Philips DVDR75 Progressive-Scan DVD Player/Recorder
DVD+RW Lovin'
Bought this June 4th, 2003<br />Earlier that day I also had purchased the Panasonic DMRE-50s. The Panasonic DVD-R / DvdRam unit is back at Circuit City.<br />I'm using the DVDR 75 as we speak.<br />There are a few things to like and some maybe not so.<br />1st of all, I love the format DVD+RW. The unnecessary task of finalizing the disk sells me. My first attempt was a few SpongeBob episodes. it went like this.<br />Inserted Philips DVD+RW disk into drive<br />Selected appropriate inputs and cable channel<br />Pressed Record<br />Pressed Stop<br />Split a few titles into separate episodes (very easy to do)<br />Edited the names<br />Assigned each title a custom image thumbnail (from a frame in the show) (Very easy to do)<br />clicked eject<br />took the disk to my daughters room and inserted disk in old DVD player<br />and prayed ..........<br />I was amazed. It took less than 20 seconds for the title screen (think DVD MENU) to show up.<br />All my little editing and naming and picture thumbnailing all perfectly intact!<br />One button got a selected title playing (daughter chose it from the picture)<br />There was no significant lapse for title to begin playing, NICE!<br />No formatting, No finalizing, No disappointed daughter, NO KIDDING<br />But, I did find a few disappointing features here:<br />There are no real helpful buttoms on the unit itself (Menu, Rec Mode,etc...)<br />So, if you lose the remote you'll need a new one<br />Component input was inviting, but it will not accept Progressive Scan?<br />So, my HDTV Cable Box is now a &quot;Watch 1080i, Record 480i tuner&quot;  - 1 star<br />I have used optical audio out for years, but welcomed the Coax Digital Out as it allowed me to get the recorder away from my receiver.<br />I Would've been 99% satisfied if this unit would record Progressive scan and if there were a few more facia buttons, but for the price I paid - it's well worth it.<br />Honorary mention goes to the iLink (FireWire) front input<br />All things being equal, I like this far better than Panasonics DVD-R units. Despite the Panasonics having a few more unit placed features, it doesn't allow recording to a DVD-RW format besides RAM, and RAM to me is useless because I can't play it back on anything but the Panasonic units that record RAM.<br />DVD+RW is clearly the more user-friendly format and the Philips DVDR 75 handles it quite well<br />4.5 starsn Panasonics DVD-R units. Despite the Panasonics having a few more unit placed features, it doesn't allow recording to a DVD-RW format besides RAM, and RAM to me is useless because I can't play it back on anything but the Panasonic units that record RAM.<br />DVD+RW is clearly the more user-friendly format and the Philips DVDR 75 handles it quite well<br />4.5 stars