Philips DVDR985 Progressive-Scan DVD Recorder and Player
Booo! Hisssss!
Unless you have a wad of cash lying around that you don't need, don't waste your money on what I consider a piece of junk! Others in these reviews have had the exact same problems that I have had, so I know it is not just me. I bought my unit a year ago, and unless they have GREATLY improved the machine, I would not pay five dollars for this unit. Allow me to elucidate...<br />The machine worked fine for about a month or two after I got it hooked up. I was a happy camper. Then the problems began. It started with the DVD+Rs. Some of this may be a bit hard to believe, but it is all true. I started getting numerous disc errors when I would try to record, or in a lot of cases even play, a DVD. I could not get the unit to play store bought DVDs. As far as the disc errors go, here is the short list - \\"Disc Contains Unknown Data\\", \\"Disc Warning\\", \\"Disc Error\\" - that is if it would read the discs at all! And get this - I would get \\"Disc Contains Unknown Data\\" errors on BLANK DISCS!!!! So I call Philips technical support. What a joke! I am surprised these people can find the floor when they get out of bed in the morning! At a point when I could have returned the unit, Technical Support assured me that a firmware upgrade would fix my problems, and they sent me an upgrade disc. When I got the disc and put it in the recorder to do the update, THE UNIT COULD NOT EVEN READ THE DISC!!!! Finally I got it to load, but it did not help at all. At this point, I was beyond the point of exchanging it, so once again I was on the phone with tech support. This went on for months, with them offering various ineffective solutions. Finally they say \\"Well, it must be a defective unit!\\" Duh! I sent it in for repair (which is one good thing I can say, the repair was made quickly!) and when I got it back it worked fine - for about a month again. Then, guess what? Same problems, only now the DVD+RW discs were being corrupted as well! Now, here I sit, packing the unit once again to send in for repair. I wrote a scathing letter to Philips Customer Service, asking that they refund at least part of my money. Their response? Call our DVD+R Technical Support Experts! I did, and the only advice that these \\"experts\\" could give me was to send it in for repair again. They did offer to reimburse me for the hundreds of corrupted discs I have stacked all around, but only if I had the receipts! (Acutally, they did not offer until AFTER I had demanded that they do!)<BR>So, the warranty is about to expire, and I am going to have to spend another hundred dollars to extend the warranty on the unit, because goodness knows I am gonna need it! If I am lucky, I get maybe two good discs out of every five attempts. It ranges from 0/5 to 2/5.<BR>...If you are considering purchasing one, DO NOT DO IT!!!!<br />...