ever of these error messages in the book so there is no chance of trying to correct it.  We have tried 5 differant manufacturers of DVD blanks both +RW and +R and it doesn't make any differance.  As I said, unless you are staring at the display at the time the error occurs, there is no indication that it happened, so we have sent out batches of 40 and 50 dvd's only to get 25-30 returned from our \\"un-happy\\" customers.  It is unrealistic to stare at the machine while recording 50 copies so I'd call that a problem.<BR>There is also an odd feature that allows you to somehow change the configuration of a recorded DVD to be compatible with certain players but there is no explaination as to what is happening to the DVD when you perform this \\"magic\\" step so one cannot determine a useful way to implement the option.<BR>When it worked, it was very easy to use.  But it is way too un-reliable and un-documented for any serious user.<BR>Based on others comments, this is a common problem with the unit.  (if anybody wants a good deal)