Page 1 of Philips DVDR610

Having just posted this in the bargain buckets, anyone on the forum got one.

For £99.99 I thought it was a steal and presumably the region hack on the One for All will work. Anyone know if this is true.

Have not seen any reviews but the specs look good in the Argos catalogue. Will update members on my progress with the recorder.

The recorder seems easy to set up - however when I am on analogue, the screen display shows MONO. On my Nicam video when I had it, the sound was in stereo.

My digital box via scart is in stereo.

Can anyone think of a reason for this.

The other funny thing is, probably due to scart/follow tv set up, when I switch on my tv, the recorder decides to power up. It is a Nicam Sanyo so unrelated. Rather annoying

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I did my first recording and the picture was very good indeed on M3 - 3hours. The only snag I had was that the machine seemed to take an eternity to find all the channels, and when I tried to do a direct record with the handset, I kept getting an error message. I was going to blame the Philips DVD+RW. After a couple of twiddles with the set-up, it worked fine. Only problem was missing the start of the Office Christmas double header.

Write-protected the chapters simply enough.

This item was edited on Thursday, 9th September 2004, 03:16

Mine also usually shows Mono on analogue off-air. Occasionally it shows Ni-Stereo, and can be made to show it by removing then re-inserting the arial lead. However, stereo sound is always heard from the tuner and recorded to DVDs.

Also on mine the power button does nothing and the factory reset doesn`t work. I telephoned Philips and they say I should take it back for repair/replacement. Does anyone have a DVDR610 on which the power button works?

And, recordings made by my DVDR610 playback quiet on WinDVD 4, but not on another Philips DVD player. Anyone else noticed this or found a cure?

And, pre-recorded DVDs (e.g.Lion King) play back quiet on the DVDR610. Philips say this is normal. It is done to protect your TV!

Otherwise the picture and sound quality is indistingishable from broadcast.

My email to Philips has got a reply - there is a fix on the Philips website (10MB file roughly) which they say should fix the problem. Will advise later if the upgrade is relevant but Philips are confident. This should mean it shows as Nicam.

I may see if the other issues are remedied:

1) Freeview box, when timer comes on before I set the Recorder timer disables it (Thomson box). Anyway, a lesson learnt.

2) Follow TV - when I switch the TV on, the recorder comes on (Sanyo TV). It switches itself off so very annoying. I note the TV on the little disply on the recorder disappears.

The Adobe file tells you how to upgrade but bery little about what it does. Still, I am hoping it improves it (as they say).

Thanks for your post. Please do say if the upgrade fixes any funnies. As my unit is otherwise excellent, I`d rather not have to return it.
If it`s no trouble could you also post the link to the Philips website.

Tried the upgrade. Only obvious difference is that the channel banner has been crudely carved up in order to hide the audio status - i.e. it still does not show NICAM correctly.

I notice that my fan operates erratically. It often fails to start up during a timed recording, causing a build-up of heat. Sometimes it remains on when the unit is in standby. Once this occurs it remains either on or off until the disk tray is opened - this seems to reset it, but switching on or off does not.

Also noticed that the widescreen switching gets immediately confused by using the TV/DVD external source switching - with all modes becoming reversed both from the anlogue tuner and from external sources.

Anybody else experiencing similar problems. Its hard to assess whether these are isolated faults or whether they arise from poor firmware. Neither problems were affected by the upgrade.

Thanks for your investigation. That`ll save me the 1hr download.

It sounds like another request to Philips is required to get the Nicam indicator fixed.

The fan on my unit is variable speed and well behaved. It doesn`t run if the unit is cold, it typically runs slow in tuner mode, and fast in record mode. It always stops when the drawer is opened. I had a laptop with a fan which behaved like yours. Eventually (after 3 months) the laptop stopped working. It was replaced by an upgrade from the makers.

My TV is 4x3 and I haven`t noticed the widescreen switching issue. But as the TV is switchable to shortscreen (letterbox) I will experiment.

Does the power/standby button work on yours?
Have you tried a factory reset (Page 59)?

Hopefully others will pick up this thread and input their findings.

I`ve had my 610 for a week and have some foibles with this unit:

To Twig_insect, my power button on the front of the recorder works fine
I also have the same Nicam displaying as mono problem
The fan comes on intermittently whether the unit is on or off
The recorder took about 15-20 minutes to find all analog channels on setup
The unit records for 30 minutes from the record button on the remote but records to the end of the disc when record button on front of unit is pressed
The unit powers on randomly from standby
Have not noticed the widescreen switching prob yet.

I have DVD recorders from all the major manufacturers covering all the DVD recording formats and can safely say that Philips is far and away the worst. None have exhibited any such problems. It appears they rush and release "beta" versions of their operating system firmware then post fixes on their website as problems appear and are reported.Then we are presumed to fix the problems ourselves by downloading the fix burning it on a cd then flashing the firmware. What other Major Electronics company does this on a regular basis?

Does anyone know of a Multiregion handset hack for this unit? (such as from a Pronto 940)

This item was edited on Friday, 17th September 2004, 16:31

To fred7, thank you for the post. So, :( , I`ll have to return my unit at some time to get the power button fixed.

In the end I gave up waiting and found the analog channels manually, but this way the clock doesn`t autoset. (I remove power overnight). Sometimes, sometime after connecting power the clock will catch up, and sometimes the date too. But I don`t know why/when it happens.

On Page 37 it mentions the 30min record. I`ll check what mine does.

My units powers on when the TV is switched on, then shuts off. I don`t think it does it again (a little TV icon disappears).

The random power on has occurred when I press buttons on the Sanyo TV remote (I think when I did page up once - really annoyed by this as I had set the machine to record and my Thomson freeview tuner had set to record and was on - last time this happened I could not use the Philips timer, but fortunately switched the Philips off and the timer came back on.

I have downloaded the upgrade and will update the firmware - I have switched my Thomson box to Echostar for Freeview now. When the recorder is on, it affects teletext (probably too close to the TV?). It records fine in widescreen from freeview with 1 problem only being a white pencil thin line at the bottom of the screen on the left.

I had another recorder shut down - it was stuck on CAM1 and whatever I did (power off, or any remote control key) it would not work. Records fine though when it does work (M4 picture as clear as M3 - no great losses). I shall keep tracking the pages and work out whether Sainsburys get a new batch and swap if necessary.

Upgraded now (sunday) and only difference so far is no audio output appears on audio signal. Hiding whether nicam or not. The machine locked up before a download when I watched som Shrek. The remote and every button was frozen out so I had to unplug.

I shall see if it is a bit more reliable for freezes etc..

To any new buyers - if your machine displays audo status on bbc1 etc it is the old software version. Funny thing was the version of software on the machine before the upgrade read 20040804 - doesn`t time fly!

This item was edited on Sunday, 19th September 2004, 21:02