Philips HDRW720 DVD Recorder with 120 GB Hard Drive
Late Night Movie: 'Philips DVR meets the skid loader'
Tell your enemies to buy one! [These comments ARE for, what is currently the newest firmware-V3.2.] <br />Powerful unit, but loaded with bugs. Way too frustrating. DO NOT BLAME YOURSELF, IT IS NOT THE 'LEARNING CURVE'.  Here are behaviors not to blame yourself, or the cat, or the kids for - it is the unit.   <br />\\"You might own a HDRW 720 if...\\" <br /> <br />10) The same button on the remote does different things in different modes. What is the 'delete' button in HDD mode (though titled 'clear'!) acts as 'clear' in disk mode. And give up on the jump button working in disk play mode. It doesnt. <br /> <br />9) If you think most of the editing features should be on and working in modes other than edit. Like why can't I chapter mark a favorite scene while I watch it? I must wait for the recordong to complete, then 'flush the buffer', then go in to 'edit mode' and find the spot that I no longer know where it is, which is why I wanted to mark it an hour ago. <br /> <br />8) I have read reviews that state the remote is 'fairly logical'. The remote is, at best, discribed as 'tolerable'. The placement of the 'select' button is just wrong. The blue button in TV listings mode will change the frequeny of your recording the selected show. When viewing your programs set to record, the blue button deletes that recoding request. So even if you learn the remote, there is no learning the menus. <br /> <br />7) When you return to a DVD to burn a second set of files and your earlier files lose their index pics. <br /> <br />6) When you need to refer to the manual to find a menu you were in 2 days ago... (Menus are scattered about like an easter egg hunt.) You wont lose the manual to this machine unless you are a genius. (And if you are a genius, you will lose the entire machine because it'll drive you crazy and you should be able to afford to replace it.) <br /> <br />5) When you forget about petty complaints like-why cant I set the DVD burning drawer to light up while burning if I shut the clock display off, and just wish the thing would work correctly. <br /> <br />4) When you look in your HDD browser, and a show you thought you told it to record is not in there, or the first 14 min or so are there and nothing else. Or there is an entry with out an index pic and no time instead of your show (that annoyingly stays on the top of the HDD list, if you sort by record date.) <br /> <br />3) When you look in the HDD browser and see that it recorded what you asked, then kept recording until the file was just under 6 hrs before finally shutting off. <br /> <br />2) When the unit finishes a HDD play, then hangs like an operating system from Redmond, WA, not RedHat, VA instead of going back to the HDD menu... You might have a Phillips DVR. Hint: Hit the 'HDD browser' button before the unit finishes totally crashing. <br /> <br />1) When the unit shuts off (crashes), the red tray light blinks, then unit 'whirrs' like its restarting for a second, then shuts off again. This behavior often wipes out various amounts of memory from the TV guide programming. Upcoming show listings will vanish in unpredictable chunks. (This causes ??/?? to show for the record day in programming mode.) Your channel preferences can be deleted. It can reset your HDD privacy lock code. Even wipe out everything except what has been recorded and have you start set-up over like you just took it out of the box. Then I KNOW you bought a Philips DVR! <br /> <br />I speak with authority. My 4th unit currently has ??/?? on one show listing from a crash the other day. All have acted crazy. Some more often than others. My BEST unit went nuts once every 3 weeks. Complaints 5-10 on this list are normal. 1-4 can be deminished at the repair center. I don't recommend this unit. What I recommend is removing its Maxtor DiamondMax 16 ATA133 120 GB HDD, and its unidentified burner that appears to have a IDE interface, and run the remaining bits over with some heavy paving equipment.